My first idea had been to talk immediately to Mr. Doblana and inform
him that I intended marrying his daughter. I told Mitzi this while we
were going home through narrow, dark streets, as becomes thieves and
lovers. But she objected. She was rather cool, the result probably of
yonder bootmakers' lad's intervention.
"I know you love me," she said, "and always will. I too love you, but I
don't know yet how to do it well. I cannot tell you what I feel. If you
were at once to speak to father, either he would say yes, or he would
say no, but in both cases you would have to leave our house at once.
Father is no artist, he is a trader in music, and he is meanspirited
as all tradespeople are. He does not understand love as artists do. He
would only see the impropriety of your staying any longer with us. And
I do not want to be lonely. I want you with me. Think only that I just
found my heart. You do love me?"
I wanted to take her in my arms, and to kiss her again. But although
there was nobody in the street she prevented it.
"And you always will love me?" she asked once more.
"Always, Mitzi!" I said.
And, my word, I am afraid that this _always_ still holds good a little.
When we arrived at home Doblana was not yet in and Fanny had gone to
bed. In the drawing-room, where a couple of hours before Mitzi had sung
herself definitely into my heart, we halted. She looked at me, and I
opened my arms; for a moment she laid her cheek against my shoulder,
then she took my head between her hands and kissed me. It was very
sweet ... but it lacked Schubert.
Then she went into her room, and I into mine.
It was she who the next day came to speak about _Macbeth_.
"You want me to play _Lady Macbeth_?"
"Yes. Did you not ask me for something heroic? Is _Lady Macbeth_ not
the woman who tries to be stronger than man and who breaks up from
over-exertion? Can you imagine anything more prodigious?"
"What am I to do with her?" she asked again after a while. "I re-read
_Macbeth_ last night. She is terrible. Think only, she says that while
her baby was smiling in her face she would have dashed its brains out,
had she sworn to do it. I know that art can receive a new meaning from
all successive generations, but how can a woman in this century of
longing for peace speak words which were horrible even in those times
of torture?"
I was surprised at her question which filled me with great happiness.
She had read _Macbeth_ this very night. Was this not a wonderful proof
of her love? And she had not read it superficially. Oh, what a happy
man I was to be able to call such a girl my own!
But how to answer her question was beyond me. All I could find to say
was this:
"You forget, Mitzi, that I will make _Lady Macbeth_ a beautiful,
flexible cat in the first part, and a weak child in the second."
"My dear," she declared, "I fear that that is rather an empty sentence,
and that you are not at all sure what you are going to make her."
I felt that her remark was just, and I resented her superiority a
little. You see, I was a composer; and as a composer I believed that I
need not _think_ so very deeply, if only I _felt_ profoundly. I suppose
that most composers share this opinion, which may be erroneous.
Anyhow, I am sure that if I had been better at thinking (even at the
cost of being less good at feeling) Mitzi would have preferred it.
There were two Mitzis. The one was a very pretty, charming girl, yet
probably somewhat insignificant. The other was an eminent artist,
gifted in many respects. Instinctively it was the latter I loved.
But to love a woman means to conquer her, not to be conquered. A
superior woman wants to be vanquished by a more superior man. And I had
capitulated already to the pretty girl. As for the artist, she simply
annihilated me.
(The reader must not believe that these war-like expressions are the
result of my entrenched authorship. If I were to use the language which
I have learned here I would have first to publish a trench dictionary.
No--these expressions are only the result of newspaper reading.)
Two days went by. Then Mr. Bischoff called upon me and, as he wanted
a thousand crowns[1], he brought with him a detailed sketch of his
libretto.
Happily Doblana was absent, which enabled Mitzi to assist at our
interview. I told Bischoff that it was my wish to see the rôle of _Lady
Macbeth_ performed by Miss Doblana, but that this must for the present
remain a secret to her father, who objected to an artistic career for
his daughter.
Bischoff inclined his head without saying what he thought of my plan.
Probably his conviction was that I was mad to confide my first work to
a beginner, for this was what people generally believed. How many times
have I been warned during the following months not to commit my opera
to a "beginner"! But as it happened, the great actor found that this
"beginner" knew very well what she wanted.
"I do not think, Mr. Bischoff," she said, "that your libretto is any
good, and should it remain as it is, I will probably not undertake to
create the part of the lady."
"Oh!" answered Bischoff mockingly, "you have not yet been on the
boards, and you already have a prima donna's caprices. You will make
your way!"
"There is no use in talking like this," she exclaimed. "If nobody
yet has thought of making a music drama of _Macbeth_ there are good
reasons. By himself Macbeth is a dull, heavy character."
Dear me! Bischoff's face!--You ought to have seen it. It was worth
while. He took it personally--he out-shakespeared Shakespeare.
"You are a very young girl," he said at last, "to utter such
criticism." And, turning to me: "I did not expect, when I came here, an
adversary to whom I cannot speak as I should like to on account of her
sex. It is most unfair."
"Neither my sex," cried Mitzi, "nor my youth have anything to do with
what you call my criticisms. At this moment I am no woman. I am but an
artist, and as such I have the right to speak."
I should have gladly given whatever money I had in my pocket to be
somewhere else; yet this very thought reminded me of the fact that
Bischoff would bear a little more of Mitzi's argument, as there was a
cheque at the end of it.
But while I pondered over these possibilities Mitzi was going on:
"Yes, Mr. Bischoff, Macbeth is a dull, heavy person. He does not
do anything by himself. The witches who show him his future do not
influence him."
"But, _Fräulein_, the witches are but a symbol of his ambitious ideas."
"Never mind ... let us say then, that his ambitious ideas do not lead
him into action. He must be dragged to it by his Lady. As a great
criminal he is entirely overshadowed by her. Now, such a character may
be interesting in a spoken tragedy, but not in music-drama. Further:
Macduff is a typical tenor, and as such never interesting. Again, that
fairy tale of Birnam wood coming to Dunsinane, do you think that it
can impress a modern public?"
"So you are against our scheme altogether?"
"Not in the least. But I want you to make a _Lady Macbeth_ instead of a
_Macbeth_. The Lady is the one interesting person in the whole drama. I
want you to cut out all that does not concern her directly. I suggest
that you make the first scene of the prophesy of the three witches,
which is a grand opening. Then must follow a first act where at the
beginning the Lady induces Macbeth to commit the murder and where at
the end the deed is done. The second act should be the banquet...."
"And Banquo's ghost? What will you do with Banquo's ghost, if, as I
suppose, you suppress Banquo?"
"Let it be King Duncan's ghost. As long as there is a ghost, it matters
little whose ghost it is. Finally, the third act should be the scene
where the Lady walks in her sleep. After this the interest is over. Let
the public go home. It will have had quite enough of the nightmare."
She stopped and there was a long silence. The actor did not say one
word, and I did not dare to interfere. I am modest, I have reported
that to you already. If I were not, I might have told you that Mitzi's
plan, which certainly was good, was my invention. But I am proud of
being modest and truthful.
At last Bischoff said:
"I apologise, _Fräulein_, for having been distrustful. Your scheme is
workable."
"That is better, Mr. Bischoff," said my dear girl with a most
bewitching, yet triumphant smile. "But I have not finished. I do not
want to impersonate a mere monster. I consent to be a cat first, and a
sick child afterwards, but I must know why--I will not be content with
nice phrases. The Lady will be my début, and I want my début to be a
triumph. Mr. Cooper does not seem to know exactly how to explain. Will
you?"
If Mitzi had shown her superiority up to this moment, it was now
Bischoff's turn. As for me I had my favourite feeling: That of being
... but why should I repeat it? You know.
"It is only because your dull and heavy Macbeth is compatible with
my theory of the Lady," began Bischoff, "that I can give you the
explanation you want. In my idea Macbeth was not heavy, but irresolute.
Never mind, let him be heavy. In either case, the Lady is obliged to
put a steam engine, if I may use this expression, in front of all she
says, to carry him away. However, she shudders before her horrible
words and deeds. She seems to shut her eyes not to see them. She is
not a mere monster, to quote your own words, she is a poor weak woman,
who loves that one man with such strength, that she has been able to
discover all his failings, so that she may, with her trembling body,
cover and protect the imperfections. You have only to search for her
tenderness and you will find it. It is, for instance, with the utmost
softness that you must say the words:
'Yet do I fear thy nature;
It is too full o' the milk of human kindness ...
... What thou would'st highly
That would'st thou holily.'
And it is only because she feels kindness, pity and peace in her heart
that she calls the spirits: '_Come you spirits, unsex me here, and fill
me top-full of direst cruelty_.' Again, she suffers when she cries:
_That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor Heaven cry 'Hold,
hold!'_ And how happy were she if she had known nothing of it all:
'_What beast was it then that made you break this enterprise to me?_'"
"Yes," said Mitzi, "but immediately afterwards she says those horrible
words about the babe...."
"That," answered Bischoff, "is effort. That is one of the sentences
where she uses the steam engine to pull more vigorously. That you must
say as if you were shuddering before your own words, as if you were
feeling that it is too much. In short, the woman must continually
appear under the mask of the monster, and this is the reason why I see
the Lady cajoling her husband like a beautiful, flexible cat during
the scene where she induces him to the murder. But as soon as the deed
is done she shows all her weakness. Not to lose courage she has felt
obliged to drink. Nevertheless, she starts at the slightest noise.
'Hark! Peace!
It was the owl that shriek'd, the fatal bellman,
Which gives the stern'st good-night.'
in these words! And does she not confess that she is unable to commit
the crime herself, when she says these words, which must be uttered
with trembling love:
'Had he not resembled
My father as he slept, I had done it.'
Thus the rôle must be played from beginning to end, Lady Macbeth as a
woman, a weak woman, who knows her weakness:
'These deeds must not be thought
After these ways; so, it will make us mad....'
a woman who at the end breaks down under the stress of the effort she
has made. You must produce, as if by magic, love and pity for Lady
Macbeth in the hearts of the audience, and never be a vulgar, awful
criminal, a Gorgon, as actresses generally understand, or rather
misunderstand the Lady."
"It will mean hard work," said Mitzi, "but I am not afraid. I mean to
do it."
And turning to me she added:
"You had better begin working."
Indeed, I started that very evening.
* * * * *
What is the bluest blue?
It is not the sky of Italy; it is not the Sapphire of the Maharajah of
Baipal, it is not the Blue Diamond of the King of Siam, nor is it the
blue gentian that blooms on the high Alps, it is not Rickett's blue, it
is not Prussian blue, which is, parenthetically, out of fashion just
now, nor is it the blue of a tuppence highpenny stamp. All these are
blues. But the blues at the front when it rains, these are the bluest
blues. And it never rains but it pours.
We sit there, the four of us, namely, Charlie, Guncotton, Pringle, and
I.
We smoke and feel miserable.
"It rains," states Guncotton.
"Does it?" asks Charlie.
"It does," answers Pringle, and I finish the series with a:
"Rotten weather!"
A stillness follows.
We go on puffing, feeling thoroughly soaked.
"It begins to be wet," says I.
"It's water," explains Guncotton.
"You are sure it isn't champagne?" asks Charlie.
"Champagne!" sighs Pringle dreamily.
And we fall back into taciturnity.
"By the way," asks Pringle, "Sergeant, have you still got that bottle
of champagne?"
"Of course, I have."
"Well, as the official communiqué will be that bad weather has hampered
fighting on the British front, why not go and fetch the bottle and
break its neck?"
"My friend," says Charlie solemnly, "I have sworn an oath that I would
not open that bottle so long as I had not got my commission!"
"You will not even open it to celebrate the recovery of your nose?"
"I will not. I have not brought it all the long way from the
Dardanelles, through Egypt and the Mediterranean to France, only to
forget my oath when I am so near my goal!"
That bottle of champagne has a history. When we were at the Dardanelles
the Sergeant had made himself a wonderful dugout, quite a spacious
room, magnificently furnished with all sorts of empty cases. It was
quite a cosy place. Charlie had even caught a fox, that was his dog,
and a kingfisher, that was his canary. On the completion of the abode
we had a house warming. We were six, namely, the four inseparables whom
you have the advantage of knowing, plus an Australian and a French
guest.
The menu was:
SOUP.
Oxo.
ENTREE.
Kidneys.
(obtained from the Butcher Sergeant in return for a pair of braces
which he wanted badly.)