Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/3398065
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
THE SONG OF SONGS
BY THE SAME AUTHOR
REGINA; OR THE SINS OF THE FATHERS
JOHN THE BAPTIST
THE INDIAN LILY
THE UNDYING PAST
THE SONG OF SONGS
BY HERMANN SUDERMANN
A New Translation by BEATRICE MARSHALL
With an Introduction by JOHN LANE
LONDON: JOHN LANE THE BODLEY HEAD
VIGO STREET MCMXIV
_Third Edition_.
THE ANCHOR PRESS, LTD. TIPTREE, ESSEX.
THE PUBLISHER'S NOTE
In 1898 I published a translation of Sudermann's "Der Katzensteg,"
under the title of "Regina"; in 1906 of "Es War," under the title of
"The Undying Past," and in 1908 of "Der Taeufer," under the title of
"John the Baptist." All these books were translated by Miss Beatrice
Marshall, and the translations were received in England, America, and
Germany with enthusiasm alike by critics and the public. I was
therefore naturally anxious to publish Herr Sudermann's great novel,
"Das hohe Lied," on which he had been working for a great number of
years, but I found that Mr. B. W. Huebsch of New York, the well-known
American publisher, had purchased the world rights in the translation.
My only chance therefore was to purchase from him the translation he
had had made, and this I acquired in sheet form, as he had already
copyrighted the book in this country. My edition of the work appeared
here in October, 1910, under the title of "The Song of Songs."
Serious objections were then raised to it in certain quarters, and I
should like to place on record here exactly what happened and in proper
sequence, by first of all printing a letter which I wrote to Sir
Melville Macnaghten. Chief of the Criminal Investigation Department,
Scotland Yard; a circular letter which I sent to the book trade; and a
circular letter which I sent to the Incorporated Society of Authors and
the following well-known novelists, together with such replies as I
received:
E. F. Benson Eden Phillpotts
Mrs. W. K. Clifford G. B. Shaw
Sir A. Conan Doyle Miss May Sinclair
Sir Gilbert Parker Thomas Hardy
Miss Beatrice Harraden Miss M. P. Willcocks
A. E. W. Mason Israel Zangwill
H. G. Wells
London, W.,
_December 9th_, 1910.
Sir Melville Macnaghten,
Criminal Investigation Department,
New Scotland Yard, S.W.
Dear Sir,
I am told that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan called at my office
to-day to inform me that complaint had been made of "The Song of
Songs," by Hermann Sudermann, which was described as an obscene book.
Through ill-health I have not been at my office for several weeks,
although I happen to be in London to-day on my way to Brighton; but my
manager immediately came to me and communicated what had passed. The
officers informed him that you do not associate yourself at the present
juncture with the opinion that has been expressed upon the book, but
that their object was to draw my attention to the fact that complaint
had been made.
I very much appreciate your kindness in causing the officers to call
upon me, and they were quite right in their assumption that I should be
the last person to wish to publish an obscene book. Although I am under
doctor's orders, I have delayed my departure for Brighton to write
letters to some of the most distinguished novelists of the day and to
the Society of Authors, to whom I am sending copies of "The Song of
Songs," asking them to acquaint me with their opinion, at the same time
informing them of what has occurred. As soon as I receive their views,
I shall be guided by them in my action and will inform you of my
decision. I presume that this action on my part meets with your
approval.
Yours faithfully,
John Lane.
PS.--I enclose a copy of my letter to the authors.
I feel I must add a personal word of thanks to you for your
consideration in this matter. You will, I am sure, see my position. I
am dealing with the reputation of one of the greatest literary figures
in Europe, and it is absurd for me to assume the role of judge,
especially as you do not associate yourself with the--to me--anonymous
accusation. It is all the more difficult from the fact that this same
translation has been sold in tens of thousands in the U.S.A., where the
reading public is much more prudish than here.
London, W.,
_December 9th_, 1910.
Dear Sir or Madam,
For some weeks I have been laid up with a serious attack of bronchitis,
but I am fortunately in London to-day, although not at my office, on my
way to Brighton.
I have just been informed that Inspectors Lawrence and Duggan, from the
Criminal Investigation Department, have called to-day at my office,
saying that a complaint has been made against Hermann Sudermann's
novel, "The Song of Songs," which was published in Germany under the
title of "Das hohe Lied." It is described as obscene, but the officers
assured my manager that the Chief Commissioner does not at the present
juncture associate himself with this expression. They explained that
their call is to draw my attention to the fact that a serious complaint
has been made, so that if the Public Prosecutor takes action I shall
not be able to say that, had I known the book to be objectionable, I
should immediately have withdrawn it. The book has been read by the
Officers of the C.I.D., for so they told my manager. The translation is
by an American, and it was printed in America, where it has been in
circulation for many months past, and has been one of the most
successful books of the year. I am writing to the Chief Commissioner,
informing him that it is my intention to lay the matter before the
Society of Authors and the most distinguished novelists of the day,
whose advice I am ready to take. I am therefore sending you a copy of
the book in the hope that you will find time to read it in the course
of the next few days and let me know your opinion, and I shall
certainly be guided by the consensus of opinion.
I am,
Yours very truly,
John Lane.
PS.--May I suggest that this is a question for the consideration of the
Council of the Society of Authors?
London, W.,
_December 10th_, 1910.
Dear Sir,
Yesterday morning I received a call from two inspectors from the
Criminal Investigation Department, who stated that complaint had been
made about Hermann Sudermann's "The Song of Songs," which was described
as "an obscene book." The police declined to express any opinion of
their own, but warned me of what had occurred.
I immediately wrote and thanked the Chief Commissioner for his
courtesy. I then wrote letters to the principal novelists of the day,
asking their advice, for I could not myself sit in judgment upon one of
Europe's greatest writers. In the meantime I have withdrawn the book
from circulation.
It is only fair that I should put the trade in the possession of all
the facts of the case. I took the book in good faith. I had seen that
it was for months the best-selling book in America, the most
puritanical of all countries. I should just as soon have thought of
changing the text of Shakespeare, Ibsen, George Meredith, Mr. Hardy,
Mr. Maurice Hewlett, and Mr. George Moore. I must give the trade the
option of returning the book.
John Lane.
7, Chilworth Street,
Paddington, W.
_December 14th_, 1910.
Dear Mr. Lane,
The book is very outspoken and occasionally nasty, but I shouldn't call
it obscene, and the reputation of the author is your justification for
publishing it. Personally, I think the first half brilliant and the
last half tedious and unpleasant. A great many authors not nearly so
famous as Sudermann could write a somewhat bald catalogue or series of
risque episodes. It is a book, in my opinion, for the student of
literature and the mature, certainly not for the young person; but the
student, I take it, would be able to read it in the original.
I am,
Yours sincerely,
Lucy Clifford.
Windlesham,
Crowborough,
Sussex.
Dear Sir,
Many thanks. I read the book with great interest. To say it is ever
"obscene" is an abuse of words. That there are passages which are
coarse, and unnecessarily coarse, is on the other hand indisputable. I
should not like any woman under forty to read it. And yet it is not
written for the purpose of being coarse, and that is the essential
point.
Yours very truly,
A. Conan Doyle.
Max Gate,
Dorchester.
_December 15th_, 1910.
Dear Mr. Lane,
I am sorry to hear that you have been laid up with bronchitis, and hope
that you are on the way to health again.
I finished reading last night the translation of Sudermann's novel,
"Das hohe Lied," that you sent me a few days back. I am not in a
position to advise positively whether or not you should withdraw it,
but I think that, viewing it as a practical question merely, which I
imagine to be your wish, I should myself withdraw it in the
circumstances.
A translation of good literary taste might possibly have made such an
unflinching study of a woman's character acceptable in this country,
even though the character is one of a somewhat ignoble type, but
unfortunately, rendered into the rawest American, the claims that the
original (which I have not seen) no doubt had to be considered as
literature, are largely reduced, so that I question if there is value
enough left in this particular translation to make a stand for.
Believe me,
Yours very truly,
John Lane, Esq., Thomas Hardy.
The Bodley Head.
3, Fitzjohn's Mansions,
Netherhall Gardens,
Hampstead, N.W.
_December 17th_.
Dear Sir,
Many thanks for your letter and the copy of "The Song of Songs."
I read the book carefully several months ago. I consider it to be a
most wonderful book, and should deeply regret to see the work of so
great a master as Sudermann suppressed in England. It is an absorbing
psychological and physical study; and I see nothing obscene in its
frank presentment of a woman's life, given over, it is true, to
passion, and yet with a thread of finer aspiration clearly and
continuously to be traced throughout the course of her career.
I am,
Yours very truly,
Beatrice Harraden.
17, Stratton Street, W.
My Dear Lane,
I have now read the "Song of Songs." The translation is obviously an
undistinguished piece of work; and possibly it adds here and there a
coarseness which the original book is without. As to that I cannot
speak. Herr Sudermann is no doubt outspoken to the point of brutality,
but with his theme brutality is the better way. Pruriency is the bad
way; and with that he has never had anything to do. That the "Song of
Songs" might offend some people I can understand. That it would do any
harm I cannot.
Yours very sincerely,
A. E. W. Mason.
Riviera Palace Hotel,
Monte Carlo.
_December 30th_, 1910.
Dear John Lane,
Please pardon the delay. I've been seedy, and have not written a single
letter for ten days. I'm all right again, and am sending to tell you
briefly what I think of "The Song of Songs."
I can see no reason why it should be banned, tho' to my mind it is
lacking in the essentials of that Art which makes all things possible
if not expedient. There is no real tragedy in the life of a _born_
prostitute such as Lilly was, and certainly there is no comedy. There
was never for an instant a problem for her to solve, and all the effort
to present a struggle is vain and empty. She went her accustomed course
like the fly-away she was, and that is what the book shows with very
remarkable photography and in a light which reaches into every corner.
It isn't a sweet book, but _Salome_ isn't a sweet drama, and to attempt
to ban the one and let the other go is sheer stupidity and crass
prejudice. One divorce case in the grimy Weeklies is more lurid and
pornographic to the impressionable eye than all this book of masterly
observation and graphic literature. The Public must set the standard,
not the Censor, and as one of the Public I resent any attempt to
regulate my diet.
Yours truly,
Gilbert Parker.
Torquay.
_December 22nd_, 1910.
Dear John Lane,
I have read Sudermann's "Das hohe Lied" very carefully, and if I were
inclined to be flippant should say the only things obscene therein were
the Americanisms of this translation.
But in truth there is more to be said.
I consider that in spirit the book is not obscene, but inasmuch as many
of the characters are obscene, because the artist has been making a
study of certain obscene-minded human beings, then it follows that, as
a true artist, he has created an atmosphere of obscenity for those
persons to move and breathe in. You do not ask for a criticism of the
book, and I should not presume to offer it if you did (being happily
without the least itch ever to criticise anything or anybody); but upon
the one point where you invite opinion I would say the book is obscene,
as it was artistically bound to be, because it offers a picture of an
obscene corner of society--a society entirely preoccupied with the
sexual man and woman hunt. It is not obscene in the sense that many
lesser novels written in all countries are obscene.
I hope that I make the distinction clear as it exists in my mind.
Very faithfully yours,
Eden Phillpotts.
10, Adelphi Terrace, W.C.
_December 20th_, 1910.
Dear John Lane,
At your request I have read the American translation of Hermann
Sudermann's "Song of Songs." There is no reason why you should not
publish it except the risk that you may be prosecuted. But as it is
impossible for an English publisher to conduct his business without
running that risk daily, I presume you will not allow it to deter you.
The book is a fictitious biography of a _femme galante_. It is not the
sort of book that is given as a prize in a girl's school, though I am
by no means sure that it would not be more useful than many of the
books that are put to that use. It says what ought to be said about its
heroine without any of the sentimental lasciviousness and avoidance of
the unpleasant side of clandestine gallantry which makes most of our
novels so dangerous to young people. Sudermann is blunt, frank, and
contemptuous, where the English hack-writer would be furtive,
inferential, discreet, and superficially decent. He strips the romance
off Bohemianism ruthlessly, and takes care that if you are curious
about the sort of life that is open to a woman who has lost her
position in respectable society in Berlin, you shall know the truth
about it. Not that he attaches any false consequences to it for the
sake of an edifying moral. His heroine does not starve, does not
jump over the bridge, and fares better than most ugly, honest, and
hard-working women as far as her circumstances are concerned. She is
left at the end of the book in a position which many respectable
English families would be very glad to see their daughters in. The
author makes no attempt to flatter society by denying or hiding the
fact that immorality pays a penniless girl who is pretty and amiable
better than morality, and that it even leaves her a better chance of
being married than the drudgeries and disfigurements of singing The
Song of the Shirt. But that it damages her soul cruelly and incurably
he brings out mercilessly. He deliberately leads you into all sorts of
foolish sentimental sympathies with her, only in the end to bring you
the harder up against Dr. Johnson's opinion of her. She is left, as
such women often are left, with an adoring husband, a luxurious income,
and everything the most virtuous heroine could ask from British
fiction, but hopelessly damned all the same. You need not fear that
anyone who reads the book will envy her or be tempted to go and do
likewise. It is worth adding that what began the mischief with her was
having nothing readable within her reach except popular novels which
made everything that tempted her seem poetic and delightful and
honorable, and were therefore not suppressed by the censorship.
You will understand from the above account why you have been threatened
with censorial proceedings for proposing to publish this novel. Instead
of baiting the trap, it shows it to you shut, with the victim inside.
That, our library censors and their dupes will say, is disgusting.
Precisely. Do they ask Sudermann to make it attractive? The attraction
of the book lies in the interest of the picture it gives of the phase
of contemporary society with which it deals. It is full of vivid
character-sketches which not only amuse us as we read but give us a
whole social atmosphere to reflect on. If the reflections are bitter
and even terrifying, serve us right: it is not Sudermann's business to
keep us in a fool's paradise. The suppression of this book would not
only be a deliberate protection of vice--which is always best served by
turning off the light--but the reduction of every English adult to the
condition of a child under tutelage. But even if the book were as false
and mischievous as any of the romances which make the same theme
agreeable and seductive I should object to its suppression all the
same. No harm that the worst book could possibly do even if people
could be forced to read it against their wills could be as great as the
intellectual suffocation of the whole nation which a censorship
effects. If Germany may read Sudermann and we may not, then the free
adult German man will presently upset the Englishman's perambulator and
leave him to console himself as best he may with the spotlessness of
his pinafore.
Yours faithfully,
John Lane, Esq. G. Bernard Shaw.
The Bodley Head,
Vigo Street, W.
4, Edwardes Square Studios, W.
_December 13th_, 1910.
Dear Mr. Lane,
I've waited before writing to you till I had finished "The Song of
Songs."
I have read every word of it carefully, and I think it would be a
national disgrace if so fine a work of so great a master were
suppressed.
The book is powerful and sincere and absolutely moral in tendency and
intention. Of course it is a terrible subject and there are bound to be
terrible things in it, things that I, personally, dislike extremely;
but I see that none of these things are insisted on for their own sake.
None are unnecessary, except, possibly, the violent scene in
Kellermann's studio, and _that_ would not really do anybody any harm.
Judging the book as it ought to be judged--by tendency and intention--I
cannot find anything in it to which the adjective used by the
complainant could apply. It is a long and elaborate work, and the
"terrible things" are comparatively few and far between. They offend my
taste, but not my moral sense--_that_ remains appeased by the tragedy
of it all, as in "real life."
I would even say that from the point of view of morals and the
portentous young girl, the book should do good, should act as a
deterrent by its ruthless analysis of "Schwaermerei," by showing where
it leads and what it is stripped of its dangerous glamour.
Altogether I see nothing to justify complaint. As for criminal
prosecution--we are ridiculous enough, as it is, in the eyes of our
neighbours!
Faithfully yours,
May Sinclair.
17, Church Row,
Hampstead.
My Dear Lane,
I have read "The Song of Songs" very carefully. I find it unsympathetic
work; there is a harshness and hardness about Sudermann's effects that
I do not like and that reminds me of the exaggeration of wrinkles and
blemishes one finds in over-focussed photographs. None the less it is a
very sincere and able piece of literature, and I cannot understand
anyone who is not suffering from some sort of inverted sexual mania
wanting to suppress it. It deals with sexual facts very plainly but
without a suspicion of pornographic intention, it presents vicious
tendencies and their indulgence in an extremely deterrent way, and I
cannot imagine anyone not already hopelessly corrupted who could gain
any sexual excitement from reading it.
Yours very sincerely,
H. G. Wells.
Exeter.
Dear Mr. Lane,
The morality of a novel depends upon three points:--(1) Subject; (2)
Purpose; (3) Treatment as to detail.
(1). The subject of "The Song of Songs" is that of a girl ruined by an
old roue and then bandied about from man to man till every trace of
soul is gone. She has no existence apart from the lowest passion. The
book is a tremendous indictment of the idea, only now beginning to
disappear, that a woman should live for the sole purpose of gratifying
a man sexually--whether in marriage or otherwise.
(2). In aim it is certainly not impure in the sense that it paints a
career of vice as alluring. The girl is living in hell and is at times
aware of it. The sordid misery of her life is there, though--and here
Sudermann differs from English--writers she never becomes an outcast
physically. She has always a certain well-being and even beauty. The
ruin and destruction wrought is of brain and soul, a much more terrible
matter.
(3). In treatment as to detail the book stands condemned; the pictures
given are not only revolting, but painted with entirely unnecessary
fulness. There is a cruel gusto, for instance, that places the book on
a far lower level of morality than "Madame Bovary." The thought of the
novel is feeble compared with its physical atmosphere. But in the
matter of detail, on the whole the difference between English fiction
and all continental work is one purely of fashion. Our people in
English novels sin vaguely: in continental novels they sin garishly. It
is the difference between a dream and a cinematograph. But for the law
to interfere in England with books touching on vice is supremely
ridiculous, since our law, framed entirely for man's convenience and
not at all for woman's protection, is one of the greatest means by
which vice itself is kept flourishing. The farce of police supervision
and the insults of the English law sin against morality fifty times
more powerfully than any of Sudermann's novels.
My opinion is that all sane, healthy-minded women ought to read novels
like this, because they ought to know the truth, the entirely accursed
truth about these things. For the ignorance of women is the chief
reason why other women like the heroine of "The Song of Songs" are left
to rot in body and mind. It is to men that such books are injurious,
for they are so written that the vicious details strike their eye
first, and the cruel pleasure taken in them would appeal to the worst
in men. It is only women and somewhat exceptional men who would see the
horror of degradation that Sudermann depicts the heroine as enduring.
It is hell to a woman, but to the average stupid man it would simply
appear amusing.
Such books should be labelled "For Women Only." There are comparatively
few naturally vicious women, and these "The Song of Songs" won't
injure, for they are beyond that. The others will be benefited by its
knowledge. As to whether this book should have been published, I think
it is six to one and half a dozen to the other: you will enlighten
women; you may possibly injure some young men. But at the present
moment the essential thing is that women should have their eyes opened.
That is, indeed, the task of this century; the next will see the
results of it--good ones, I firmly believe.
M. P. Willcocks.
Far End,
East Preston,
Sussex.
_December 12th_, 1910.
Dear Lane,
I am very sorry to hear of your illness and of the trouble that the
police may give you. Unfortunately, I am far too busy at present to
spare time to read a book of 640 pages, and unless one read it all one
might miss the impugned passages or the other passages which justify
them. I readily, however, corroborate your view--although no
corroboration is needed--that the high position of Sudermann in
European literature must raise any work of his far above the plane of
police interference. His motives are sure to be ethical, and he must
not for a moment be confounded with those mercenary scribblers who
spice their wares for the market. Indeed, if I were a publisher, I
would never even read an MS. of Sudermann's beforehand. I should put it
into the hands of the printers in blind faith, as no doubt you have
done.
With best wishes for your rapid recovery.
Yours sincerely,
Israel Zangwill.
It will be seen that although the consensus of opinion was in favour of
the circulation of the book, yet there was a very strong objection to
the translation. I therefore wrote to Herr Sudermann as follows, at the
same time sending him copies of the correspondence--
To Hermann Sudermann, Esq.,
Berlin.
The Bodley Head,
London, W.
_February 8th_, 1911.
Dear Sir,
You will probably have heard that I have had difficulties over the
publication of "Das hohe Lied," which was translated by an American for
Mr. Huebsch, the New York publisher who has the translation rights of
your book, and from whom I bought it in sheet form for the British
market.
On December 9th, Sir Melville Macnaghten, Director of the Criminal
Investigation Department, sent two of his representatives to my office,
informing my manager, in my absence through illness, that serious
complaints had been lodged against the book as being obscene. I
immediately wrote letters to Sir Melville Macnaghten, to the
Incorporated Society of British Authors, and to our leading novelists;
and I am sending you copies of the correspondence, as I am sure that
many of the replies will give you great pleasure. I had, however, no
satisfactory answer from the Society of Authors, although one would
suppose it the duty of a properly constituted society of that nature to
defend or at any rate support your case. Had I had the least support
from them I should have defended your position with an assurance of
victory for the book, but as the matter stood I did not feel justified
in allowing your artistic reputation to be at the mercy of a British
judge and jury. The verdict might have been an insult to literature. In
any case the position would have been most undignified for an author of
your eminence.
The failure of the Authors' Society to take up your case must not be
confused with the opinions of our leading novelists, for I should
explain at once that the only qualifications for membership are the
publication of any book or even pamphlet and, of course, the
subscription of twenty-one shillings per annum. It is not therefore a
society of any distinction, though it happens to include among its
thousands of members most of the eminent writers of the day.
Our most distinguished realist novelist, Mr. George Moore, in writing
to the president of the Society on this occasion, says--
"I once belonged to the Society of Authors, but I seceded from it
because it seemed to me to have entirely dissociated itself from
literary interests; but I do think that the opportunity has come at
last for the Society of Authors to justify its existence. A better
opportunity than Sudermann's book will not be found."
After much consideration I have come to the conclusion that all
interests would be best served if you could obtain permission from Mr.
Huebsch for me to have the book retranslated by Miss Beatrice Marshall,
whose versions of "Der Katzensteg," "Es War," and "Der Taeufer" met with
your entire approval. The present translation is fraught with
Americanisms and has been made without due regard to the genius of the
two languages and the prejudices inherent in the English character.
I feel bound to give you all these particulars so that you may
appreciate my reasons for withdrawing the book in a manner least
calculated to do harm, and for appealing to you now for help to place
the book before the English public in a form which will be acceptable
to your numerous friends and admirers in this country.
Yours very truly,
John Lane.
His reply was as follows--
Mr. John Lane,
Publisher,
Vigo Street, London, W.
Dear Sir,
Please accept my sincerest thanks for your kind letter and your
detailed account of the suppression of my novel "The Song of Songs"
(Das hohe Lied). Naturally I can only look forward with pleasure to the
possibility that this work, to which I have devoted years of unwearied
artistic care, should not be lost to England, and so I gladly follow
your advice to persuade Mr. Huebsch, the American publisher, by my own
personal intervention to resign the English rights to you. I have at
the same time written to him, and I enclose a copy of this letter for
your kind consideration.
That I am heartily grateful to my English colleagues for their kind
sympathy requires no assurance on my part, but I beg you, dear sir,
when you meet one or the other of them to convey to each my feeling of
deep appreciation.
In conclusion, permit me to hope, dear sir, that your health, which at
the time you wrote was not good, has been completely restored.
With expressions of my highest esteem for your services in this matter.
Believe me,
Yours sincerely,
Hermann Sudermann.
In conclusion, I had better say that on receiving Herr Sudermann's
reply and from Mr. Huebsch his consent, I entered into negotiations
with Miss Beatrice Marshall for a new translation of the book, which is
now offered to the public with every confidence that it will meet with
a wide and enthusiastic reception. I should like too to add my thanks
to the various writers who responded to my circular letter with such
readiness and sympathy.
John Lane.
The Bodley Head,
Vigo Street, London
_1st May_, 1913.
PART I
The Song of Songs
CHAPTER I
When Lilly was just fourteen her father, Kilian Czepanek, the
music-master, suddenly disappeared. He had been giving lessons all day
as usual, cursing the heat--which was terrific--and drinking seltzer
water and moselle in the intervals. Now and then he had rushed into the
dining-room to snatch a cognac and arrange his disordered tie. He had
playfully pulled Lilly's brown, flowing curls, as she sat pondering
over her French verbs, and then vanished again into the drawing-room,
where pupils came and went and only discords and curses went on for
ever.
Contrary to his custom, he had not reappeared in a fury, with a
tremendous appetite, after his last unfortunate victim had strapped up
his portfolio and slammed the front door behind him. Instead, Czepanek
had stayed where he was. He neither whistled nor wept, nor gave vent to
his rage on the keys of the piano, as he was sometimes in the habit of
doing when the day's work was over. No sounds of any sort, except a
deep-drawn groan, proceeded from the other room.
Lilly, who was greatly interested in everything this handsome papa of
hers did or did not do, let her French grammar slide from her lap to
the floor, and crept to the keyhole. Through it she saw him standing
before the long mirror absorbed in self-contemplation. Now and again he
raised his left hand and pressed it with a gesture of despair to the
silken, dark artist locks, which mamma tended regularly every day with
bay-rum and French brilliantine.
There he stood glaring fiercely at his reflection, his cheeks flushed
and damp, his eyes rolling wildly, and Lilly's heart went out in
admiring love to her idolised papa. This was not the first time she had
seen him pose before the glass; she knew the attitude well. It was his
way of conjuring up once more the life he had missed and the loves he
had lost; that grand vanished world where all the duchesses and prima
donnas never ceased to think of their lost favourite with longing and
regret. Like an elderly Cupid he stood there, with little bags under
his eyes and a budding corpulency apparent in his person. Both mamma
and Lilly coddled and spoilt him with unremitting care and never-tiring
enthusiasm. They regarded him as some gorgeous bird of paradise, which
happy chance had captured between four walls--a bird that it was their
duty to exert strenuous efforts to keep in its cage.
Lilly, by rights, should long ago have been seated at the piano; for in
the house of Czepanek silent keys were considered a shameful waste of
time and an unpardonable sin. She had to practise four or five hours
daily. Often, when her father in the throes of creative inspiration
forgot the time allotted to his daughter's practising, she did not set
to work till nearly midnight. Then she would sit half frozen, with
heavy eyes, swaying on the music-stool till dawn. Lilly's mother had
found her many a time in the small hours, her head pillowed on her
arms, which were stretched out on the keyboard, wrapt in a profound
childish slumber. Such hardships gave Lilly a distaste for the career
of artist, for which her father's ambition destined her. She preferred,
to serious study, getting up on her own account forbidden polkas out of
old albums, the brilliant but incorrect performance of which drove her
father distracted. But this evening her lesson was to be on the Sonata
Pathetique, and that, as everyone knew, was no joke.
For this reason she was thinking of breaking in on her father's
introspective meditations, when she heard the door of the other room
open. Lilly, with a bound, deserted the keyhole and ran into her
mother, who was carrying up the supper things on a tray. The
prematurely sunken cheeks of the lady of the house were flushed from
the heat of the kitchen fire. She held her lean figure proudly erect,
and in the once beautiful eyes, which gnawing connubial disappointments
had converted into dull, restless slits, there was something like a
gleam of joy and expectancy; for to-day she entertained high hopes that
the result of her culinary skill would appeal to her husband's appetite
and put him in a good temper.
The sound of plates rattling, as the table was laid, brought papa to
the door between the two rooms, and his head, with the sunlight playing
round its halo of frizzy dark hair, appeared.
"Heavens! Supper-time already!" he exclaimed, and cast up his eyes with
a peculiarly wild expression.
"In ten minutes," replied his wife, and a smile at the thought of the
surprise dish that awaited him hovered about her dry chapped lips like
a delectable secret.
He now came into the room, and breathing deep and hard he said, with an
effort as if speaking hurt him:
"I've just been looking at my portmanteau. The strap is in two."
"Do you want your portmanteau?" asked mamma.
"It should always be ready in case of emergency," he answered, and his
eyes wandered round the room. "A man may be summoned at any moment to
this place or that, and then it's well to be prepared."
It was true that, the winter before, a Berlin pianist who had agreed to
appear on tour in the next town had been detained by the snowing up of
his train, and the committee had telegraphed to Czepanek to take his
place. But, in the height of summer, the probability of such a thing
occurring again was more than remote.
"I'll send Minna to the saddler's with it directly after supper," said
his wife, as usual taking care not to contradict her irascible husband.
He nodded a few times, lost in thought; then he went into his bedroom,
while mamma hurried to the kitchen to put the finishing touches to the
dainty dish.
A few minutes later he reappeared carrying the portmanteau, which
seemed rather full. He paused in front of the linen-press.
"I was going to try, Lilly dear," he explained, "whether the score
would fit into the bag. You see, if one had to go to rehearsals
later----"
The score of "The Song of Songs" was kept in the linen-press, being a
handy place for the family to rescue this priceless treasure in case of
a fire breaking out when papa chanced to be away.
Lilly looked round for the bunch of keys, but mamma had taken it with
her to the kitchen.
"I'll go and ask for the key," she said.
"No, no," he exclaimed hastily, and a slight shudder passed through
him.
Lilly had often noticed that he shuddered when the conversation had
anything to do with mamma.
"I'll run over to the saddler's myself."
Lilly was horrified at the idea of her famous parent going on his own
errands to a common little shop.
"Let me," she cried, reaching out her hand for the bag, with the
intention of saving him the trouble. He pushed her away.
"You are getting too old for that sort of thing now, little girl," he
said. His eyes rested with satisfaction on her tall, girlish figure,
already developing the soft rounded curves of womanhood. "You are quite
a signora."
He patted her cheek, and fidgeted a moment with the lock of the
linen-press, his lips compressed into a bitter line; then, with a
half-alarmed, half-sneering glance towards the kitchen Lilly knew that
glance too he went quickly out of the room went never to return.
* * * * *
The night that followed that rosy summer evening was never to
fade from Lilly's memory. Her mother sat by the window, in a cotton
dressing-jacket, and looked up and down the street with anxious,
feverish eyes. Every footfall on the pavement made her start up and
exclaim: "Here he comes!"
Lilly knew that it was all over with her Sonata Pathetique for this
night at least. A feeling of depression prompted her to appeal to her
dear St. Joseph, to whom she had always confided all her small troubles
since her confirmation. Many an hour had she passed in St. Ann's before
his altar, the second chapel in the right aisle, dreaming and musing,
as she gazed up into the kind old bearded face, and sighing without
reason. But now his consolation failed her utterly, and she gave up the
quest, disappointed and baffled.
The last cab was heard in the streets at midnight. At one the footsteps
of passers-by became rarer. Between two and three nothing was heard but
the shuffling footsteps of the night-watchmen echoing through the
narrow alley. At three, market waggons began to rumble, and it became
light. Between three and four Lilly made a cup of boiling hot coffee
for her mother, and herself ate up the cold supper, for which waiting
and weeping had given her a ravenous appetite.
It was nearly five when a string of belated young revellers went by,
kissing their hands to the watching woman at the window, thus forcing
her to withdraw. They then started a serenade in their pure clear
voices, which Lilly, in the midst of her trouble and anxiety,
appreciated. The singing was good, and devoid of the pedantic tricks
that her father abhorred. Probably these youths were pupils of his, who
had failed to recognise his house.
No sooner had they gone than Lilly's mother resumed her post at the
window. Lilly struggled hard not to allow herself to be overcome by
sleep. She saw as through a veil her mother's scanty fair hair ruffled
by the breeze, her sharp pointed nose--reddened by crying--turning
first to the right and then to the left at every sound, her
dressing-jacket flapping like a white flag, her thin legs crossing and
uncrossing perpetually in nervous excitement. She was told to relate
the story of the portmanteau and the linen-press for the fiftieth time,
but her eyes would not keep open. Then suddenly she sprang up with a
shrill cry. Her mother had slipped down in a dead faint, and lay like a
log on the floor.