"And what did you answer?"
"Nothing so far," he replied casually, as though he had never thought of taking the matter seriously. "Of course I wanted first to talk it over with you."
"Well, what do you think?" she asked imperturbably.
"I ... shall refuse of course. I'll wire that I ... at any rate, can't come yet awhile." And he seriously explained to her that nothing would be lost by a postponement, that he would at any rate be welcomed as a special visitor, and that this pressing request was only due to an accident that one had no right to expect.
She let him go on speaking for a while, then she said: "There you go being casual again. I think you should have made a special point of answering at once and...."
"Well, and...."
"Perhaps have even taken the train there straight away this morning."
"Instead of coming out to see you—eh?" he jested.
She remained serious. "Why not?" she said, and noticing him jerk his head up in surprise, "I'm getting on very well, thank heaven, George. And even if I were a bit worse you couldn't do any good, so...."
"Yes, my child," he interrupted, "it seems to me you don't appreciate what it really means! Going there, of course, is a fairly simple matter—but—staying there! Staying there at least till Easter! The season lasts till then."
"Well, George, I think it quite right that you haven't gone away without first saying goodbye to me. But look here, you've got to go anyway, haven't you? Even though we didn't actually speak about it during the last weeks we were both quite well aware of it. For whether you go away in a month's time or the day after to-morrow—or to-day...."
George now began to argue seriously. It was not at all the same thing whether he went away in a month's time or to-day. One could manage to get used to certain thoughts in the course of a month, and besides, talk over everything properly—with regard to the future.
"What is there so much to talk over?" she replied in a tired voice. "Why, in a month's time you'll be.... You'll have as little chance of taking me with you as you have to-day. I even think that there won't be any point in our talking seriously about anything until after your return. A great deal will be bound to be cleared up by then.... At any rate, with regard to your prospects...." She looked out of the window into the garden.
George showed mild indignation at her matter-of-fact coolness, which never deserted her, even at a moment like that. "Yes, indeed," he said, "when one considers—what it means for you to stay here, and me...."
She looked at him. "I know what it means," she said.
Instinctively he avoided her look, took her hands and kissed them. He felt inwardly harrowed. When he looked up again he saw her eyes resting on him quite maternally, and she spoke to him like a mother. She explained to him that it wasjustbecause of the future—and there swept around that word a gentle suggestion of actual hope—that he should not miss an opportunity like that. In two or three weeks he could come back from Detmold to Vienna for a few days, for the people there would certainly appreciate that he must put his affairs over here in order. But above all it was necessary to give them a proof of his seriousness. And if he set any store by her advice there was only one thing to do: take the train that very evening. He need have no anxiety about her. She felt that she was quite out of danger. She felt that quite unmistakably. Of course he would hear from her every day, twice a day if he liked, morning and evening.
He did not yield at once, coming back again to the point that the unexpectedness of this separation would occasion a relapse. She answered that she would much prefer a quick separation like this to the prospect of another four weeks spent in anxiety, emotion and the fear of losing him. And the essential point remained that it was not a question of more than half the year, so they had half the year for themselves, and if everything went all right there would not be many periods of separation for the—the future.
He now began again: "And what will you do in this half-year, while I'm away? It is really...."
She interrupted him. "For the time being it will go on just as it has been going on for years; but I have been thinking this morning about a lot of things."
"The school for singing?"
"That, too. Although of course that is neither so easy nor so simple. And besides," she added, with her arch expression, "it would be a pity if one had to shut it up again too soon. But we'll talk about all that later on. You go now and telegraph."
"Yes, but what!" he exclaimed in such desperation that she could not help laughing.
Then she said: "Quite simple, 'Shall have the honour to present myself at your office to-morrow noon. Yours very obediently or faithfully ... or very proudly....'"
He looked at her. Then he kissed her hand and said: "You're certainly the cleverer of us two."
His tone seemed to hint "the cooler too." But a gentle, tender and somewhat mocking look from her turned away theinnuendo.
"Well, I'll be back again in ten minutes." He left her with a cheerful face, went into the next room and shut the door. Opposite, in that other room, it now occurred to him again forcibly—his dead child lay in its coffin.... For the necessary steps, to use Doctor Stauber's expression of yesterday, were bound to have been already taken. He felt a paroxysm of grievous yearning.
Frau Golowski came out of the hall. She came up to him and spoke with admiration of Anna's resignation and calmness.
George listened somewhat absent-mindedly. His looks kept always glancing through the doorway and at last he said gently: "I should like to see it once more."
She looked at him, at first slightly shocked and then sympathetically.
"Nailed down already?" he asked anxiously.
"Sent away already," replied Frau Golowski slowly.
"Sent away!" His face became convulsed with such agony that the old woman laid her hands on his arm as though to calm him.
"I went to notify it quite early," she said, "and then the other matter took place very quickly. They took it away an hour ago to the mortuary."
"To the mortuary ..." George shuddered. He was silent for a long time as though unnerved from having just learned a terrible and completely unexpected piece of news. When he recovered himself again he still felt Frau Golowski's friendly hand upon his arm and saw her kind eyes with their tired lines resting on his face. "So it's all finished," he said, with an indignant look upwards, as though his last hope had been maliciously stolen from him. He then shook hands with Frau Golowski. "And you've undertaken all this, dear lady.... I really don't know ... how I can ever...."
A gesture from the old woman deprecated any further thanks.
George left the house, threw a contemptuous glance at the little blue angel, which seemed to look anxiously down at the faded flower-beds, and went into the street. On his way to the post-office he worried over the wording of the telegram that was to announce his arrival at the place of his new profession and his new prospects.
Old Doctor Stauber and his son sat over their coffee. The old man held a paper in his hand and seemed to be trying to find something. "The hearing of the case," he said, "is not yet fixed."
"Really!" replied Berthold, "Leo Golowski thinks that it will take place in the middle of November, that is to say in about three weeks. Therese, you know, visited her brother a few days ago in prison. They say he is perfectly calm and in quite good spirits."
"Well, who knows? perhaps he will be acquitted," said the old man.
"That's highly improbable, father. He ought to be glad, on the other hand, that he isn't being prosecuted for ordinary murder. An attempt was certainly made to get him prosecuted for it."
"You certainly can't call it a serious attempt, Berthold. You see the Treasury didn't bother about the silly libel to which you are referring."
"But if they had regarded it as a libel," retorted Berthold sharply, "they would have been under an obligation to prosecute the libellers. Beside, it is common knowledge that we are living in a state where no Jew is safe from being convicted to death for ritual murder; so why should the authorities shrink from taking official cognisance of the theory that Jews when they fight duels with pistols with Christians manage—perhaps for religious reasons—to ensure for themselves a criminal advantage? That the Court didn't lack the good-will to take another opportunity of doing a service to the party in power is best seen by the fact that he still remains under arrest pending the trial, in spite of the fact that the high bail was tendered."
"I don't believe the story about the bail," said the old doctor. "Where's Leo Golowski to get fifty thousand gulden from?"
"It wasn't fifty thousand, father, but a hundred thousand, and so far Leo Golowski knows nothing about it. I can tell you in confidence, father, that Salomon Ehrenberg put up the money."
"Indeed! Well, I'll tell you something in confidence too, Berthold."
"Well?"
"It's possible that it won't go to trial at all. Golowski's advocate has presented a petition to quash the proceedings."
Berthold burst out laughing. "On those grounds! And do you think, father, that that can have the slightest prospect of success? Yes, if Leo had fallen and the First-Lieutenant had survived ... then perhaps."
The old man shook his head impatiently. "You must always make opposition speeches, my boy, at any price."
"Forgive me, father," said Berthold, twitching his brows. "Every one hasn't got the enviable gift of being able to ignore certain tendencies in public life when they don't concern him personally."
"Is that what I am in the habit of doing, then?" retorted the old man vehemently, and the half-shut eyes beneath the high forehead opened almost bitterly. "But it is you, Berthold, much more than I, who refuse to look where you don't want to see. I think you're beginning to brood over your ideas. You're getting morbid. I had hoped that a stay in another city, in another country, would cure you of certain petty narrow ideas, but they have grown worse instead. I notice it. I can neither understand nor approve any one starting fighting like Leo Golowski did. But to go on standing with your clenched fist in your pocket, so to speak—what's the point of it? Pull yourself together, man. Character and industry always pull through in the end. What's the worst that can happen to you? That you get your professorship a few years later than any one else. I don't think it is so great a misfortune. They won't be able to ignore your work if it is worth anything...."
"It is not only a question of myself," objected Berthold.
"But it is mostly a matter of second-class interests of that kind. And to come back to our previous topic, it is really very questionable whether if it had been the First-Lieutenant who had shot down Leo Golowski and Ehrenberg, or Ehrenmann[1]for that matter, would have turned up with a hundred thousand gulden for him. Yes, to be sure, and now you are quite at liberty to take me for an Anti-Semite too, if it amuses you, although I am driving straight into the Rembrandtstrasse to see old Golowski. Well, good-bye, try and come to reason at last." He held out his hand to his son. The latter took it without changing countenance. The old man turned to go. At the door he said: "I suppose we shall see each other this evening at the Medical Society?"
Berthold shook his head. "No, father, I am spending this evening in a less edifying place—the 'Silberne Weintraube,' where there is a meeting of the Social Political Union."
"Which you can't miss?"
"Impossible."
"Well, I wish you would tell me straight out. Are you going to stand for the Landtag?"
"I ... am going to stand."
"Indeed! You think you're capable now of being able to face the ... unpleasantness which you ran away from last year?"
Berthold looked through the window at the autumn rain. "You know, father," he replied, twitching his brows, "that I wasn't in the right frame of mind then. I now feel strong and armed, in spite of your previous remarks, which have really touched the actual point. And above all I know precisely what I want."
The old man shrugged his shoulders. "I can't understand how any one can give up a definite work ... and you will certainly have to give it up, for a man can't serve two masters ... to think of dropping something definite to ... to make speeches to people whose profession, so to speak, it is to have preconceived opinions—to fight for opinions which are usually not even believed in by the man who puts you forward to represent them."
Berthold shook his head. "I assure you, father, I'm not tempted this time by any oratorical or dialectical ambition. This time I have discovered the sphere in which I hope it will be possible for me to do quite as definite work as in the laboratory. I intend, you know, if I do any good at all, to bother about nothing else except questions of public health. Perhaps I can count on your blessing, father, for this kind of political activity."
"On mine ... yes. But how about your own?"
"What do you mean?"
"The blessing to which one might give the name of the inner call."
"You doubt even that," replied Berthold, really hurt.
The servant came in and gave the old doctor a visiting card. He read it. "Tell him I'll be glad to see him in a minute."
The servant went away.
Berthold went on speaking in a state of some excitement. "I feel justified in saying that my training, my knowledge...."
His father interrupted him as he played with the card. "I don't doubt your knowledge or your energy or your industry, but it seems to me that to be able to do any particular good in the sphere of public health you need as well as those excellent qualities another one too, which in my view you only have to a very small extent: kindness, my dear Berthold, love of mankind."
Berthold shook his head vehemently. "I regard the love of humanity which you mean, father, as absolutely superfluous and rather injurious. Pity—and what else can loving people whom one doesn't personally know really be?—necessarily leads to sentimentalism, to weakness. And when one wants to help whole groups of men then, above all, you must be able to be hard at times, hard to individuals—yes, be ready in fact to sacrifice them if the common good demands it. You only need to consider, father, that the most honest and consistent social hygiene would have the direct result of annihilating diseased people, or at any rate excluding them from all enjoyment of life, and I don't deny that I have all kinds of ideas tending in that way which may seem cruel at the first glance. But the future, I think, belongs to ideas. You needn't be afraid, father, that I shall begin straight away to preach the murder of the unhealthy and the superfluous. But theoretically that's certainly what my programme leads to. Do you know, by the way, whom I had a very interesting conversation with the other day on this very subject?"
"What subject do you mean?"
"To put it precisely, a conversation on the right to kill. With Heinrich Bermann the author, the son of the late Deputy."
"But where did you get the opportunity of seeing him then?"
"The other day at a meeting. Therese Golowski brought him along. You know him, too, don't you, father?"
"Yes," replied the old man, "I've known him for quite a long time." And he added: "I met him again this year in the summer at Anna Rosner's."
Berthold's eyebrows again twitched violently. Then he said sarcastically: "I thought it was something like that. Bermann mentioned, you know, that he had seen you some time ago, but he wouldn't remember exactly where. I concluded that it must have been a case of—discretion. I see. So the Herr Baron thought he would introduce his friends into her house."
"My dear Berthold, your tone seems to suggest that you have not got over a certain matter as completely as you previously hinted."
Berthold shrugged his shoulders. "I have never denied that I have an antipathy for Baron Wergenthin. That is why the whole business was so painful to me from the very beginning."
"Is that why?"
"Yes."
"And yet I think, Berthold, that you would regard the matter differently if you were to meet Anna Rosner again some time or other as a widow—even assuming that her late husband was even more antipathetic to you than Baron von Wergenthin."
"That's possible. One can certainly presume that she has been loved—or at any rate respected, not just taken and—chucked away as soon as the spree was over. I'd have found that rather.... Well, I won't put it any more definitely."
The old man shook his head as he looked at his son. "It really seems as though all the advanced views of you young people break down as soon as your passions and vanities come into question."
"So far as certain questions of cleanness or cleanliness are concerned I do not know that I am guilty of any so-called advanced views, father, and I don't think that you would be particularly delighted either if I felt any desire to be the successor of a more or less dead Baron Wergenthin."
"Certainly not, Berthold. For her sake, especially, for you would torture her to death."
"Don't be uneasy," replied Berthold, "Anna's in no peril from my quarter. It's all over."
"That's a good reason. But, happily, there's an even better one. Baron Wergenthin's neither dead nor has he cleared out...."
"It doesn't matter, you know, about the actual word."
"He has, as you know, a position as a conductor in Germany...."
"What a piece of luck! He has really been very fortunate over the whole thing. Not even having to provide for a child."
"You have two faults, Berthold. In the first place you are really an unkind man, and in the second place you never let one finish. I was just on the point of saying that it doesn't seem to be anything like all over between Anna and Baron Wergenthin. Only the day before yesterday she gave me his kind regards."
Berthold shrugged his shoulders as though the matter were finished so far as he was concerned. "How's old Rosner?" he asked.
"He'll pull through all right this time," replied the old man. "Anyway, I hope that you've retained a sufficient sense of detachment to realise that his attacks are not due to his grief about the prodigal daughter, but to a sclerosis of the arteries that is unfortunately fairly far advanced."
"Is Anna giving lessons again?" asked Berthold after some hesitation.
"Yes," replied the old man, "but perhaps not much longer." And he showed his son the visiting card which he was still holding in his hand.
Berthold contracted the corners of his mouth. "Do you think," he asked ironically, "he has come here to celebrate his wedding, father?"
"I shall soon find that out," replied the old man. "At any rate I'm very glad to see him again—for I assure you he's one of the most charming young men I've ever met."
"Extraordinary!" said Berthold. "A quite unique winner of hearts. Even Therese raves about him. And Heinrich Bermann the other day, it was almost funny.... Oh well, a slim handsome blonde young man, a baron, a German, a Christian—what Jew could withstand the magic?... Goodbye, father."
"Berthold!"
"Well, what?" He bit his lips.
"Pull yourself together! Remember what you are."
"I ... remember."
"No, you don't. Otherwise you couldn't forget so often who the others are."
Berthold lifted his head interrogatively.
"You should really go to Rosner's some time. It is not worthy of you to let Anna see your disapproval in so—childish a fashion. Goodbye ... hope you'll have a good time in the 'Silberne Weintraube." He shook hands with his son and then went into his consulting-room. He opened the door of the waiting-room and with a friendly nod of the head invited George von Wergenthin, who was turning over the leaves of an album, to come in.
"I must first apologise to you, Herr Doctor," said George, after he had sat down. "My departure was so sudden.... Unfortunately I had no opportunity of saying goodbye to you, of thanking you personally for your great...."
Doctor Stauber deprecated his thanks. "I am very glad to see you again," he said, "I suppose you are here in Vienna on leave?"
"Of course," replied George. "I've only got three days' leave; they need me there so urgently, you see," he added with a modest smile.
Doctor Stauber sat opposite him in the chair behind his secretary and contemplated him kindly. "You feel very satisfied with your new position, so Anna says."
"Oh yes; of course there are all kinds of difficulties when one plunges into a new kind of life like I did. But taking it all round everything has turned out much easier than I expected."
"So I hear. And that you have already had a very good introduction at Court."
George smiled. "Anna of course imagines that episode to be more magnificent than it really was. I played once at the Hereditary Prince's and a lady member of the theatre sang two songs of mine there; that's all. But what is much more important is that I have a chance of being appointed conductor this very season."
"I thought you were already."
"No, Herr Doctor, not yet officially. I have already conducted a few times as deputy,FreischützandUndine, but for the time being I am only accompanist."
In response to further questions from the doctor he told him some more about his activities at the Detmold Opera. He then got up and said goodbye.
"Perhaps I can give you a lift part of the way in my carriage," said the doctor. "I am driving to the Rembrandtstrasse to the Golowskis'."
"Thanks very much, Herr Doctor, but that's not on my way. Anyway, I intend to visit Frau Golowski in the course of to-morrow. She's not ill, is she?"
"No. Of course the excitement of the last weeks is bound to have had some effect upon her."
George mentioned that he had written a few words to her and also to Leo immediately after the duel. "When one thinks that it might have turned out differently ..." he added.
Doctor Stauber looked in front of him. "Having children," he said, "is a happiness which one pays for by instalments."
At the door George began somewhat hesitatingly: "I also wanted ... to inquire of you, Herr Doctor, about the real state of Herr Rosner's health.... I must say I found him looking better than I had expected from Anna's letters."
"I hope that he will get all right again," replied Stauber. "But of course one must remember that he's an old man. He's even old for his years."
"But it's not a case of anything serious?"
"Old age is a serious business in itself," replied Doctor Stauber, "especially as his whole antecedent life, his youth and manhood, were not particularly cheerful."
George, whose eyes had been roving round the room, suddenly exclaimed: "I've just thought of it, Herr Doctor. I've never sent you back the books you were good enough to lend me in the spring. And now I'm afraid all our things are at the depository, silver, furniture, pictures and the books as well. So I must ask you, Herr Doctor, to have patience till the spring."
"If you have no worse troubles than that, my dear Baron...."
They went slowly down the stairs and Doctor Stauber inquired after Felician.
"He's in Athens," replied George, "I've heard from him twice, not yet in any great detail.... How strange it is, Herr Doctor, coming back as a stranger to a town where one was at home a short time ago, and staying at an hotel as a gentleman from Detmold!..."
Doctor Stauber got into his carriage. George asked him to give his very best regards to Frau Golowski.
"I'll tell her. And I wish you all further success, my dear Baron. Goodbye."
It was five by the Stephanskirche clock. George was faced with an empty hour. He decided to stroll slowly into the suburb in the thin tepid autumn rain. He had scarcely slept at all in the train and he had been at the Rosners' two hours after his arrival. Anna herself had opened the door to him, greeted him with an affectionate kiss, and quickly taken him into the room, where her parents welcomed him with more politeness than sincerity. The mother, who preserved her usual embarrassed and slightly injured tone, did not say much. The father, sitting in the corner of the ottoman, with a blue-coloured rug over his knees, felt it incumbent on him to inquire about the social and musical conditions of the little capital from which George had come. Then he had remained alone awhile with Anna. They first exchanged question and answer with undue quickness, and subsequently endearments, which were both flat and awkward, and they both seemed disappointed that they did not feel the happiness of seeing each other again with anything like the intensity which their love had given them to expect. Very soon a pupil of Anna's put in an appearance. George took his leave and hurriedly arranged an appointment for the evening with his mistress. He would fetch her from Bittner's and then take her to the opera to see the performance ofTristan.
He had then taken his midday meal by the big window of a restaurant in the Ringstrasse, made purchases and given orders at his tradesmen's, looked up Heinrich, whom he did not find at home, and finally, obeying a sudden idea, decided to pay his "return-thanks" visit to Doctor Stauber. He now walked on slowly through the streets which he knew so well and which already seemed to have an atmosphere of strangeness; and he thought of the town from which he came and in which he was feeling at home far more quickly than he had expected. Count Malnitz had received him with great kindness from the very first moment. He had the plan of reforming the opera in accordance with modern ideas and wanted to win George to him, so the latter thought, as a collaborator and friend in his far-reaching projects. For the first conductor, excellent musician no doubt though he might be, was nowadays more of a court official than an artist. He had been appointed when he was five-and-twenty and had now been stationed in the little town for thirty years, a paterfamilias with six children, respected, contented and without ambition. Soon after his arrival George heard songs sung at a concert which a long time ago had spread the fame of the young conductor throughout almost the whole world. George was unable to understand the impression produced by these quite out-of-date pieces, but none the less warmly complimented the composer with a kindly sympathy for the ageing man in whose eyes there seemed to shine the distant glamour of a richer and more promising past. George frequently asked himself if the old conductor still thought of the fact that he had once been taken for a man who was destined to go far, and whether he, like so many other of the inhabitants, regarded the little town as a hub from which the rays of influence and of fame fell far around. George had only found in a few any desire for a larger and more complex sphere of activity; it often seemed to him as though they rather treated him with a kind of good-natured pity because he came from a great town, and in particular from Vienna. Whenever the name of that town was mentioned in front of people George noticed in their smug and somewhat sarcastic manner that almost as regularly as harmonies accompany the bass, certain other words would be immediately switched into the conversation, even though they were not specifically mentioned: waltzes ... café ...süsses Mädel[2]... grilled chicken ... fiacre ... parliamentary scandal. George was often irritated by this and made up his mind to do all he could to improve his countrymen's reputation in Detmold. He had been asked to come because the third conductor, a quite young man, had suddenly died, and so George, on the very first day, had to sit at the piano in the little rehearsal-room and perform singing accompaniments. It went off excellently. He rejoiced in his gifts, which were stronger and surer than he had himself hoped, and it seemed to him, so far as he could recollect, that Anna had slightly underestimated his talent. Apart from this he threw himself more seriously into his compositions than he had ever done before. He worked at an overture which had originated out of themotifsof Bermann's opera. He had begun a violin sonata, and the mythical quintette, as Else had called it once, was nearly finished. It was going to be performed this very winter in one of the Courtsoirées, which were under the direction of the deputy-conductor of the Detmold orchestra, a talented young man, the only person in fact in his new home with whom George had so far become at all intimate, and with whom he was accustomed to take his meals at the "Elephant."
George still inhabited a fine room in this inn, with a view on to the big square planted with lindens, and from day to day put off taking an apartment. He was quite uncertain whether he would be still in Detmold next year and he also had the feeling that it would be bound to wound Anna, if he were to do anything which looked like settling down as a bachelor for any length of time. Yet he had said no word in his letters to her about any of the prospects of the future, just as she, on her side, left off addressing to him doubting or impatient questions. They practically only communicated to each other actual facts. She wrote of her gradual return into her old groove of life, and he of all the new surroundings among which he must first settle down. Although there was practically nothing which he had to keep from her, he made a special point of slurring over many things that might easily lead to a misunderstanding. How was one to express in words the strange atmosphere which permeated in the morning the rehearsals in the half-dark body of the theatre, when the odour of cosmetics, perfumes, dresses, gas, old wood and fresh paint came down from the stage to the stalls, when figures which one did not at first recognise hopped to and fro between the rows of seats in ordinary or stage dress, when some breath which was heavy and scented blew gently against one's neck? And how was one to describe a glance which flashed down from the eyes of a young singer while one looked up to her from the keys...? Or when one saw this young singer home through the Theaterplatz and the Königsstrasse in the broad light of noon and used the opportunity not merely to talk about the part of Micaela, which one had just been studying with her, but also about all kinds of other, though no doubt fairly innocent, things? Could one recount this to one's mistress in Vienna without her reading something suspicious between the lines? And even if one had laid stress on the fact that Micaela was engaged to a young doctor in Berlin who adored her as much as she did him it would scarcely have improved matters, for that would really have looked as though one felt obliged to answer and reassure.
How strange, thought George, that it is just this very evening that she is singing the Micaela which I practised with her, and that I am going here along this same road out to Mariahilf which I used to take a year ago so frequently and so gladly. He thought of a specific evening when he had fetched Anna from out there, walked about with her in the quiet streets, looked at funny photographs in a doorway and finally walked with her on the cool stone flags of an ancient church, in a soft but how ominous conversation about an unknown future.... And now all had turned out quite differently to what he had hoped—quite differently.... Why did it strike him like that?... What had he anticipated then at that time?... Had not the year that had just passed been wonderfully rich and beautiful with its happiness and its grief? And did he not love Anna to-day better and more deeply than ever? And had he not frequently yearned for her in that fresh town as hotly as though for a woman who had never yet belonged to him? To-day's early meeting with its flat and awkward endearments in the sinister atmosphere of a grey hour really ought not to lead him astray....
He was at the appointed place. When he looked up to the lighted windows, behind which Anna was giving her lesson, a slight emotion came over him, and when she came out of the door the next minute, in a simple English dress and a grey felt hat on her rich dark blonde hair, holding a book in her hand, just as she had appeared a year ago, an unexpected feeling of happiness suddenly streamed over him. She did not see him at once, for he was standing in the shadow of a house. She opened her umbrella and went as far as the corner where she had been in the habit of waiting for him the previous year. He gazed at her for a while and was glad that she looked so fine and distinguished. Then he followed her quickly, and caught her up in a few strides. She informed him at once that she could not go to the opera with him. Her father had been taken ill this afternoon.
George was very disappointed. "Won't you at any rate come with me for the first act?"
She shook her head. "No, I am not very keen on that sort of thing. It is much better for you to give the seat to some friend. Go and fetch Nürnberger or Bermann."
"No," he replied, "if you can't come with me I'd rather go alone. I should have enjoyed it so much. I am not very keen on the performance personally. I'd prefer to stay with you ... so far as I am concerned, even at your people's; but I must go. I have—to make a report."
Anna backed him up. "Of course you must go," and she added: "I wouldn't advise you, too, to spend an evening with us. It's really not particularly jolly."
He had taken the umbrella out of her hand and held it over her, while she held his arm. "I say, Anna," he said, "I should like to make a suggestion!" He was surprised that he should be looking for a way of leading up to it, and began hesitatingly: "My few days in Vienna are, of course, more or less unsettled and cut up—and now there's this depressed atmosphere at your people's as well.... We are not really managing to see anything of each other: don't you agree?"
She nodded without looking at him.
"So wouldn't you like to come part of the way with me, Anna, when I go back again?"
She looked at him sideways in her arch way and did not answer.
He went on speaking. "I can, you see, quite well manage to get an extra day's leave if I wire to the theatre. It would really be awfully nice if we had a few hours all to ourselves."
She consented with sincerity but not enthusiasm and made her decision depend on the state of her father's health. She then asked him how he had spent the day.
He told her in detail, and also added his programme for to-morrow. "So we two will see each other in the evening," he said. "I'll come to your place if that's convenient, and then we'll arrange further details."
"Yes," said Anna, and looked in front of her down the damp brown-grey street.
He tried again to persuade her to come to the opera with him, but it was futile. He then inquired about her singing lessons and followed that up by speaking about his own activity, as though he had to convince her that after all he was not having a much better time than she was. And he referred to his letters, in which he had written about everything in full detail.
"So far as that's concerned ..." she said suddenly in quite a hard voice.... And when, hurt by her tone, he could not help throwing back his head, she proceeded: "What is there really in letters, however detailed they are?"
He knew what she was thinking about—he felt a certain heaviness at heart. Was there not in the very inexorableness of this silence all that she refused to voice aloud?—question, reproach and rage. He had already felt this morning and now felt again that a certain sense of positive enmity to himself was rising within her, against which she herself seemed to be struggling in vain. Was this morning the first time...? Had it not dated far longer back? Perhaps it had been always there, from the very first moment when they had belonged to each other, and even in the moments of their supreme happiness? Had not this hostile feeling been present when she pressed her bosom against his behind dark curtains to the music of the organ, when she waited for him in the room at the hotel in Rome, with eyes red with tears, while he had been watching with delight from Monte Pincio the sun setting in the Campagna, and had realised that he was finding this hour of solitary enjoyment the most wonderful in the whole journey? Had it not been present when he ran down the gravel path on a hot morning, dropped down at her feet and cried in her lap as though it had been the lap of a mother? And when he had sat by her bedside and looked out into the garden at eventime, while the dead child she had borne an hour ago lay silent on the white linen cloth, had it not been there again, drearier than ever, so that it would have been almost unbearable, if they had not long ago managed to put up with it, in the way one manages to endure so much of the unsatisfactoriness and so much of the sorrow that comes up out of the depths of human intercourse? And now how painfully did he feel this sense of hostility as he walked arm-in-arm with her, holding the umbrella carefully over her, down the damp streets? It was there again—menacing and familiar. The words which she had spoken were still ringing in his ears: "What is there really in letters, however detailed they are?"... But even more solemnly there rang in his ears the unspoken words: What does the most ardent kiss in which body and soul seem to fuse really come to? What does the fact that we travelled together for months through strange lands really come to? What does the fact that I had a child by you come to? What does the fact that you cried out in my lap your remorse for your deception? What does it all come to, when you still go and leave me quite alone?... Why, I was alone at the very moment when my body drank in the germ of life which I carried within me for nine months, which was intended to live amongst strangers, though our own child, and which did not wish to remain on earth!
But while all this sank heavily into his soul he agreed in a light tone that she was really quite right and that letters—even though they were actually twenty pages long—could not contain much in particular; and while a harrowing pity for her sprang up in him he gently expressed the hope that there would be a time in which they would neither of them any longer be thrown back upon mere letters. And then he found words of greater tenderness, told her of those lonely walks of his in the outskirts of the strange town when he thought of her; told her of the hours in that meaningless hotel room, with its view of the linden-planted square, and of his yearning for her, which was always present whether he sat alone at his work or accompanied singers at the pianoforte or chatted with new acquaintances. But when he stood with her in front of the house door, with her hand in his, and looked up into her eyes as he murmured a bright goodbye, he was shocked to see in them the flickering out of a jaded sense of disillusionment that had almost ceased to be painful. And he knew that all the words which he had spoken to her had meant nothing to her, had meant less than nothing, since the one word, the word she scarcely hoped for any more, and yet longed for all the time, had not come.
A quarter of an hour later George was sitting in his stall at the opera. He was first a little depressed and limp, but the pleasure of enjoyment soon began to course through his veins. And when Brangäne threw the king's cloak over her mistress's shoulders, Kurwenal announced the king's approach and the ship's crew on the deck hailed the land amid all the glory of the resplendent heavens, George had long ago forgotten a bad night in the train, some boring commissions, an extremely forced conversation with an old Jewish doctor and a walk on the wet pavement which mirrored the light of the lamps by the side of a young lady who looked decent, distinguished and somewhat depressed. And when the curtain fell for the first time and the light streamed through the enormous room, upholstered in red and gold, he did not feel any unpleasant sense of being brought back to sober life, but he rather felt as though he were plunging his head out of one dream into another; while a reality which was full of all kinds of wretched complications flew impotently past somewhere outside. The atmosphere of this house, so it seemed to him, had never made him so intensely happy as it did to-day. He had never felt so palpably that all the audience, so long as they were here, were protected in some mystic way against all the pain and all the dirt of life. He stood up in his corner seat, which was in front by the middle gangway, saw many a pleased glance turn towards him and felt conscious of looking handsome, elegant and even somewhat unusual. And besides that he was—and this filled him with satisfaction—a man who had a profession, a position, a man who sat in this very theatre with a responsible commission to perform, as a kind of envoy from a German court theatre. He looked round with his opera-glass. From the back of the stalls Gleissner greeted him with a somewhat too familiar nod of his head and seemed immediately afterwards to be expatiating on George's personal characteristics to the young lady who sat next to him. Who could she be? Was it the harlot which the author, with his hobby for experimenting on souls, wanted to make into a saint, or was it the saint whom he wanted to make into a harlot? Hard to say, thought George. They'd both look about the same, halfway.
George felt the lens of an opera-glass burning on the top of his head. He looked up. It was Else, who was looking down to him from a box in the first tier. Frau Ehrenberg sat near her and between them there bowed over the front of the box a tall young man who was no other than James Wyner. George bowed and two minutes later stepped into the box, to find himself greeted with friendliness but not a trace of surprise. Else, in a low-cut black velvet dress, with a small pearl necklet round her throat and a somewhat strange though interesting coiffure, held out her hand to him. "And how did you manage to get here? On leave? Sacked? Run away?"
George explained, briefly and good-humouredly.
"It was very nice of you," said Frau Ehrenberg, "to have sent us a line from Detmold."
"He really shouldn't have done that, either," remarked Else. "It was quite calculated to make one think that he had gone off to America with some one or other."
James was standing in the middle of the box, tall and gaunt, with his chiselled face and his dark smooth hair parted at the side. "Well, George, how do you like Detmold?"
Else was looking at him with dropped eyelashes. She seemed delighted with his way of still always speaking German as though he had to translate it to himself out of English. Anyway, she employed the occasion to make a joke and said: "How George likes it in Detmold! I am afraid your question is indiscreet, James." Then she turned to George. "We are engaged, you know."
"We haven't yet sent out any cards, you know," added Frau Ehrenberg.
George offered his congratulations.
"Lunch with us to-morrow," said Frau Ehrenberg. "You will only meet a few people. I'm sure they'll all be very glad to see you again—Sissy, Frau Oberberger, Willy Eissler."
George excused himself. He could not bind himself to any specific time, but if he possibly could he would very much like to look in during the course of the afternoon.
"Quite so," said Else in a low voice, without looking at him, while her arm, in its long white glove, lay carelessly on the ledge of the box. "You are probably spending the middle of the day in the family circle."
George pretended not to hear and praised to-night's performance. James declared that he likedTristanbetter than all the other operas by Wagner, including theMeistersingers.
Else simply remarked: "It's awfully fine, but as a matter of fact I'm all against love-philtres and things in that line."
George explained that the love-philtre was to be regarded as a symbol, whereupon Else declared that she had a distaste for symbols as well. The first signal for the second act was given. George took his leave and rushed downstairs with only just enough time to take his place before the curtain rose. He remembered again the semi-official capacity in which he was sitting in the theatre to-night, and determined not to surrender himself unreservedly to his impressions. He soon managed to discover that it was possible to produce the love-scene quite differently from the way in which it was being done to-night. Nor did he think it right that Melot, by whose hand Tristan was doomed to die, should be represented by a second-rate singer, as was nearly always the case. After the fall of the curtain on the second act he got up with a kind of increased self-consciousness, stood up in his seat and looked frequently up to the box in the first tier, from which Frau Ehrenberg nodded to him benevolently, while Else spoke to James, who was standing still behind her with crossed arms. It struck George that he would see James's sister again to-morrow. Did she still often think of that wonderful hour in the park in the afternoon, amid the dark green sultriness of the park, in the warm perfume of the moss and the pines? How far away that was! He then remembered a fleeting kiss in the nocturnal shadow of the garden wall at Lugano. How far away that was too! He thought of the evening under the plane-tree, and the conversation about Leo came again into his mind. A remarkable fellow that Leo, really. How consistently he had stuck to his plan! For he must have formed it a long time ago. And obviously Leo had only waited for the day when he could doff his uniform to put it into execution. George had received no answer to the letter which he had immediately written him after hearing about the duel. He resolved to visit Leo in prison if it were possible.
A man in the first row greeted him. It was Ralph Skelton. George arranged by pantomimic signs to meet him at the end of the performance.
The lights were extinguished, the prelude to the third act began. George heard the tired sea-waves surging against the desolate beach and the grievous sighs of a mortally wounded hero were wafted through the blue thin air. Where had he heard this last? Hadn't it been in Munich...? No, it couldn't be so far back. And he suddenly remembered the hour when the sheets of theTristanmusic had been spread open before him on a balcony beneath a wooden gable. A sunny path opposite ran to the churchyard between field and forest, while a cross had flashed with its golden light; down in the house a woman he loved had groaned in agony and he had felt sick at heart. And yet this memory, too, had its own melancholy sweetness, like all else that had completely passed. The balcony, the little blue angel between the flowers, the white seat under the pear-tree, where was it all now? He would see the house again once more, once more before he left Vienna.
The curtain rose. The shawm rang out yearningly beneath the pale expanse of an unsympathetic heaven. The wounded hero slumbered in the shade of the linden branches, and by his head watched Kurwenal the faithful. The shawm was silent, the herdsman bent questioningly over the wall and Kurwenal made answer. By Jove, that was a voice of unusual timbre! If we only had a baritone like that, thought George. And many other things, too, which we need! If he were only given the requisite power he felt himself able, in the course of time, to turn the modest theatre at which he worked into a first-class stage. He dreamed of model performances to which people would stream from far and wide. He no longer sat there as an envoy, but as a man to whom it was perhaps vouchsafed to be himself a leader in not too distant days. Further and higher coursed his hopes. Perhaps just a few years—and his own original harmonies would be ringing through a spacious hall of a musical festival, and the audience would be listening as thrilled as the one to-day, while somewhere outside a hollow reality would be flowing impotently past. Impotently? That was the question. Did he know whether it was given him to compel human beings by his art as it had been given to the master to whom they were listening to-day—to triumph over the difficulty, wretchedness and awfulness of everyday life? Impatience and doubt tried to rise out of his soul; but his will and common-sense quickly banished them and he now felt again the pure happiness he always experienced when he heard beautiful music, without thinking of the fact that he often wished himself to do creative work and obtain recognition for doing it.
In moments like this the only relation to his beloved art of which he was conscious was that he was able to understand it with deeper appreciation than any other human being. And he felt that Heinrich had spoken the truth when they had ridden together through a forest damp with the morning dew: it was not creative work—it was simply the atmosphere of his art which was necessary to his existence. He was not one of the damned, like Heinrich, who always felt driven to catch hold of things, to mould them, to preserve them, and who found his world fall to pieces whenever it tried to escape from his creative hand.
Isolde in Brangäne's arms had dropped dead over Tristan's body, the last notes were dying away, the curtain fell. George cast a glance up to the box in the first tier. Else stood by the ledge with her look turned towards him, while James put her dark-red cloak over her shoulders, and it was only now, that after a nod of the head as quick as though she had meant no one to notice it, she turned towards the exit. Remarkable, thought George from a distance: there is a certain ... melancholy romantic something about the way she carries herself, about many of her movements. It is then that she reminds me most of the gipsy girl of Nice, or the strange young person with whom I stood in front of the Titian Venus in Florence.... Did she ever love me? No. And she doesn't love her James either. Who is it then?... Perhaps ... it was really that mad drawing-master in Florence. Or no one at all. Or Heinrich, of all people?...
He met Skelton in thefoyer. "Back again?" queried the latter.
"Only for a few days," replied George.
It transpired that Skelton had not really known what George was doing and had thought that he was on a kind of musical tour through the German towns for the purposes of study. He was now more or less surprised to hear that George was here on leave and had been practically commissioned by the manager to inspect the new production ofTristan. "Will this suit you?" said Skelton. "I've got an appointment with Breitner; at the 'Imperial,' the white room."
"Excellent," replied George. "I'm staying there."
Doctor von Breitner was already smoking one of his celebrated big cigars when the two men appeared at his table. "What a surprise!" he exclaimed, when George greeted him. He had heard that George was engaged as conductor in Düsseldorf.
"Detmold," said George, and he thought: "The people here don't bother about me particularly.... But what does it matter?"
Skelton described theTristanperformance and George mentioned that he had spoken to the Ehrenbergs.
"Do you know that Oskar Ehrenberg is on his way to India or Ceylon?" asked Doctor von Breitner.
"Really!"
"And whom do you think with?"
"Some woman, I suppose?"
"Oh, of course. I've even heard they've got five or seven women with them."
"Who?—'they.'"
"Oskar Ehrenberg ... and ... have a guess.... Well, the Prince of Guastalla!"
"Impossible!"
"Funny, eh? They became very thick this year at Ostend or at Spa....Cherchez... et cetera. It seems that just as there are women, you know, for whom people fight duels there's also another class across whom, as it were, you shake hands. Now they've left Europe together. Perhaps they'll found a kingdom on some island or other and Oskar Ehrenberg will be prime minister."
Willy Eissler appeared. His complexion was sallow, his voice hoarse and he looked as if he had been keeping late hours. "Hullo, Baron! Forgive me not being thunderstruck but I have already heard that you are here. Some one or other saw you in the Kärtnerstrasse."
George requested Willy to remember Count Malnitz to his father. He himself, he was sorry to say, had no time on this occasion to look up the old gentleman, to whom, as he observed with a pretty mock-modesty, he owed his position in Detmold.
"So far as your future is concerned, Baron," said Willy, "I never had any anxiety about it, particularly since I heard Bellini sing your songs last year—or was it further back? But it is quite a good idea of yours, deciding to leave Vienna. You'd have been bound to have been taken for a dilettante here for a cool twenty or thirty years. That's always the way in Vienna. I know it. When people know that a man comes of a good family, has a taste too for pretty ties, good cigarettes and various other amenities of life, they don't believe that he has real artistic capacity. You wouldn't be taken seriously here without proof from outside.... So hurry up and furnish us with a brilliant one, Baron."
"I'll make an effort to," said George.
"By the way, have you heard the latest, gentlemen?" began Willy again. "Leo Golowski, the one-year-volunteer who shot First-Lieutenant Sefranek, is free."
"Let out on bail?" asked George.
"No, he's quite free. His advocate addressed a petition to the Emperor to quash the proceedings, and it turned out successful to-day."
"Incredible!" exclaimed Breitner.
"Why are you so surprised, Breitner?" said Willy. "It is possible, you know, for something sensible to happen in Austria once in a blue moon."
"A duel is never sensible," said Skelton, "and therefore a pardon for a duel can't be sensible either."
"A duel, my dear Skelton, is either something very much worse or something very much better than sensible," replied Willy. "It is either a ghastly folly or a relentless necessity, either a crime or an act of deliverance. It is not sensible and doesn't need to be so. In exceptional cases, one can't make any headway at all with common-sense, and I am sure you too will concede, Skelton, that in a case like the one of which we have just been speaking a duel was inevitable."
"Absolutely," said Breitner.
"I can imagine a polity," observed Skelton, "in which differences of that kind were settled by a court."
"Differences of that kind settled by a court! Oh, I say!... Do you really think, Skelton, that in a case where there is no question of right or of possession at issue, but where men confront each other with a stupendous hate, do you really think that a proper settlement could be arrived at by means of a fine or imprisonment? The fact, gentlemen, that refusal to fight a duel in such cases is regarded as a piece of cowardice by all people who possess temperament, honour and honesty has a fairly deep significance. In the case of Jews at any rate," he added. "So far as the Catholics are concerned it is well known that it is only their orthodoxy which keeps them from fighting."
"That's certainly the case," said Breitner simply.
George wanted to know details of the affair between Leo Golowski and the First-Lieutenant.
"Quite so," said Willy. "Of course you've only just arrived. Well, the First-Lieutenant gave him a fine ragging for the whole year, and as a matter of fact——"
"I know the prelude," interrupted George. "Part of it from first-hand information."
"Really! Well, the prelude, to stick to that expression, was over on the first of October. I mean Leo Golowski had finished his year of service. And on the second he placed himself in front of the barracks early in the morning and quietly waited till the First-Lieutenant came out of the door. As soon as he did he stepped up to him; the First-Lieutenant reached for his sword, but Leo Golowski grabs hold of his hand, doesn't let it go, puts his other fist in front of his forehead. There is a story, too, that Leo is supposed to have flung the following words at the First-Lieutenant.... I don't know if it's true."
"What words?" asked George curiously.
"'You were worth more than I was yesterday, Herr First-Lieutenant; now we are on an equality for the time being—but one of us will be worth more than the other again by this time to-morrow.'"
"Somewhat Talmudic," remarked Breitner.
"You, of course, must be the best judge of that, Breitner," replied Willy, and went on with his story. "Well, the duel took place next morning in the fields by the Danube—three exchanges of ball at twenty paces without advancing. If that proved abortive the sword till one or other washors de combat.... The first shots missed on both sides, and after the second ... after the second, I say, Golowski was really worth more than the First-Lieutenant, for the latter was worth nothing, less than nothing—a dead man."
"Poor devil," said Breitner.
Willy shrugged his shoulders. "He just happened to have caught a tartar. I'm sorry, too, but one must admit that Austria would be a different place in many respects if all Jews would behave like Leo Golowski in similar cases. Unfortunately...."
Skelton smiled. "You know, Willy, I don't like any one to say anything against the Jews when I am there. I like them, and I should be sorry if people wanted to solve the Jewish question by a series of duels, for when it was all over there wouldn't be a single male specimen left of that excellent race."
At the end of the conversation Skelton had to admit that the duel could not be abolished in Austria for the present. But he reserved the right of putting the question whether that fact was really an argument in favour of the duel, and not rather an argument against Austria, since many other countries—he refrained from mentioning any out of a sense of modesty—had discarded the duel for centuries. And did he go too far if he ventured to designate Austria—the country, too, in which he had felt really at home for the last six years—as the country of social shams? In that country more than anywhere else there existed wild disputes without a touch of hate and a kind of tender love without the need of fidelity. Quite humorous personal likings existed or came into existence between political opponents; party colleagues, on the other hand, reviled, libelled and betrayed each other. You would only find a few people who would vouchsafe specific views on men and things, and anyway even these few would be only too ready to make reservations and admit exceptions. The political conflict there gave one quite the impression as though the apparently most bitter enemies, while exchanging their most virulent abuse, winked to each other: "It's not meant so seriously."
"What do you think, Skelton?" asked Willy. "Would you wink, too, if the bullets were flying on both sides?"
"You certainly would, Willy, unless death were staring you in the face. But that circumstance, I think, doesn't affect one's mood but only one's demeanour."
They went on sitting together for a long time and continued gossiping. George heard all kinds of news. He learned among other things that Demeter Stanzides had concluded the purchase of the estate on the Hungarian-Croatian frontier, and that the Rattenmamsell was looking forward to a happy event. Willy Eissler was much excited at the result of this crossing of the races, and amused himself in the meanwhile by inventing names for the expected child, such as Israel Pius or Rebecca Portiuncula.
Subsequently the whole party betook itself to the neighbouring café. George played a game of billiards with Breitner and then went up to his room. He made out in bed a time-table for the next day and finally sank into a deliciously deep sleep.
The paper he had ordered the day before was brought in with the tea in the morning, together with a telegram. The manager requested him to report on a singer. To George's delight it was the one he had heard yesterday in Kurwenal. He was also allowed to stay three days beyond his specified leave, "in order to put his affairs in order at his convenience," since an alteration of the programme happened to allow it. Excellent, really, thought George. It struck him that he had completely forgotten his original intention of wiring for a prolongation of his leave. I have got even more time for Anna now than I thought, he reflected. We might perhaps go into the mountains. The autumn days are fine and mild, and at this time one would be pretty well alone and undisturbed anywhere. But supposing there is an accident again—an—accident—again!... Those were the very words in which the thought had flown through his mind. He bit his lips. Was that how he had suddenly come to regard the matter? An accident.... Where was the time when he had thought of himself almost with pride as a link in an endless chain which went from the first ancestors to the last descendants? And for a few moments he seemed to himself like a failure in the sphere of love, somewhat dubious and pitiable.
He ran his eye over the paper. The proceedings against Leo Golowski had been quashed by an Imperial pardon. He had been discharged from prison last evening. George was very glad and decided to visit Leo this very day. He then sent a telegram to the Count, and made out a report with due formality and detail on yesterday's performance. When he got out into the street it was nearly eleven. The air had the cool clearness of autumn. George felt thoroughly rested, refreshed and in a good temper. The day lay before him rich with hopes and promised all kinds of excitement. Only something troubled him without his immediately knowing what it was.... Oh yes, the visit in the Paulanergasse, the depressing rooms, the ailing father, the aggrieved mother. I'll simply fetch Anna, he thought, take her for a walk and then go and have supper somewhere with her. He passed a flower shop, bought some wonderful dark-red roses and had them sent to Anna with a card on which he wrote: "A thousand wishes. Goodbye till the evening." When he had done this he felt easier in his mind. He then went through the streets in the centre of the town to the old house in which Nürnberger lived. He climbed up the five storeys. A slatternly old servant with a dark cloth over her head opened the door and ushered him into her master's room. Nürnberger was standing by the window with his head slightly bent, in the brown high-cut lounge-suit which he liked to wear at home. He was not alone. Heinrich, of all people, got up from the old arm-chair in front of the secretary with a manuscript in his hand. George was heartily welcomed.
"Has your being in Vienna anything to do with the crisis in the management of the opera?" asked Nürnberger. He refused to allow this observation to be simply passed over as a joke. "Look here," he said, "if little boys who a short time ago were only in a position to give formal proof of their connection with German literature on the strength of the regularity of their visits to a literary café, are invited to take appointments as readers on the Berlin stage, well, in an age like this I see no occasion for astonishment if Baron Wergenthin is fetched in triumph to the Vienna opera after his no doubt strenuous six weeks' career as the conductor of a German Court theatre."
George paid a tribute to truth by explaining that he had only obtained a short leave to put his Vienna affairs in order, and did not forget to mention that he had seen the new production ofTristanyesterday as a kind of agent for his manager, but he smiled ironically at himself all the time. Then he gave a short and fairly humorous description of his experiences up to the present in the little capital. He even touched jestingly on the Court concerts as though he were far from taking his position, his present successes, the theatre, or indeed life in general with any particular seriousness.
Conversation then turned on Leo Golowski's release from prison. Nürnberger rejoiced at this unhoped-for issue, but yet firmly refused to be surprised at it, for the most highly improbable things always happened in life, and particularly in Austria, as they all knew very well. But when George mentioned the rumour of Oskar Ehrenberg's yachting trip with the Prince as a new proof of the soundness of Nürnberger's theory, he was at first inclined nevertheless to be slightly sceptical. Yet he finished by admitting its possibility, since his imagination, as he had known for a long time, was invariably surpassed by reality.
Heinrich looked at the time. It was time for him to say goodbye.
"Haven't I disturbed you, gentlemen?" asked George. "I think you were reading something, Heinrich, when I came in?"
"I had already finished," replied Heinrich.
"You'll read me the last act to-morrow, Heinrich?" said Nürnberger.
"I have no intention of doing so," replied Heinrich with a laugh. "If the first two acts are as great a frost in the theatre as they were with you, my dear Nürnberger, it will be positively impossible to play the thing through to the end. We'll assume, Nürnberger, that you rush indignantly out of the stalls into the open air. I'll let you off the cat-calls and the rotten eggs."
"Hang it all!" exclaimed George.
"You're exaggerating again, Heinrich," said Nürnberger. "I only ventured to make a few objections," he said, turning to George, "that's all. But he's an author, you know."
"It all depends on what you mean by 'objection,'" said Heinrich. "After all, it is only an objection to the life of a fellow human being if you cut his head open with a hatchet; only it's a fairly effective one." He pointed to his manuscript and turned to George. "You know what that is? My political tragi-comedy. No wreaths, by request."
Nürnberger laughed. "I assure you, Heinrich, you could still make something really splendid out of your subject. You can even keep the whole scenario and a number of the characters. All you need to do is to make up your mind to be less fair when you revise your draft."
"But surely his fairness is a fine thing," said George.
Nürnberger shook his head. "One may be anywhere else, only not in the drama," and turning to Heinrich again, "In a piece like that, which deals with a question of the day, or indeed several questions, as you really intended, you'll never do any good with a purely objective treatment. The theatre public demands that the subjects tackled by the author should be definitely settled, or that at any rate some illusion of that kind should be created. For of course there never is any real solution, and an apparent solution can only be made by a man who has the courage or the simplicity or the temperament to take sides. You'll soon appreciate the fact, my dear Heinrich, that fairness is no good in the drama."
"Do you know, Nürnberger," said Heinrich, "one perhaps might do some good even with fairness. I think I simply haven't got the right kind. As a matter of fact, you know, I've no desire at all to be fair. I imagine it must be so wonderfully nice to be unfair. I think it would be the most healthy gymnastic exercise for one's soul that one could possibly practise. It must do one such a lot of good to be able really to hate the man whose views you are combating. It saves one, I'm sure, a great deal of inner strength which you can expend far better yourself in the actual fight. Yes, if one still preserves fairness of heart.... But my fairness is here," and he pointed to his forehead. "I do not stand above parties either, but I belong to them all in a kind of way, or am against them all. I have not got the divine but the dialectical fairness. And that's why"—he held his manuscript high up—"it has resulted in such a boring and fruitless lot of twaddle."
"Woe to the man," said Nürnberger, "who is rash enough to write anything like that about you."
"Well, you see," replied Heinrich with a smile, "if some one else were to say it, one couldn't suppress the slight suspicion that he might be right. But now I must really go. Good-bye, George. I'm very sorry that you missed me yesterday. When are you leaving again?"
"To-morrow."
"Anyway, I shall see you before you leave. I'm home to-day the whole afternoon and evening. You will find a man who has resolutely turned away from the questions of the day and devoted himself again to the eternal problems, death and love.... Do you believe in death, by-the-bye, Nürnberger? I am not asking you about love."
"That somewhat cheap joke from a man in your position," said Nürnberger, "makes me suspect that in spite of your very dignified demeanour my criticism has...."
"No, Nürnberger, I swear to you that I am not wounded. I have rather a comfortable sensation of the whole thing being finished with."
"Finished with, why so? It is still quite possible that I've made a mistake, and that this very piece, which I didn't think quite a success, will have a success on the stage which will make you into a millionaire. I should be deeply grieved if on account of my criticism, which may be very far from being authoritative...."
"Quite so, quite so, Nürnberger. We must all of us always admit the possibility that we may be mistaken. And the next time I'll write another piece, and one with the following title too: 'Nobody's going to take me in,' and you shall be the hero of it, Nürnberger."
Nürnberger smiled. "... I? That means you'll take a man whom you imagine you know, that you'll try to describe those sides of his character which suit your game—that you'll suppress others which are no use to you, and the result...."
"The result," interrupted Heinrich, "will be a portrait taken by a mad photographer with a spoilt camera during an earthquake and an eclipse of the sun. Is that right, or is there anything missing?"
"The psychology ought to be exhaustive," said Nürnberger.
Heinrich took his leave in boisterous spirits and went away with his rolled-up manuscript. When he had gone George remarked: "His good temper strikes me as a bit of a pose, you know."
"Do you think so? I have always found him in remarkably good form lately."
"In really good form? Do you seriously think so? After what he has gone through?"