“THE Golden Star,” Homburg, was a humble hotel, not used by gay gamblers,
but by modest travelers.
At two o'clock, one fine day in June, there were two strangers in the
_salle a' manger,_ seated at small tables a long way apart, and wholly
absorbed in their own business.
One was a lady about twenty-four years old, who, in the present repose of
her features, looked comely, sedate, and womanly, but not the remarkable
person she really was. Her forehead high and white, but a little broader
than sculptors affect; her long hair, coiled tight, in a great many
smooth snakes, upon her snowy nape, was almost flaxen, yet her eyebrows
and long lashes not pale but a reddish brown; her gray eyes large and
profound; her mouth rather large, beautifully shaped, amiable, and
expressive, but full of resolution; her chin a little broad; her neck and
hands admirably white and polished. She was an Anglo-Dane--her father
English.
If you ask me what she was doing, why--hunting; and had been, for some
days, in all the inns of Homburg. She had the visitors' book, and was
going through the names of the whole year, and studying each to see
whether it looked real or assumed. Interspersed were flippant comments,
and verses adapted to draw a smile of amusement or contempt; but this
hunter passed them all over as nullities: the steady pose of her head,
the glint of her deep eye, and the set of her fine lips showed a soul not
to be diverted from its object.
The traveler at her back had a map of the district and blank telegrams,
one of which he filled in every now and then, and scribbled a hasty
letter to the same address. He was a sharp-faced middle-aged man of
business; Joseph Ashmead, operatic and theatrical agent--at his wits'
end; a female singer at the Homburg Opera had fallen really ill; he was
commissioned to replace her, and had only thirty hours to do it in. So he
was hunting a singer. What the lady was hunting can never be known,
unless she should choose to reveal it.
Karl, the waiter, felt bound to rouse these abstracted guests, and
stimulate their appetites. He affected, therefore, to look on them as
people who had not yet breakfasted, and tripped up to Mr. Ashmead with a
bill of fare, rather scanty.
The busiest Englishman can eat, and Ashmead had no objection to snatch a
mouthful; he gave his order in German with an English accent. But the
lady, when appealed to, said softly, in pure German, “I will wait for the
_table-d'hote.”_
“The _table-d'hote!_ It wants four hours to that.”
The lady looked Karl full in the face, and said, slowly, and very
distinctly, “Then, I--will--wait--four--hours.”
These simple words, articulated firmly, and in a contralto voice of
singular volume and sweetness, sent Karl skipping; but their effect on
Mr. Ashmead was more remarkable. He started up from his chair with an
exclamation, and bent his eyes eagerly on the melodious speaker. He could
only see her back hair and her figure; but, apparently, this quick-eared
gentleman had also quick eyes, for he said aloud, in English, “Her hair,
too--it must be;” and he came hurriedly toward her. She caught a word or
two, and turned and saw him. “Ah!” said she, and rose; but the points of
her fingers still rested on the book.
“It is!” cried Ashmead. “It is!”
“Yes, Mr. Ashmead,” said the lady, coloring a little, but in pure
English, and with a composure not easily disturbed; “it is Ina Klosking.”
“What a pleasure,” cried Ashmead; and what a surprise! Ah, madam, I never
hoped to see you again. When I heard you had left the Munich Opera so
sudden, I said, 'There goes one more bright star quenched forever.' And
you to desert us--you, the risingest singer in Germany!”
“Mr. Ashmead!”
“You can't deny it. You know you were.”
The lady, thus made her own judge, seemed to reflect a moment, and said,
“I was a well-grounded musician, thanks to my parents; I was a very
hard-working singer; and I had the advantage of being supported, in my
early career, by a gentleman of judgment and spirit, who was a manager at
first, and brought me forward, afterward a popular agent, and talked
managers into a good opinion of me.”
“Ah, madam,” said Ashmead, tenderly, “it is a great pleasure to hear this
from you, and spoken with that mellow voice which would charm a
rattlesnake; but what would my zeal and devotion have availed if you had
not been a born singer?”
“Why--yes,” said Ina, thoughtfully; “I was a singer.” But she seemed to
say this not as a thing to be proud of, but only because it happened to
be true; and, indeed, it was a peculiarity of this woman that she
appeared nearly always to think--if but for half a moment--before she
spoke, and to say things, whether about herself or others, only because
they were the truth. The reader who shall condescend to bear this in mind
will possess some little clew to the color and effect of her words as
spoken. Often, where they seem simple and commonplace--on paper, they
were weighty by their extraordinary air of truthfulness as well as by the
deep music of her mellow, bell-like voice.
“Oh, you do admit that,” said Mr. Ashmead, with a chuckle; “then why jump
off the ladder so near the top? Oh, of course I know--the old story--but
you might give twenty-two hours to love, and still spare a couple to
music.”
“That seems a reasonable division,” said Ina, naively. “But”
(apologetically) “he was jealous.”
“Jealous!--more shame for him. I'm sure no lady in public life was ever
more discreet.”
“No, no; he was only jealous of the public.”
“And what had the poor public done?”
“Absorbed me, he said.”
“Why, he could take you to the opera, and take you home from the opera,
and, during the opera, he could make one of the public, and applaud you
as loud as the best.”
“Yes, but rehearsals!--and--embracing the tenor.”
“Well, but only on the stage?”
“Oh, Mr. Ashmead, where else does one embrace the tenor?”
“And was that a grievance? Why, I'd embrace fifty tenors--if I was paid
proportionable.”
“Yes; but he said I embraced one poor stick, with a fervor--an
_abandon_--Well, I dare say I did; for, if they had put a gate-post in
the middle of the stage, and it was in my part to embrace the thing, I
should have done it honestly, for love of my art, and not of a post. The
next time I had to embrace the poor stick it was all I could do not to
pinch him savagely.”
“And turn him to a counter-tenor--make him squeak.”
Ina Klosking smiled for the first time. Ashmead, too, chuckled at his own
wit, but turned suddenly grave the next moment, and moralized. He
pronounced it desirable, for the interests of mankind, that a great and
rising singer should not love out of the business; outsiders were
wrong-headed and absurd, and did not understand the true artist. However,
having discoursed for some time in this strain, he began to fear it might
be unpalatable to her; so he stopped abruptly, and said, “But there--what
is done is done. We must make the best of it; and you mustn't think I
meant to run _him_ down. He loves you, in his way. He must be a noble
fellow, or he never could have won such a heart as yours. He won't be
jealous of an old fellow like me, though I love you, too, in my humdrum
way, and always did. You must do me the honor to present me to him at
once.”
Ina stared at him, but said nothing.
“Oh,” continued Ashmead, “I shall be busy till evening; but I will ask
him and you to dine with me at the Kursaal, and then adjourn to the Royal
Box. You are a queen of song, and that is where you and he shall sit, and
nowhere else.”
Ina Klosking was changing color all this time, and cast a grateful but
troubled look on him. “My kind, old faithful friend!” said she, then
shook her head. “No, we are not to dine with you; nor sit together at the
opera, in Homburg.”
Ashmead looked a little chagrined. “So be it,” he said dryly. “But at
least introduce me to him. I'll try and overcome his prejudices.”
“It is not even in my power to do that.”
“Oh, I see. I'm not good enough for him,” said Ashmead, bitterly.
“You do yourself injustice, and him too,” said Ina, courteously.
“Well, then?”
“My friend,” said she, deprecatingly, “he is not here.”
“Not here? That is odd. Well, then, you will be dull till he comes back.
Come without him; at all events, to the opera.”
She turned her tortured eyes away. “I have not the heart.”
This made Ashmead look at her more attentively. “Why, what is the
matter?” said he. “You are in trouble. I declare you are trembling, and
your eyes are filling. My poor lady--in Heaven's name, what is the
matter?”
“Hush!” said Ina; “not so loud.” Then she looked him in the face a little
while, blushed, hesitated, faltered, and at last laid one white hand upon
her bosom, that was beginning to heave, and said, with patient dignity,
“My old friend--I--am--deserted.”
Ashmead looked at her with amazement and incredulity. “Deserted!” said
he, faintly. “You--deserted!!!”
“Yes,” said she, “deserted; but perhaps not forever.” Her noble eyes
filled to the brim, and two tears stood ready to run over.
“Why, the man must be an idiot!” shouted Ashmead.
“Hush! not so loud. That waiter is listening: let me come to your table.”
She came and sat down at his table, and he sat opposite her. They looked
at each other. He waited for her to speak. With all her fortitude, her
voice faltered, under the eye of sympathy. “You are my old friend,” she
said. “I'll try and tell you all.” But she could not all in a moment, and
the two tears trickled over and ran down her cheeks; Ashmead saw them,
and burst out, “The villain!--the villain!”
“No, no,” said she, “do not call him that. I could not bear it. Believe
me, he is no villain.” Then she dried her eyes, and said, resolutely, “If
I am to tell you, you must not apply harsh words to him. They would close
my mouth at once, and close my heart.”
“I won't say a word,” said Ashmead, submissively; “so tell me all.”
Ina reflected a moment, and then told her tale. Dealing now with longer
sentences, she betrayed her foreign half.
“Being alone so long,” said she, “has made me reflect more than in all my
life before, and I now understand many things that, at the time, I could
not. He to whom I have given my love, and resigned the art in which I was
advancing--with your assistance--is, by nature, impetuous and inconstant.
He was born so, and I the opposite. His love for me was too violent to
last forever in any man, and it soon cooled in him, because he is
inconstant by nature. He was jealous of the public: he must have all my
heart, and all my time, and so he wore his own passion out. Then his
great restlessness, having now no chain, became too strong for our
happiness. He pined for change, as some wanderers pine for a fixed home.
Is it not strange? I, a child of the theater, am at heart domestic. He, a
gentleman and a scholar, born, bred, and fitted to adorn the best
society, is by nature a Bohemian.
“One word: is there another woman?”
“No, not that I know of; Heaven forbid!” said Ina. “But there is
something very dreadful: there is gambling. He has a passion for it, and
I fear I wearied him by my remonstrances. He dragged me about from one
gambling-place to another, and I saw that if I resisted he would go
without me. He lost a fortune while we were together, and I do really
believe he is ruined, poor dear.”
Ashmead suppressed all signs of ill-temper, and asked, grimly, “Did he
quarrel with you, then?”
“Oh, no; he never said an unkind word to me; and I was not always so
forbearing, for I passed months of torment. I saw that affection, which
was my all, gliding gradually away from me; and the tortured will cry
out. I am not an ungoverned woman, but sometimes the agony was
intolerable, and I complained. Well, that agony, I long for it back; for
now I am desolate.”
“Poor soul! How could a man have the heart to leave you? how could he
have the face?”
“Oh, he did not do it shamelessly. He left me for a week, to visit
friends in England. But he wrote to me from London. He had left me at
Berlin. He said that he did not like to tell me before parting, but I
must not expect to see him for six weeks; and he desired me to go to my
mother in Denmark. He would send his next letter to me there. Ah! he knew
I should need my mother when his second letter came. He had planned it
all, that the blow might not kill me. He wrote to tell me he was a ruined
man, and he was too proud to let me support him: he begged my pardon for
his love, for his desertion, for ever having crossed my brilliant path
like a dark cloud. He praised me, he thanked me, he blessed me; but he
left me. It was a beautiful letter, but it was the death-warrant of my
heart. I was abandoned.”
Ashmead started up and walked very briskly, with a great appearance of
business requiring vast dispatch, to the other end of the _salle;_ and
there, being out of Ina's hearing, he spoke his mind to a candlestick
with three branches. “D--n him! Heartless, sentimental scoundrel! D--n
him! D--n him!”
Having relieved his mind with this pious ejaculation, he returned to Ina
at a reasonable pace and much relieved, and was now enabled to say,
cheerfully, “Let us take a business view of it. He is gone--gone of his
own accord. Give him your blessing--I have given him mine--and forget
him.”
“Forget him! Never while I live. Is that your advice? Oh, Mr. Ashmead!
And the moment I saw your friendly face, I said to myself, 'I am no
longer alone: here is one that will help me.'”
“And so I will, you may be sure of that,” said Ashmead, eagerly. “What is
the business?”
“The business is to find him. That is the first thing.”
“But he is in England.”
“Oh, no; that was eight months ago. He could not stay eight months in any
country; besides, there are no gambling-houses there.”
“And have you been eight months searching Europe for this madman?”
“No. At first pride and anger were strong, and I said, 'Here I stay till
he comes back to me and to his senses.'”
“Brava!”
“Yes; but month after month went by, carrying away my pride and my anger,
and leaving my affection undiminished. At last I could bear it no longer;
so, as he would not come to his senses--”
“You took leave of yours, and came out on a wild-goose chase,” said
Ashmead, but too regretfully to affront her.
“It _was,”_ said Ina; “I feel it. But it is not one _now,_ because I have
_you_ to assist me with your experience and ability. You will find him
for me, somehow or other. I know you will.”
Let a woman have ever so little guile, she must have tact, if she is a
true woman. Now, tact, if its etymology is to be trusted, implies a fine
sense and power of touch; so, in virtue of her sex, she pats a horse
before she rides him, and a man before she drives him. There, ladies,
there is an indictment in two counts; traverse either of them if you can.
Joseph Ashmead, thus delicately but effectually manipulated, swelled with
gratified vanity and said, “You are quite right; you can't do this sort
of thing yourself; you want an agent.”
“Of course I do.”
“Well, you have got one. Now let me see--fifty to one he is not at
Homburg at all. If he is, he most likely stays at Frankfort. He is a
swell, is he not?”
“Swell!” said the Anglo-Dane, puzzled. “Not that I am aware of.” She was
strictly on her guard against vituperation of her beloved scamp.
“Pooh, pooh!” said Ashmead; “of course he is, and not the sort to lodge
in Homburg.”
“Then behold my incompetence!” said Ina.
“But _the_ place to look for him is the gambling-saloon. Been there?”
“Oh, no.”
“Then you must.”
“What! Me! Alone?”
“No; with your agent.”
“Oh, my friend; I said you would find him.”
“What a woman! She will have it he is in Homburg. And suppose we do find
him, and you should not be welcome?”
“I shall not be unwelcome. _I shall be a change.”_
“Shall I tell you how to draw him to Homburg, wherever he is?” said
Ashmead, very demurely.
“Yes, tell me that.”
“And do _me_ a good turn into the bargain.”
“Is it possible? Can I be so fortunate?”
“Yes; and _as you say,_ it _is_ a slice of luck to be able to kill two
birds with one stone. Why, consider--the way to recover a man is not to
run after him, but to make him run to you. It is like catching moths; you
don't run out into the garden after them; you light the candle and open
the window, and _they_ do the rest--as he will.”
“Yes, yes; but what am I to do for _you?”_ asked Ina, getting a little
uneasy and suspicious.
“What! didn't I tell you?” said Ashmead, with cool effrontery. “Why, only
to sing for me in this little opera, that is all.” And he put his hands
in his pockets, and awaited thunder-claps.
“Oh, that is all, is it?” said Ina, panting a little, and turning two
great, reproachful eyes on him.
“That is all,” said he, stoutly. “Why, what attracted him at first?
Wasn't it your singing, the admiration of the public, the bouquets and
bravas? What caught the moth once will catch it again 'moping' won't. And
surely you will not refuse to draw him, merely because you can pull me
out of a fix into the bargain. Look here, I have undertaken to find a
singer by to-morrow night; and what chance is there of my getting even a
third-rate one? Why, the very hour I have spent so agreeably, talking to
you, has diminished my chance.”
“Oh!” said Ina, “this is _driving_ me into your net.”
“I own it,” said Joseph, cheerfully; “I'm quite unscrupulous, because I
know you will thank me afterward.”
“The very idea of going back to the stage makes me tremble,” said Ina.
“Of course it does; and those who tremble succeed. In a long experience I
never knew an instance to the contrary. It is the conceited fools, who
feel safe, that are in danger.”
“What is the part?”
“One you know--Siebel in 'Faust,' with two new songs.”
“Excuse me, I do not know it.”
“Why, everybody knows it.”
“You mean everybody has heard it sung. I know neither the music nor the
words, and I cannot sing incorrectly even for you.”
“Oh, you can master the airs in a day, and the cackle in half an hour.”
“I am not so expeditious. If you are serious, get me the book--oh! he
calls the poet's words the cackle--and the music of the part directly,
and borrow me the score.”
“Borrow you the score! Ah! that shows the school you were bred in. I gaze
at you with admiration.”
“Then please don't, for we have not a moment to waste. You have terrified
me out of my senses. Fly!”
“Yes; but before I fly, there is something to be settled--salary!”
“As much as they will give.”
“Of course; but give me a hint.”
“No, no; you will get me some money, for I am poor. I gave all my savings
to my dear mother, and settled her on a farm in dear old Denmark. But I
really sing for _you_ more than for Homburg, so make no difficulties.
Above all, do not discuss salary with me. Settle it and draw it for me,
and let me hear no more about that. I am on thorns.”
He soon found the director, and told him, excitedly, there was a way out
of his present difficulty. Ina Klosking was in the town. He had implored
her to return to the opera. She had refused at first; but he had used all
his influence with her, and at last had obtained a half promise on
conditions--a two months' engagement; certain parts, which he specified
out of his own head; salary, a hundred thalers per night, and a half
clear benefit on her last appearance.
The director demurred to the salary.
Ashmead said he was mad: she was the German Alboni; her low notes like a
trumpet, and the compass of a mezzo-soprano besides.
The director yielded, and drew up the engagement in duplicate. Ashmead
then borrowed the music and came back to the inn triumphant. He waved the
agreement over his head, then submitted it to her. She glanced at it,
made a wry face, and said, “Two months! I never dreamed of such a thing.”
“Not worth your while to do it for less,” said Ashmead. “Come,” said he,
authoritatively, “you have got a good bargain every way; so sign.”
She lifted her head high, and looked at him like a lioness, at being
ordered.
Ashmead replied by putting the paper before her and giving her the pen.
She cast one more reproachful glance, then signed like a lamb.
“Now,” said she, turning fretful, “I want a piano.”
“You shall have one,” said he coaxingly. He went to the landlord and
inquired if there was a piano in the house.
“Yes, there is one,” said he.
“And it is mine,” said a sharp female voice.
“May I beg the use of it?”
“No,” said the lady, a tall, bony spinster. “I cannot have it strummed on
and put out of tune by everybody.”
“But this is not everybody. The lady I want it for is a professional
musician. Top of the tree.”
“The hardest strummers going.”
“But, mademoiselle, this lady is going to sing at the opera. She _must_
study. She _must_ have a piano.
“But [grimly] she need not have mine.
“Then she must leave the hotel.”
“Oh [haughtily], _that_ is as she pleases.”
Ashmead went to Ina Klosking in a rage and told her all this, and said he
would take her to another hotel kept by a Frenchman: these Germans were
bears. But Ina Klosking just shrugged her shoulders, and said, “Take me
to her.”
He did so; and she said, in German, “Madam, I can quite understand your
reluctance to have your piano strummed. But as your hotel is quiet and
respectable, and I am unwilling to leave it, will you permit me to play
to you? and then you shall decide whether I am worthy to stay or not.”
The spinster drank those mellow accents, colored a little, looked keenly
at the speaker, and, after a moment's reflection, said, half sullenly,
“No, madam, you are polite. I must risk my poor piano. Be pleased to come
with me.”
She then conducted them to a large, unoccupied room on the first-floor,
and unlocked the piano, a very fine one, and in perfect tune.
Ina sat down, and performed a composition then in vogue.
“You play correctly, madam,” said the spinster; “but your music--what
stuff! Such things are null. They vex the ear a little, but they never
reach the mind.”
Ashmead was wroth, and could hardly contain himself; but the Klosking was
amused, and rather pleased. “Mademoiselle has positive tastes in music,”
said she; “all the better.”
“Yes,” said the spinster, “most music is mere noise. I hate and despise
forty-nine compositions out of fifty; but the fiftieth I adore. Give me
something simple, with a little soul in it--if you can.”
Ina Klosking looked at her, and observed her age and her dress, the
latter old-fashioned. She said, quietly, “Will mademoiselle do me the
honor to stand before me? I will sing her a trifle my mother taught me.”
The spinster complied, and stood erect and stiff, with her arms folded.
Ina fixed her deep eyes on her, playing a liquid prelude all the time,
then swelled her chest and sung the old Venetian cauzonet, “Il pescatore
de'll' onda.” It is a small thing, but there is no limit to the genius of
song. The Klosking sung this trifle with a voice so grand, sonorous, and
sweet, and, above all, with such feeling, taste, and purity, that somehow
she transported her hearers to Venetian waters, moonlit, and thrilled
them to the heart, while the great glass chandelier kept ringing very
audibly, so true, massive, and vibrating were her tones in that large,
empty room.
At the first verse that cross-grained spinster, with real likes and
dislikes, put a bony hand quietly before her eyes. At the last, she made
three strides, as a soldier marches, and fell all of a piece, like a
wooden _mannequin,_ on the singer's neck. “Take my piano,” she sobbed,
“for you have taken the heart out of my body.”
Ina returned her embrace, and did not conceal her pleasure. “I am very
proud of such a conquest,” said she.
From that hour Ina was the landlady's pet. The room and piano were made
over to her, and, being in a great fright at what she had undertaken, she
studied and practiced her part night and day. She made Ashmead call a
rehearsal next day, and she came home from it wretched and almost
hysterical.
She summoned her slave Ashmead; he stood before her with an air of
hypocritical submission.
“The Flute was not at rehearsal, sir,” said she, severely, “nor the Oboe,
nor the Violoncello.”
“Just like 'em,” said Ashmead, tranquilly.
“The tenor is a quavering stick. He is one of those who think that an
unmanly trembling of the voice represents every manly passion.”
“Their name is legion.”
“The soprano is insipid. And they are all imperfect--contentedly
imperfect, How can people sing incorrectly? It is like lying.”
“That is what makes it so common--he! he!”
“I do not desire wit, but consolation. I believe you are Mephistopheles
himself in disguise; for ever since I signed that diabolical compact you
made me, I have been in a state of terror, agitation, misgiving, and
misery--and I thank and bless you for it; for these thorns and nettles
they lacerate me, and make me live. They break the dull, lethargic agony
of utter desolation.”
Then, as her nerves were female nerves, and her fortitude female
fortitude, she gave way, for once, and began to cry patiently.
Ashmead the practical went softly away and left her, as we must leave her
for a time, to battle her business with one hand and her sorrow with the
other.