He raised her on his knees. They did not speak another word. Through
the garden at their feet the birches rustled in the mild night breeze,
and from the distance one heard the sad voice of a marsh bird, who with
heavy beating wings flew to the neighboring pond.
The most beautiful love will always be that which has been sanctified
by a great compassion. In that mild summer night, while all around them
was fragrance and veiled light, Natalie's love had received its
consecration.
* * * * *
Three, four years passed; a second little child lay in the pretty,
veiled cradle, from which little Nikolai first made his solemn
observation of the world--a dear little plump maiden, whom they
baptized Mascha, after the grandmother, and whom Boris particularly
idolized. There was still nothing to report of Natalie's married life
but love, happiness, and beauty. Lensky kept every unpleasant
impression far from her, surrounded her with the most touching care,
overwhelmed her with the most poetic attentions. Her life at his side
unrolled itself like a long, secret, passionate love-poem.
Natalie's family had reconciled themselves to her marriage. Even for
the wise and arrogant Sergei Alexandrovitch it had the appearance that
he had been mistaken in his discouraging prediction, as happens even to
the wisest men, if with their predictions they have only the sober
probability in view, without thinking of the possibility of some
underlying miracle. After four years of married life Natalie was as
happy as a bride.
Still, Lensky's happiness was not as unclouded as that of his wife. A
great unpleasantness became ever more significant to him, the quite
universal coldness of his artistic relations.
It would be wrong to believe that Natalie, with systematic jealousy,
had wished to estrange him from the world of artists. On the contrary,
she had complied with his wish to make her acquainted with his
colleagues and their families, had herself asked it of him,
flatteringly.
The world of artists interested her. There, everything was more
animated, more meaning, than the eternal sameness of good society which
she knew by heart, quite by heart, she assured him tenderly. She made
it her ambition to win his acquaintances for hers. But strangely
enough, in spite of all her seductive loveliness, she succeeded only
very incompletely.
She had already known the _elite_ among the artists. There is nothing
further to be said of her relations with these favored of the gods,
exceptional existences, than that she always felt honored by
intercourse with them, and pleased, and that, when with them she ever
vexed herself over the worn-out old commonplace, that one should avoid
the acquaintance of famous men in order to prevent disappointment--a
commonplace which was probably invented for the consolation of those
who, in advance, are excluded from intercourse with celebrities. That
Natalie always succeeded in winning the sympathies of these exceptional
natures stands for itself.
But when it was a question of that great crowd of artists, of the
mixture of sickly vanity, embarrassed affairs, depressing relations,
etc., then it was hard to build up a friendship between Lensky's wife
and his old colleagues.
Envy of Lensky, envy which had reference largely to his artistic
results, and in a less degree to his marriage and social position,
peeped out everywhere from these people, and had its own results in
soon completely embittering the not very pleasant relations between
them and Natalie.
In a truly friendly, touchingly friendly manner, they only met her in
quite modestly circumstanced families--families of a few true artists
who yet could accomplish nothing with their work but to honestly and
poorly provide for their seven or eight children. Families of simple
people, who had formerly been good to Lensky in the difficult beginning
of his career, and to whom he always showed the most faithful
adherence, the most prodigal generosity. She also felt happy among
these plain people.
What wonder that these people would all have gone through fire for him!
They would also have all given of their best for Natalie, whom without
envy they worshipped with enthusiasm as a queen. They rejoiced that
Lensky, their pride, their idol, possessed such a beautiful and
distinguished wife--in their eyes the daughter of the emperor would not
have been too good for him.
Natalie thanked them for their great attachment, as well as she could;
she reckoned it a special favor to receive these modest people in her
home, to invite them with their wives and children, to entertain them
with distinction, to stuff all the children's pockets full of bonbons,
and give them little parting presents.
But intercourse with these poor devils was in reality only a
sentimental game, even as intercourse with the artistic _elite_ was
nothing but an ideal recreation. Neither the one nor the other sufficed
to firmly knit the band between Lensky's wife and his former world, or
to keep up his popularity in that world.
* * * * *
Of all the opposition and difficulty which would arise therefrom for
Lensky's future and especially for his yet to be won future as
composer, Natalie still suspected nothing. For her, the whole heaven
was still blue.
Then the first deep shadow fell on her happiness. Lensky, to whom every
long separation from her was unbearable, when he undertook a long tour
through central Europe, in spite of her express request, could not
resolve to leave her behind with the children, in St. Petersburg. The
little children were left under the care of their grandmother.
For the first time, Natalie was no amusing, but a dull and nervous,
travelling companion. An unbearable anxiety followed her like a
foreboding. All his attempts to console her were in vain.
In Dusseldorf, she received, by telegraph, the news that little Mascha
was ill with diphtheria. When she arrived in Petersburg, half dead from
anxiety and breathless haste, the child lay in her coffin.
He was almost as desperate as she. He overwhelmed himself with
self-reproaches;--who knows, if they had watched the child better, if
they had thought of this or that in caring for it.... What torment, to
be obliged to say that to one's self! A reproach never passed her lips,
she even concealed her tears lest they should sadden him. But from that
unhappiness on, something in her formerly so elastic nature, so capable
of resistance, was broken forever. The first jubilant time of their
marriage was at an end.
* * * * *
Together with the evermore unpleasant friction with his colleagues, and
the great pain for his lost child, still another worry announced itself
to Lensky--something gnawing, and incessantly tormenting: a daily
increasing money embarrassment. Natalie decidedly spent too much, but
quite naively, with the firm conviction that she could not exist more
economically; wherefore it was doubly hard for him to be finally
obliged to tell her that he could not raise the money to continue the
household on the footing to which she had been accustomed.
It was quite touching to see how frightened she was when he made her
the first communication in reference to it--frightened, not at the
prospect of having to save, but only at the thoughtlessness by which
she had burdened Lensky with cares. She immediately showed herself
ready for the most exaggerated reforms. But to live with his wife like
a proletary, in St. Petersburg, among her brilliant relations and
friends, he could not bring himself to do.
In the autumn of the same year, he moved with his family to ----, a
large German capital, where he had accepted the direction of a
significant musical undertaking.
But here the conflict between his artistic and family life which had
arisen through his alliance with Natalie, came to light with more
detestable clearness.
He was in his element, as an artist whose powers have found a wide,
noble sway.
The great musical undertaking, at whose head they had placed him,
flourished wonderfully under his lead. The fiery earnestness with
which he undertook it won him all musical hearts. Also the atmosphere
in ---- was sympathetic to him for other reasons. He had a crowd of old
connections there, acquaintances of his first virtuoso period, people
who surrounded him, distinguished him, with whom he could speak of his
art--which always remained sacred and earnest to him, and never, for
him, deteriorated to a more or less noble means of earning his living,
or to a social pedestal--in quite a different manner than with the
elegant dilettantis who had gradually crowded out every other society
from his house in St. Petersburg. They gave one artistic festival after
the other in his honor, and all this entertained him.
His wife appeared with him a couple of times on such occasions, then
she excused herself--she had no pleasure in them. She felt isolated, an
insurmountable home-sickness tormented her.
Without confessing it, for the first time since her marriage the
position which she occupied with Lensky angered her.
In St. Petersburg she had always remained with him the Princess
Assanow, he had ascended to her world; here she must suddenly satisfy
herself with his world. She was too vexed, too angrily excited to seek
in this world all the true interest, earnestness, and nobility that
were to be found therein.
She had intimate intercourse only with an old friend of her youth, a
certain Countess Stolnitzky, who went out but little and consequently
had time enough for Natalie.
Lensky begged Natalie to open her drawing-room one or two evenings a
week, that is to say to his friends. Natalie's drawing-room became a
meeting-place for all kinds of artistic leaders, among which the
dramatic element formed the principal contingent, and this chiefly
because Lensky wished to have an opera performed.
For him, intercourse with dramatic artists had no unpleasantness; he
had been accustomed to it from youth. But it became unpleasant to
Natalie after she had satisfied that superficial curiosity which every
woman living in severely exclusive circles feels concerning these
theatrical people.
The only people that were still more unpleasant to Natalie, in her
drawing-room, than this crowd of people still smelling of freshly
washed-off paint, were the aristocrats who came there to meet the
artists. And many of these came--very many, all who coquetted with a
little bit of musical interest--yes, and many others. "Very
interesting, these _soirees_ at Lensky's," they always said, when these
were spoken of; "very interesting; they always have very good music
there, and then one meets a crowd of amusing people whom one never sees
anywhere else. And the wife is really charming--quite _comme il faut_."
"She is a Russian princess," a foreigner interrupted, who belonged to
the diplomatic corps.
The native women turned up their noses repellently. They placed no
great confidence in the distinction of Russian princesses who married
artists.
Natalie was so ignorant of their rooted prejudices that she greeted the
ladies who came to her house with the greatest frankness as her equals.
She caused offence by her naivete, and noticed it. People came to
Lensky, not to her--if she would only understand that they wished
to be as polite as possible to her, in the somewhat narrow limits of
well-bred society--but she must understand it.
She did understand. When she observed that most of the ladies accepted
her invitations without returning them, yes, when it happened that the
art-loving Princess C. sent Lensky an invitation to a _soiree_, and
overlooked his wife, then she understood. It began to tell upon her, to
aggravate her.
She fulfilled her duties as hostess with displeasure, did the honors
negligently, and did nothing to animate her receptions. My God! people
came there to hear music and to rave over her husband,--she was no
longer necessary. She became quite foolish and childish.
She was used to the homage that was paid her husband, she would have
been fearfully angry if they had not paid him enough; but in Russia,
this homage was shown in quite a different, much nobler, intenser form;
in Russia he was a great man, before whom every one removed his hat, a
sacred being of whom the nation was proud; men and women of the highest
rank showed him the same respect.
But in ----, except one or two particularly enthusiastic lovers of
music, none of the nobility appeared in his house, with the exception
of the ladies. Why did he ask them? He ridiculed them--but yet their
flattery pleased him. He had dedicated a composition to more than one
of them.
Natalie was almost beside herself with rage. For the first time she
felt a certain jealousy. Among others, there was a little dark Polish
woman, married to a Swedish diplomat, and separated from him, a
Countess Loewenskiold. She purred around him like a kitten.
Formerly he would have noticed the change in Natalie immediately, but
for the first time since their marriage he forgot, not only in his
study but elsewhere, his wife for his art. He was so happy in his art,
so completely occupied with it, that he scarcely noticed the pitiful
social pin-pricks which formerly would have caused him vexation enough,
and consequently did not consider the importance they had for Natalie.
The study of his opera, for which they had placed at his disposal the
best facilities at the command of the ---- Theatre, went steadily
forward. The artists liked to work under his direction, and with
enthusiasm did their utmost to do justice to his work. Joy fevered in
every vein when he came home from the rehearsals.
* * * * *
It was toward the end of the carnival. One of Lensky's musical
_soirees_ had been visited by quite an unusual number of brilliant
visitors. A very large number of ladies of the best society had been
there.
They had all appeared in brilliant toilets, with bare shoulders, and
diamonds and feathers in their hair. Natalie was also in evening dress,
while the wives of Lensky's colleagues and all the ladies present not
belonging to the court circle had come in high-necked dresses.
When the aristocratic ladies, with profuse thanks for the musical treat
offered them, had withdrawn before eleven o'clock, because they must,
"alas!" still go "into society," into Natalie's social world, but which
was closed to her in ----, Natalie remained the only woman in her
drawing-room with bare shoulders.
Lensky, who had just accompanied some tedious Highness politely out of
the room, now returned to the music-room, closed the door, behind which
the noble patroness had disappeared, and cried gayly: "So, children,
now we can be among ourselves, and enjoy a comfortable evening."
"Among ourselves!" These words pierced Natalie like a poisoned
stiletto. "Among ourselves!" She bit her lower lip, angrily.
Meanwhile, pushing back the hair from his temples with both hands,
Lensky asked: "Would the gentlemen like to play the Schumann E-flat
major quartette with me before we sit down to supper?" Then he looked
over at Natalie and smiled. She knew that he proposed this wonderful
quartette for her sake, because it was her favorite, but she was
already so over-excited that the touching little attention made no
impression on her. She remained as defiant and bad-tempered as before.
While they played she let her eyes wander gloomily over the already
empty hired cane-bottomed chairs, which stood around in regular rows.
She asked herself bitterly, what really was the difference between her
"reception evenings" and any other concert?--that the people paid their
admission with compliments instead of money! And while she made these
useless and vexing observations, the most noble music that was ever
written vibrated around her heart, like an admonition of how small all
these worldly, outward vanities were in comparison with the lofty,
god-like being of true art! And her obstinate heart had already begun
to understand the sermon and to be ashamed, when she observed two bold
eyes of a man staring from across the room at her bare shoulders. The
eyes belonged to a certain Mr. Arnold Spatzig, the most influential
musical critic and journalist in ----. Scarcely had he noticed that her
look met his when he left his chair, in order, crossing the room, to
take his place near Natalie, and continue his insolent scrutiny from
near by. He was a disagreeable man, with thick lips, spectacles, and
boldly displayed cynicism. Natalie, who could not endure him, had
formerly tolerated him on Lensky's account. Now she felt so insulted by
his manner, that, with the vehement impoliteness of a spoiled woman
whose pride is wounded and who is excluded from her natural sphere, she
sprang up, and turning her back directly to Mr. Arnold Spatzig,
hastened away from him.
And now the quartette was over, and also the supper which followed,
exquisite and over-abundant as ever, at which Lensky did the honors
with that heartiness, not overlooking the least of his guests, which
was peculiar to him.
It was two o'clock, and the house was empty; the lights still burned.
Lensky was busy arranging the music on the piano, Natalie stood in the
middle of the room, drawn up to her full height, evidently trying to
suppress a nervous attack. She held her handkerchief to her lips--it
was no use. Suddenly she cried out: "Must I receive these people? I
would rather scrub the floor!" And with that she made a gesture as if
she would tear something apart.
"What do you mean?" he asked slowly. He had become deadly pale, and his
voice trembled.
She only drew her brows gloomily together and continued to gnaw at her
handkerchief.
Then he lost patience. He seized a large Japanese vase, and threw it
with such force on the floor that it broke in pieces; then he left the
room, slamming the door behind him.
But Natalie looked after him, offended, and broke out in fierce,
whimpering sobs.
A few minutes later when she, still weeping and trembling in every
limb, leaned against a sofa, in whose cushions she had buried her face,
she felt a warm hand on her shoulder. She looked up, Lensky had come up
to her. The traces of his difficultly mastered irritation were still on
his deathly pale face, but he bent down anxiously to her and said
gently: "Calm yourself, please, Natalie; it is no matter. Poor Natalie!
I should have thought of it sooner. You shall never again receive any
one--not a person--who does not please you, only stop crying; that I
cannot bear."
At the first friendly word that he said to her, her whole ill humor
changed to tormenting remorse and shame. "You will not take what
I said to you in earnest," said she. "It is not possible that you
should take this madness in earnest. I am so ashamed--ah, I cannot tell
you how ashamed I am! I acted unjustifiably, but I was so tired, so
nervous--scold me, be angry with me, and only then forgive me, or else
your indulgence will oppress me too heavily," and with that she kissed
his hands and sobbed--sobbed incessantly.
He caressed her like a little child whom one wishes to soothe, and she
continued: "I will suit myself better to my position, I will be
friendly to every one--as if I could not make that little sacrifice to
your artistic position!"
Then he interrupted her: "I will accept no sacrifice from you, not the
slightest, that I cannot do," said he. "What have you to trouble
yourself about my artistic position? You have nothing at all to do but
to love me and be happy--if you still can," he added softly, with a
tenderness that for the first time since his marriage had a bitter
savor.
But she looked up at him in the midst of her tears, with glorified
happiness. "If I still can?" she whispered, drawing his head down
to her--he now sat on the sofa beside her, with his arm around her
waist--"if I still can!" His lips met hers, her head sank on his
shoulder.
The candles in the chandeliers had burned low down, one of them went
out, and in going out threw a couple of sparks down on the pieces of
the Japanese vase which Lensky had broken in his anger. He had sent it
to Natalie filled with roses, in Rome, while they were betrothed,
therefore she loved it and had brought it with them to ----.
His eyes rested on the pieces with a peculiar sad look. "And now lie
down and see that you sleep after your excitement," said he to the
young wife. She followed him like a little child. He mixed her the
sleeping potion of orange essence, to which she was accustomed, and
calmed her with pleasant patient words. A happy smile lay on her lips
when she at length fell asleep.
But he did not close his eyes during the whole night, he did not even
lie down; but sat in his room at the writing-table. He wished to work
on something, but the music-paper remained untouched beneath his pen.
How could she so give way, at the first little trial which she had ever
had? Why had she spoken of a sacrifice? sacrifice! he would take no
sacrifice from her.
* * * * *
Natalie's reception days were given up under pretext of the illness of
his young wife. From that time, Lensky saw most of his friends only
outside of his house--his "patronesses" he saw no more.
Natalie was ashamed of her small, pitiful discontent, was ashamed of
the scene she had made her husband, and still was foolish enough to
rejoice over her victory, and to fully profit by it.
She offered all her intellectual, flattering, charming lovableness to
recompense for the loss she had caused him, and to quite win him again
for herself. She thought of all his preferences in her housekeeping,
which, in the beginning, she had somewhat neglected in ----; with half
unconscious slyness, she knew how to profit by his small as well as his
great qualities; to attain her aim, knew how to touch his heart as well
as to flatter his vanity. In full measure she attained what she strove
for. Forgetting all the prudence which his position demanded, he laid
just as enthusiastic homage at her feet as in the very first time of
his marriage. But she was so charming! And how well her defiant
arrogance became her! that arrogance which would bend to no one and
only with her loved one melted into passionate submission.
What did the great artist coterie which his wife had repulsed say to
all this? Oh, who could trouble one's self about all these people?
Meanwhile, during this happy intoxicated period he had met with one
vexation that concerned him very nearly. Three weeks before the
appointed date for the production of his "Corsair," the prima donna of
the ---- opera, Madame D., an artist of the first rank, for whom he had
quite specially written the principal feminine _role_, declared that
she would not sing it under any consideration. Lensky knew very well
that he had to thank the senseless arrogance of his wife for the sudden
opposition of this irritable leader; it was bitter to him; but without
telling Natalie a word of it, he choked down this unpleasant affair,
and submitted to seeing the part which the artiste had thoroughly
learned and brought to such splendid perfection intrusted now to the
weak powers of a talented but awkward beginner.
* * * * *
The evening of the representation came. They were both feverish, he and
she; but she fevered in expectation of a great triumph, he trembled
before a defeat.
He knew that his work had three things against it: a libretto that, for
an opera, was over-finely poetic, and poor in dramatic effect, the weak
representation of the principal _role_, and the whole coterie of
artists and bohemians in the audience excited against him by the
arrogance of his wife. Perhaps his music would save the situation. The
music was beautiful, that he knew; he must build on that.
Natalie made the sign of the cross on his forehead and hung a
consecrated Byzantine saint's picture, in a strange gold and black
enamel frame, around his neck before he went into the fire, that is to
say, before he drove to the opera-house to take the baton in his hand.
He smiled at this superstitious action and let it happen.
The greatest heroes like to avail themselves of a little celestial
protection before a battle.
In the opera-house he found everything in the best condition,
courageous, ready for battle. An hour later he mounted the director's
rostrum.
Once he turned his head to the audience, and his eyes sought Natalie.
There she sat near the stage in a box in the first row, which she
shared with the Countess Stolnitzky. She wore a black velvet dress, in
her hair sparkled the diamond narcissi which he had given her as
bridegroom; around her neck was wound a thick string of pearls which
the Empress of Russia had sent him for her once when he played at
court. In the whole theatre there was no woman who could compare with
her in proud, beaming, and yet indescribably lovely beauty. She smiled
at him constrainedly. What was not hidden in that scarcely perceptible
smile! For the last time a kind of happy, proud delirium of love lay
hold upon him. He knocked on the desk, raised his arm, and the violins
began.
With a kind of magnificent, fiery earnestness, and with that, quite
classically severe in the musical roundness and connection of the
motives, the overture sounded through the crowded hall. It was rather
too long, and as the learned ones among the audience remarked, was
better suited for the first movement of a symphony than the
introduction of an opera. But what of that! the music was beautiful,
wonderfully beautiful, full of sad sweetness and quite demon-like,
ravishing power. Here, also, sounded the strange Arabian succession of
tones again, which was the characteristic of all his compositions, the
devil's tones: Asbein.
Natalie did not hear a sound, the buzzing in her ears, the beating of
her heart was too loud.
The last piercing chord resounded through the hall. What was that? An
immense burst of applause, unending bravos; the overture had to be
repeated.
It was with difficulty that Natalie could keep from sobbing aloud.
Again her smile sought his. A beautiful expression of noble, earnest
peace was on his features, but his glance did not answer hers, he had
forgotten her for his work.
The curtain rose. Natalie scarcely breathed, her hot blood crept slowly
through her veins like chilling metal, her ears no longer buzzed, on
the contrary her hearing was uncommonly sharp; only she could not take
in the music, but listened to all kinds of other things. The rustling
of a dress, the rattling of a fan, the whispering of a voice caused her
such excitement that it seemed to her, each time, as if she had been
shot through the heart by a pistol. The unexpected result of the
overture had increased her nervous tension still further.
During the first two acts the opinion remained favorable. After the
second act, the Russian ambassador presented himself to Natalie to
congratulate her.
While she received his congratulations, still trembling with
excitement, she suddenly heard quite loud talking, in a box not far
from her.
It was the box of that same Princess C., who was mentioned as
particularly musical, and who had invited Lensky to a _soiree_ and
passed over Natalie. Between her and another art-loving woman sat Mr.
Arnold Spatzig. Up to a certain point, he had access to the highest
circles of society, that is to say, he was patronized by a couple of
ladies who were bored in their "world," and who consequently liked to
attract men from some "other world" to them for a short entertainment,
not a long engagement, to be amused by them.
"These plebeian men at least take pains to amuse," the ladies were
accustomed to remark, and Arnold Spatzig decidedly took pains to amuse.
Once he raised his opera-glass to his eyes, and stared long and boldly
in Natalie's face.
The third act began with an aria by Gualnare, that is to say, with a
kind of duet between her and the ocean, which was represented by the
orchestra. For a concert piece the number was interesting and original,
but peculiarly unsuited to the beginning of the third act of an opera.
Only the splendid vocal powers and the poetic comprehension of Madame
D., for whom the aria was written, could have saved it; the powers of
the beginner who sang the part of Gualnare that evening were not at all
equal to her task, her voice, wearied by the exertions of the two
preceding acts, sounded almost extinct, her acting was awkward.
Natalie observed the bad impression which this number made on the
audience. Anxiously she looked around the theatre: the people were
patient, had too much sympathy for the virtuoso Lensky to
inconsiderately insult the composer.
On the stage, still continued the endless ocean duet. Still, in the
same monotonous time, Gualnare advanced to the waves and retreated from
them, quite as if she were dancing a _pas de deux_ with the sea. Then
Natalie heard laughing; the laughing sounded from the box of Princess
C.
Dr. Spatzig bent over to her, smiling, whispered something to her. She
laughed--how heartily she laughed! The opera-glasses of many ladies in
the boxes sought the Doctor's critical glance; Spatzig laughed, the
Princess laughed, the whole theatre laughed.
The aria was at an end, the gallery applauded. "Ss--ss--ss." What was
that cutting, piercing sound which killed the applause?
Natalie became white as chalk; her friend sought her hand; Natalie drew
it away; no human sympathy could be of use to her.
From that moment the enthusiasm of the audience rapidly declined. The
lack of dramatic action in the libretto became more and more
significant. More and more difficultly the poor music dragged along
amidst a succession of glaring spectacular effects, which monotonously
made place for each other without ever forming an interesting contrast.
And the music was so beautiful. There was something so heavily majestic
in the rhythm, here and there at once a trifle monotonous and
over-laden, but in the accompaniment so wonderfully beautiful in spite
of all, and furnished with a richness of melody unattainable by any of
the other composers of the time, never approaching the trivial, but
always remaining noble.
The audience was weary, and like every wearied audience, mocking; its
musical comprehension was worn out. From the middle of the fourth act
people began to leave the theatre, and when the curtain fell at the
close, not a hand moved.
Countess Stolnitzky accompanied Natalie silently down the steps.
Natalie got into her carriage and directed it to the stage entrance.
She had promised to call for Lensky after the opera. More dead than
alive she sat in the pretty coupe and waited. The air was sharp, it was
a frosty March night, the stars sparkled as if in cold mockery from the
unreachable heavens, quite as if they were laughing to think that once
more a child of man had tried to storm this heaven and had so pitiably
failed.
A half-hour had passed; at last Natalie sprang from the carriage and
hastened up the narrow stairs. There she met Lensky. He was deathly
pale, his hat was put on his head differently from usual, in a kind of
enterprising and challenging manner; his walk had something negligent,
swinging; there was a vagabond trace in his carriage that Natalie had
never before perceived in him. He held his cigarette between his teeth
and had the little singer on his arm who had to-day impersonated
Gualnare in his opera. Many of the singers, as well as the members of
the orchestra, came down the steps behind him, a gaudy, witty,
whispering throng. For the first time, Natalie remarked a certain
similarity, one might almost say a common family resemblance, between
her hero and these other "artists." The men all had the same manner of
wearing their hats and swaggering in their walk as he had to-day.
Although these men were more than ever repulsive to her, she greeted
them with anxious politeness. "I was afraid you were ill," she said,
while she glanced sadly and anxiously at Boris. "I have already waited
half an hour for you."
"So! I am very sorry," replied he, and his voice sounded rougher than
formerly. "I sent a messenger to you, he must have missed you. I cannot
go home with you this evening, we"--he looked over his shoulder at the
following crowd--"are going to have supper together. After a lost
battle the commander must care for the strengthening of his troops." He
laughed harshly and forcedly, and touched the hand of the singer who
hung on his arm.
"A lost battle!" said Natalie. "Lost--but the first two acts were a
great success!"
"'Don Juan' did not succeed at the first representation," remarked some
one behind Lensky. He turned around and looked at the man with a
comical, threatening gesture; then he said, with the expression of a
man with a bad toothache, who yet bursts out with a witticism: "Who
laughs last, laughs best!"
Natalie still stood, helpless and desperate, in the middle of the
narrow stairs. Her splendid fur cloak had half slipped down from her
shoulders; her simple, distinguished toilet stood out in strange relief
from the glaring, tumbled, inharmonious, motley evening adornments of
the singers.
"You will take cold, wrap yourself up better," said Lensky, while he
came up to her and drew the fur up around her neck.
"Will you take me with you to your supper? I would come with the
greatest pleasure; _je serai gentille avec tout le monde!_" she
whispered, softly and supplicatingly to him.
"What an idea!" said he, repellently. "No, to-night I sup as a
bachelor. You bar the passage. Drive home quite calmly. Adieu!"
He pushed her into the carriage, and went. She put her head out of the
window of the coupe to look after him. She saw how he got into a fiacre
with the singer; one of the men crawled in after him; then she heard
some one laughing, harshly, gipsy-like, was that he? Then came a great
rattling of windows, and creaking and rolling of wheels. Her way and
his parted. Hurrying by a row of ghostly gas-lights, which all seemed
red to her, she rolled away in a great, cold, black darkness. And ten
minutes later, weary and miserable, she crept up the steps of her
residence. She knew that something terrible had happened, something
that not only embittered her present, but would darken the future, that
for her much more had gone wrong than the result of an opera.
* * * * *
"Who knows, perhaps the thing will pull through; even the best operas
have sometimes not immediately found approval with the public," said
Lensky, with the awkward, forced smile that had not left his lips since
the morning after his fiasco. The challenging, gipsy humor with which,
in the beginning, he had sought to bluster over his disappointment, had
not lasted long. Quiet, weary, and depressed, he dragged himself around
as if after a severe illness. Natalie did what she could to be
agreeable to him; her heart bled with pity, but she did not venture to
approach him.
He avoided her, and if she spoke to him his answers sounded forced or
vexed.
To-day, for the first time since the fatal evening, he turned to her
with a remark in reference to his work. It was the third day after the
first production of the opera, and at breakfast. Natalie had just read
to him many criticisms from the newspapers which had arrived. In many,
Lensky's magnificent musical gifts were praised.
"Perhaps the thing will pull through," said Lensky, and Natalie
replied:
"Naturally, the opera will make a career for itself. You must yourself
have forgotten how beautiful your music is, if you can doubt that."
"Is it really beautiful? I really do not know," murmured he. "One is so
seldom able to believe it if others shrug their shoulders. To improvise
variations on the old theme _mon sonnet est charmant_ is a tasteless
occupation."
There was a ring at the door-bell; he listened.
"Do you expect anything?" asked Natalie, and then she accidentally
looked at the clock. It was already very late, and the hour at which he
formerly had been accustomed to sit down to work was long past. She saw
very well that he only trifled with time like a man who is too
tormented by inward unrest to be able to resolve on an earnest
occupation.
"Yes," he replied. "I do not understand why the _Neue Zeit_ has not yet
arrived."
Natalie lowered her eyes. The _Neue Zeit_ was the journal in which Dr.
Arnold Spatzig's musical criticism, or rather his musical
_feuilletons_, usually appeared.
"That"--Lensky motioned to the pile of other papers "is all very pretty
and pleasant, but it is not decisive. I am anxious to see what Spatzig
will say."
"Do you consider Spatzig decisive?" asked Natalie, constrainedly.
"Yes."
"But you told me yourself that his judgment was always one-sided,
prejudiced, and superficial; that he was really only a wit and no
critic," murmured Natalie.
"I still think so, but nevertheless he has here taken upon himself the
monopoly of musical good taste," replied Lensky. "The most intellectual
part of the public, that is to say all the subscribers, fancy they can
only consider an article of his as true. He has taken out a patent for
it, like Marquis, in Paris, for good chocolate. He is witty, which
these people like. A criticism is so easily noticed, one always appears
intellectual if one cites it, the more malicious it is the better.
Until now, Spatzig has spared me, hm--hm--" Boris smiled forcedly. "He
even once compared me to Beethoven, but recently he has seemed to avoid
me. Have you had anything with him, Natalie?"
Natalie blushed to the roots of her hair. "I cannot endure him," said
she; "and it is possible that he has noticed it; in fact, in reference
to a certain point, one cannot have patience with a man."
"He surely has not presumed upon you?" Lensky started up angrily.
"No, no! He did not have an opportunity," said Natalie, very
arrogantly. "Not that: but he has a way of forcing himself upon one; of
looking at a woman----"
"That is to say he has bad manners," said Lensky. "Now----"
At this moment there was another ring at the door-bell. Shortly after
the servant brought on a salver a whole pile of newspapers in their
wrappings, which had just come by post. Lensky opened them hastily;
they were all copies of the same paper--of _Fortschritt_, and in every
copy there was a twelve-column-long notice marked with a blue or black
pencil: "A musical enjoyment by design and intention," and with the
motto, for title, "From whence the great discord arises which rings
through this world (read opera)."
Hastily, Lensky looked at the signature.
"Arnold Spatzig," murmured he, dully. "I did not know that he also
wrote for _Fortschritt_."
"Do not read the thing," said Natalie, who, with feminine quickness,
had already glanced over the article. "I beg you; why should you
swallow the poison?"
But he shook her roughly from him, bent over the paper, and read half
aloud: "If there were a musical 'Our Father,' the last supplicating
request would be: deliver us from all evil, but especially from all
virtuoso music. By his opera, Lensky has again given us a significant
example of how greatly the reproductive activity of an artist hinders
the development of his creative powers. His first smaller compositions
really had always a certain melodic freshness. But in this last work,
Lensky, like all men poor in invention, has shown himself a follower of
that inconsolable musical pessimism which regards _ennui_ and a feeling
of universal, oppressive discomfort as a _sine qua non_ of every
distinguished musical work.
"The public, in a sympathetic frame of mind with the loved and
distinguished master, in the beginning of the opera strained their good
taste so far that they desired the repetition of the extremely tiresome
overture, made up of badly connected motives, reminding one of
Meyerbeer, Halevy, Gounod. But with the best intentions, the
cut-and-dried wonder brought with them was not proof against the
yawning monotony of the never-ending fourth act. Only the grotesque
side of the unfortunate opera, which ever became more prominent in the
course of the evening, helped the ill-used public over the dry
emptiness of this musical desert. One could at least laugh heartily.
What a consolation that was for the spectator, but hardly one for those
who took part.
"One cannot understand how such an artist of the first rank as
Mr. ---- could submit to make himself laughable in the _role_ of
_Conrad_...."
Lensky became paler and paler; he reached for a glass of water.
"Do not read any further," begged Natalie. "What does it matter what
the liar writes? your music speaks for itself. This evening you will
see how the public will applaud you, will receive you, to recompense
you for this pitiful insult."
The second representation of "The Corsair" was fixed for that evening.
There was another ring at the door-bell; the servant brought a letter.
Lensky broke it open hastily, and with a furious gesture threw it away,
struck his fist on the table, and sprang up.
"What is it?" called Natalie, beside herself.
"Nothing; a trifle; the opera is postponed; the tenor has announced
himself ill," said Lensky, cuttingly. "He has no pleasure in making
himself laughable a second time. It is over;" passing the palm of his
hand under his chin, with the gesture by which one understands that
some one has been executed.
Natalie rushed up to him, but he impatiently motioned her away, and
hurried by her to the door. All at once he remained standing, reached
under his collar, tore off the little gold chain with the saint's
picture which Natalie had hung round his neck before the first
representation of "The Corsair," and flung it at her feet. Then he went
into his study. She heard how he locked the door behind him.
How benumbed she still stood on the same spot where he had shaken her
off from him--he had shaken her off!
How he must suffer to pain her so! Then she bent down to the poor
little amulet which he had thrown away. She understood him. She had
never been lacking in sentimental-poetic manners, but when it was
necessary to sacrifice a humor for him, her love had not sufficed.
Her fault was great, but the punishment was fearful.