born with that gift. But it is strange to me, I confess it, how
pathetically you sing. It is not in the music--at any rate, not in my
music. It is beyond my art and even strange to it, but it touches even
me."
And the old man shrugged his shoulders with an odd gesture, in which
something like self-contempt struggled with an unaccustomed emotion.
The girl had turned half round, and was looking at him with her bright,
yet wistful eyes.
"Never mind, Maestro," she said; "I shall love you always for your
music, in spite of your contempt of love, and your miserable, cold----"
And she gave a little shudder. She was forming, indeed, a passionate
regard for the old man, solely for the sake of his art.
It was not by any means the first time that such an event had occurred,
for unselfish love is much more common than cynical mankind believes.
IV.
THE Prince soon grew tired of Wertheim. Apart from other reasons, of
which perhaps we may learn something hereafter, he felt lost without the
accustomed _entourage_ which he had attracted to Joyeuse. The death of
Mark had made a profound impression upon his delicately strung
temperament. It disturbed the lofty serenity of his life, it shocked his
taste, it was bad art. That such a thing could have happened to him in
the very citadel and arcanum of his carefully designed existence--and
should have happened, too, as the result of his own individual purpose
and action--arrested him as with an archangel's sword; showed him
forcibly that his delicately woven mail was deficient in some important,
but as yet unperceived, point; that his fancifully conceived prince-life
was liable to sudden catastrophe. He had lived delicately, but the
bitterness of death was not passed. He left Wertheim, and, travelling
with his children and servants in several carriages and _chaises de
poste_, he journeyed to Vienna, whither the Princess had preceded him.
The Prince travelled alone in a _carrosse-coupe_, or travelling chaise,
at the head of his party. The Barotin and the children followed him in
the second carriage, which was full of toys for their entertainment; now
and again one or the other would be promoted for a stage or two to
their father's carriage, to remain there as long as they entertained
him. After a time they entered upon the flat plains of the Danube and
approached Vienna.
As they crossed the flat waste of water meadows, over the long bridges
of boats, and through the rows of poplars, a drive usually so dreary to
travellers to Vienna, the sun broke out gloriously and the afternoon
became very fine. For many miles before him, over the monotonous waste,
the great tower of St. Stephen's Church had confronted the Prince,
crowned with its gigantic eagle and surrounded by wheeling flocks of
birds--cranes and ravens and daws. Herons and storks rose now and again
from the ditches and pools by the wayside and flitted across the road.
The brilliant light shone upon the mists of the river and upon the
distant crags and woods.
The Prince was alone; the children were tired and restless from the long
journey, and were sent back to the long-suffering Barotin. He lay back
upon the rich furs which filled the carriage, and kept his eyes
listlessly fixed upon the distant tower. The descending sun lighted up
the weather-stains and the vari-coloured mosses that covered its sides;
a rainbow, thrown across the black clouds of the north and east, spanned
the heavens with a lofty arch.
The Prince gazed wearily over the striking scene. Existence appeared to
him, at the moment, extremely complicated.
"It was a terrible mistake," he said, his thoughts still running on the
old disaster; "a terrible mistake! Yet they cannot be right--Isoline and
the people with her--who talk of nothing but sacrifice and self-denial,
and denounce everything by which life is not only made endurable, but by
which, indeed, it is actually maintained in being. What would life be if
every one were as they? 'Ah!' she says, 'there is little chance of that!
So few think of aught save self! So few deny themselves for the sake of
others, you need not grudge us few our self-chosen path.' That is where
they make the fatal mistake. Each man should carve out his life, as a
whole, as though the lives of all were perfect, not as if it were a
broken fragment of a fine statue; each should be a perfect Apollo of
the Belvedere Gardens, not a mere torso; not a strong arm only that can
strike, not a finger only that can beckon--even though it be to God.
Because all cannot enjoy them, does that make assorted colour, and sweet
sound, and delicate pottery less perfect, less worthy to be sought? He
should aim at the complete life--should love, and feel, and enjoy."
The great tower rose higher and higher above the Prince as he thought
these last words aloud; the screaming kites and daws wheeled above his
head; the great eagle loomed larger and larger in the evening light.
They passed over the wide glacis, threaded the drawbridges and barriers,
and entered the tortuous narrow streets. A golden haze lighted the
crowded thoroughfares and beautified the carving and gables of the
lofty houses. A motley crowd of people, from east and west alike, in
strange variety of costume, thronged the causeways, and hardly escaped
the carriage-wheels in their reckless course. The sight roused the
Prince from his melancholy, and he gazed with an amused and even
delighted air from his carriage-windows. His nature, pleasure-loving and
imaginative, found this moving life a source of never-tiring interest
and suggestiveness. The fate, the interests, the aims, and sorrows of
every human figure that passed across his vision, even for a second,
formed itself in some infinitely slight, yet perfectly real and
tangible, degree in his mind; and he conceived the stir and tremor of a
great city's life with a perfect grasp of all the little details that
make up the dramatic, the graphic whole.
The carriage swept through the Place St. Michael, past the Imperial
Palace, and, pursuing its course through the winding streets to the
imminent peril of the populace of Croats, Servians, Germans, and a mixed
people of no nation under heaven, reached the _Hotel_ which had been
selected for the Prince in the Tein quarter.
Though this quiet quarter is in close neighbourhood to the most busy and
noisy parts of the city, the contrast was striking. The Prince saw
nothing here but quaint palaces crowded together within a space of a few
hundred yards. Here were the palaces of the Lichtensteins, the
Festetics, the Esterhazys, the Schoenbornes. Antique escutcheons were
hanging before the houses, and strange devices of the golden fleece,
and other crests and bearings were erected on the gables and roofs.
Vienna was emphatically the city of heraldry, and a tendency towards
Oriental taste in noble and burgher produced a fantastic architecture of
gables and minarets, breaking the massive lines of fortress-like
mediaeval palace and _hotel_. Here and there a carriage was standing in
the quiet street, and servants in gaudy liveries stood in the sunshine
about the steps and gates.
The next morning the Prince was seated at his toilette, in the hands of
his dresser, who was frizzling and powdering his hair. By his side was
standing his valet or body-servant, as he would be called in
England--_Chasseur_ or _Jager_, as he was called in North or South
Germany. This man was one of the most competent of his order, and
devoted to his master.
"Well, Karl," the Prince was saying, with his kindly air, "thou
breathest again here, I doubt not. This place is more to thy mind than
Joyeuse--_n'est ce pas_? There is life here and intrigue. It is better
even than Rome? Is it so?"
"Wherever the Serene Highness is," replied Karl graciously, "I am
content and happy. I was happy in Rome, in Joyeuse, at Wertheim; but I
confess that I like Wien. There is colour here, and quaintness, and
_esprit_."
Karl had picked up many art terms with the rest of the princely
household.
"Ah! Wertheim!" said the Prince, rather sadly as it seemed. "I like
Wertheim, ah! so much--for a day or two. One is so great a man there. I
know every one, and every one knows me. I feel almost like a beneficent
Providence, and as though I had discovered the perfection of art in
life. When I walk in the garden avenue after dinner, between the
statues, and every one has right of audience and petition, and one old
woman begs that her only son may be excused from military service, and
another that her stall in the market may not be taken away; and one old
man's house is burnt down, and he wants help to rebuild it, and another
craves right of wood-gathering in the princely forests, and another begs
that his son may be enrolled among the under-keepers and beaters of the
game, with right of snaring a hare,--and all these things are so easy to
grant, and seem to these poor folks so gracious, and like the gifts of
heaven, that one thinks for the moment that this must be the perfection
of life. But it palls, Karl; in a day or two it palls! The wants and
sufferings of the poor are so much alike; they want variety, they are so
deficient in shade, they are such poor art!" and the Prince sighed
wearily.
"That is natural for the Serene Highness," said Karl, with a
sympathising pity which was amusing; "that is natural to the Serene
Highness, who does not see below the surface, and to whom all speak with
bated breath. There is plenty of light and shade in the lives of the
poor, if you go deep enough."
"Ah!" said the Prince with interest, "is it so? Doubtless now, within a
few yards of us, there are art-scenes enacted, tragedies and comedies
going on, of which you know the different _roles_--one of which, maybe,
you fill yourself. Eh, Karl?"
"It is a great city, Highness," said Karl. "They are all alike, good and
ill, love and hatred, the knave and the fool. All the world over, it is
much the same."
At this moment, the hair-powdering being over, the Prince rose.
"Well," he said, "to-night the Signorina sings at the Imperial Theatre.
She and the Maestro sup with me afterwards. The Princess sups at the
Palace."
V.
IT is difficult at the present day to realise such scenes as that
presented by the Imperial Theatre during the performance that evening.
The comparative smallness of the interior and dimness of the lights,
combined with the incomparable splendour and richness in the appearance
of the audience which filled every portion of the theatre, even to the
gallery of the servants, with undiminished brilliancy, produced an
effect of subdued splendour and of a mystic glow of colour which we
should look for in vain in any theatre in Europe now.
The Empress-Queen and her husband occupied a central box, and the Court,
graduated according to rank, and radiating from this centre, filled
boxes, pit, and gallery. The Prince's box was on the royal tier, not far
from the Empress. He was accompanied by the Princess and his sister.
"I am delighted with Isoline," the Princess said; "that poor child's
death has worked wonders upon her in a way no one would have expected.
She seems to have thrown off her singular fancies, and behaves as other
people do."
"Isoline never was very easy to understand," said the Prince.
Whether or not she were inspired by the presence of the Prince, the
Signorina had never sung so wonderfully as she did that night. The
frigid silence of Imperial etiquette, so discouraging and chilling to
southern artists, gave place, now and again, to an irrepressible murmur
of emotion and applause. The passionate yearning of the purest love, the
pathos of unselfish grief, found a fit utterance in notes of an
inimitable sweetness, and in melodies whose dainty phrases were ennobled
and mellowed at once by delicate art and loftiest feeling. The house
gave way at last to an uncontrollable enthusiasm, and, regardless of
Court etiquette, the entire assembly rose to its feet amid a tumult of
applause.
Not far from the Maestro, who was conducting the music from the centre
of the orchestra, was seated Carricchio. He had, of course, discarded
his professional dress, and had attired himself, according to the
genius of his countrymen, in rich but dark and plain attire. Any one who
could have watched his face--that face which the little Schoolmaster was
used to wonder at--and could have marked the quaint mingling, on the
large worn features, of the old humorous movement with the new emotions
of wonder and of love, would not have spent his moments in vain.
But the success was too complete. The Empress-Queen was shocked at the
breach of decorum. She was not in the least touched by the Signorina's
singing, and the story of the opera was unintelligible to her. It was
suggested by those who were offended and injured by the success of the
piece, and by the displacement of other operas, that this arrangement
entailed increased expense upon the royal treasury, and, amid the
penurious and pettifogging instincts of the Court of Vienna in those
days, this was a fatal thrust. The theatre, it was said, was required
for other pieces, notably for a new opera by Metastasio himself.
"It was very beautiful, Ferdinand," said the Princess, as they left the
box; and, struck by her tone and by the unaccustomed use of his name,
the Prince looked at her with surprise, for it was years since he had
seen the sweet, softened, well-remembered look in her eyes. "I liked
that boy!"
"I will convey your approbation to the Signorina," replied the Prince;
"it will complete the triumph of the night."
"Where do you sup to-night, Ferdinand?" said the Princess.
"I--I sup in private with the Maestro and Tina," said the Prince.
"Ah!" said the Princess, still with the same wistful, unaccustomed look.
"There is a cover laid for me at the Imperial table--I must go."
It is absurd to talk of what would have happened had the threads of our
lives been woven into different tissues, else we might say that but for
that Imperial cover the issues of this story would have had a different
close.
The Maestro waited at the theatre till the Signorina had changed her
dress. When she appeared she was radiant with triumph and delight, but
the old man was sad and depressed. Some intimation of the fatal
resolution had been conveyed to him in the interval.
"What is the matter with you, Maestro?" said the girl; "you ought to be
delighted, and you look as gloomy as a ghost. What is it?"
"It is nothing," said the Maestro. "I am an old man, _mia cara_, and the
performance tires me. Let us go to the Prince."
They entered a fiacre, and were driven to the courtyard of the Prince's
_Hotel_.
The supper, though private, was luxurious, and was attended by all the
servants of the Prince. Inspired by the success of the night, the Prince
exerted himself to please; but, apart from all other circumstances, the
Signorina would have delighted any man. She was at that delightful age
when the girl is passing into the woman; she was increasing daily in
beauty, she was perfectly dressed, she was radiant that night with
happiness, and with the consciousness of success; she was touched by the
recollection of the past, and profoundly affected by the power of
expression which she had found in song; more than this--much more--she
was drawn irresistibly by a feeling of pity and sympathy towards the old
man; she could not understand his depression and gloom; she paid little
attention to the Prince, but lavished a thousand pretty arts and
delicate attentions on the vain endeavour to rouse her friend. No other
conduct could have rendered her so attractive in the eyes of the Prince.
To his refined and really high-toned taste, this pretty devotedness,
this manifestly pure affection and gratitude, as of a daughter,
commended by such loveliness and vivacity, were irresistible. It was
exactly that combination of pathos and grace and art that suited his
cultured fancy and the long habit of his trained life. He was
inexpressibly delighted and happy. Forgetful of past mistake and
misfortune, he congratulated himself on his success in attaching to his
person and family so lively and dulcet a creature. His scheme of life
seemed complete and authorised to his conscience by success.
Once more he uttered the fatal words, "_I will have_ this girl."
"You are the happiest man I know, Maestro," he said; "you are truly a
creative artist, for you not only create melodious sounds and
spirit-stirring ideas, but you actually create flesh and blood sirens
and human creatures as lovely as your sounds, and far more real. The
Signorina is your work, and see, as is natural, how devoted she is to
her maker."
"Every one thinks others happier than himself, Prince," said the old
man, still gloomy. "As for the Signorina, she has much more made me than
I her. I shall only injure and cripple her."
The girl looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"The Maestro is not well," she said to the Prince; "he will be more
cheerful to-morrow. Success frightens him. It is often more terrible
than failure."
"He fears that you will forsake him, when you are courted and praised so
much," said the Prince in a low voice, for the old man seemed scarcely
to notice what passed; "he fears you will forsake him," and as he spoke
the Prince kept his eyes fixed inquiringly on the girl's face.
The Signorina said nothing. She turned her dark great eyes full on the
old man, and the Prince wanted no more than what the eyes told him.
"She is a glorious creature," he said to himself.
VI.
THE next morning the crash came. The Maestro was informed that only one
more performance could be allowed at the Imperial Theatre, and that,
further, there were difficulties in the way of the performance being
permitted in any theatre in Vienna. The old man was crushed: he came to
the Signorina with the notice in his hand.
"_Mia cara_," he said, making great efforts to be calm, "this is the
end. I am a broken and a ruined man. I have been all my life waiting for
this chance--this gift of inspiration. I thought that it would never
come; it tarried so long, and I grew so old. At last it came, but only
just in time. I have never written anything like this music, and never
shall again. Now it is stopped. I must go. I cannot stay where it must
not be played; I must go somewhere, and take my music with me. It will
not be for long. The Prince will not leave Vienna. He is pleased with
the city and with his reception. I must leave you all."
The girl was on her feet before him, with flashing eyes which were full
of tears.
"Maestro!" she said; "what mean you to talk in this way? Do you suppose
that I will ever leave you, that I will stay if you go? I owe everything
to you. I cannot sing without you. I will follow you to
Paris--anywhere. Whatever fortune awaits you shall await us both."
"Ah, Tina," said the old man, "you are very good, but you mistake. I am
not the great master you suppose. I know it too well. There is always
something wanting in my notes. When you sing them, well and good. Even
as they are they never would have been scored but for you. When I leave
you the glamour will be taken out of them. They will be cold and dead:
no one will think anything of them any more."
"If this be true," said the girl, almost fiercely, "it is all the more
reason why I will never leave you! You have made me, as the Prince said;
I am yours for life. Wherever you go I will go; whatever you write I
will sing. If we fail, we fail together. If we succeed, the success is
yours."
She paused for a moment, and then, with a deeper flush and a tender
confidence which seemed inspired:
"And we shall succeed! I have not yet sung my best. I, too, know it. You
have not yet made me all you may. Whatever you teach me I will sing!"
The old man looked at her, as well he might, deeply moved, but he shook
his head.
"Tina," he said, "I will not have it. You must not be ruined for me. You
must not go. Other masters, greater than I, will finish what it is my
happiness to have begun. The world will ring with your name. Art will be
enriched with your glorious singing. I shall hear of it before I die.
The old Maestro will say, 'Ah, that is the girl whom I taught.'"
The girl was standing now quite calm, all trace of emotion even had past
away. She looked at him with a serene smile that was sublime in its
rest. It was not worth while even to say a word.
* * * * *
The decision of the Maestro and the Signorina filled the princely
household with distress. Tina had been, at Joyeuse, the light and joy of
a joyful place; and, although the household saw much less of her at
Vienna, yet the charm of her presence and of her triumphs was still
their own. The Prince heard the news with absolute dismay. It was not
only that he had begun to love the girl, he conceived that she belonged
to him of right. The Maestro was his; he had assisted, maintained, and
patronised him; by his encouragement and in his service he had
discovered the girl and trained her in music. They were both part of his
scheme, of his art of life. It was bad, doubtless, that, when he had
attempted still higher flights, when he had wished to bring, and, as he
had once thought, succeeded in bringing, religion, faith, and piety,
with all their delicate loveliness, to grace the abundance of his life's
feast--it was bad, doubtless, that, at the moment of success, a terrible
catastrophe should have cruelly broken this lovely plaything, and left
him with a haunting conscience as of well-nigh a deliberate murderer.
All this was bad, but now he seemed about to fail, not only in these
original and high efforts, which perhaps had never been attempted
before, but in the simplest schemes of art; and to fail, to be foiled by
the perversity of a girl! He had great influence in Vienna; he doubted
not but that he could soon overcome the opposition of interested rivals,
or, if not exactly this, there were other masters besides this one,
there was other music for the Signorina to sing. He believed with him
that her future would be brilliant, and he considered himself the
rightful possessor of her triumph and of her charm. He imperiously
ordered the Maestro to remain.
The old man begged to be excused.
He was old and broken down, he said; he had taught the Signorina all he
knew. Henceforward he must pass her on to abler teachers. It was no wish
of his that she should accompany him, he had urged her to remain.
In truth, as was not wonderful, his whole heart was in this last music
of his; as a matter of selfish pride and enjoyment even, apart from his
narrow, though to some extent real, conceptions of art, he must hear it
again performed in a great theatre, and that soon.
The vexation of the Prince became excessive. He lost his habitual ease
and serenity of tone. He sent for Carricchio.
The Princess Isoline was with him.
"Let the girl go, Ferdinand," she was saying. "Let her go for a time.
She will improve by travel, and by singing in other cities. She is of a
grateful and affectionate nature; be sure that she will never forget
you: she will return when you send for her."
Then, as Carricchio was announced, the Princess rose and left the room.
"Carricchio," said the Prince impetuously, "you must stop this nonsense
of the Banti's leaving Vienna. If the Maestro chooses to stay, well and
good. If he chooses to go, also good. He will be a stupid old fool! But
it is his own business. I have nothing to do with it; but Tina shall not
go. She belongs to me. I will not have it. You have influence with her,
and must stop it."
"Highness," said Carricchio, "she will not go for long. The Maestro is
old and broken; he will be helpless among strangers, hostile or
indifferent. She will be friendless; she will be glad to come back;"
and there passed over Carricchio's face an unconscious habitual grimace.
"I tell you," said the Prince, "she shall not go at all. She belongs to
me: voice and body and soul, she belongs to me."
He was flushed with excitement. In spite of the habitual dignity of
manner and of gesture which he could not wholly lose, his appearance, as
he stood in the centre of the room before Carricchio, was so strange, so
different from its usual lofty quiet, that the latter looked at him with
surprise, and even apprehension.
"_Mon Prince_," he said at last, "beware! Take the warning of an old
man. Let her alone. God warns every man once--sometimes twice--seldom a
third time. My Prince, let her alone!"