Professor Erlin gave Philip a lesson every day. He made out a list of
books which Philip was to read till he was ready for the final
achievement of Faust, and meanwhile, ingeniously enough, started him on
a German translation of one of the plays by Shakespeare which Philip
had studied at school. It was the period in Germany of Goethe’s highest
fame. Notwithstanding his rather condescending attitude towards
patriotism he had been adopted as the national poet, and seemed since
the war of seventy to be one of the most significant glories of
national unity. The enthusiastic seemed in the wildness of the
Walpurgisnacht to hear the rattle of artillery at Gravelotte. But one
mark of a writer’s greatness is that different minds can find in him
different inspirations; and Professor Erlin, who hated the Prussians,
gave his enthusiastic admiration to Goethe because his works, Olympian
and sedate, offered the only refuge for a sane mind against the
onslaughts of the present generation. There was a dramatist whose name
of late had been much heard at Heidelberg, and the winter before one of
his plays had been given at the theatre amid the cheers of adherents
and the hisses of decent people. Philip heard discussions about it at
the Frau Professor’s long table, and at these Professor Erlin lost his
wonted calm: he beat the table with his fist, and drowned all
opposition with the roar of his fine deep voice. It was nonsense and
obscene nonsense. He forced himself to sit the play out, but he did not
know whether he was more bored or nauseated. If that was what the
theatre was coming to, then it was high time the police stepped in and
closed the playhouses. He was no prude and could laugh as well as
anyone at the witty immorality of a farce at the Palais Royal, but here
was nothing but filth. With an emphatic gesture he held his nose and
whistled through his teeth. It was the ruin of the family, the
uprooting of morals, the destruction of Germany.
“Aber, Adolf,” said the Frau Professor from the other end of the table.
“Calm yourself.”
He shook his fist at her. He was the mildest of creatures and ventured
upon no action of his life without consulting her.
“No, Helene, I tell you this,” he shouted. “I would sooner my daughters
were lying dead at my feet than see them listening to the garbage of
that shameless fellow.”
The play was The Doll’s House and the author was Henrik Ibsen.
Professor Erlin classed him with Richard Wagner, but of him he spoke
not with anger but with good-humoured laughter. He was a charlatan but
a successful charlatan, and in that was always something for the comic
spirit to rejoice in.
“Verruckter Kerl! A madman!” he said.
He had seen Lohengrin and that passed muster. It was dull but no worse.
But Siegfried! When he mentioned it Professor Erlin leaned his head on
his hand and bellowed with laughter. Not a melody in it from beginning
to end! He could imagine Richard Wagner sitting in his box and laughing
till his sides ached at the sight of all the people who were taking it
seriously. It was the greatest hoax of the nineteenth century. He
lifted his glass of beer to his lips, threw back his head, and drank
till the glass was empty. Then wiping his mouth with the back of his
hand, he said:
“I tell you young people that before the nineteenth century is out
Wagner will be as dead as mutton. Wagner! I would give all his works
for one opera by Donizetti.”