"I am probably a little excited," I answered. "And the manager of the
Graz theatre has just accepted the opera."
"That is splendid!" cried dad.
"Does he pay well?" asked the mater.
"That's the boy's affair," grumbled Daniel Cooper, turning to her. "You
mind your own business."
A bell rang, and dad and my mother went into their box, while I hurried
back to my seat.
During the whole act of the banquet I could not find my senses. What
was I to do with Mitzi? I could not possibly ignore the incident. I
asked myself whether she was not too much an artist to be a wife.
What, if frivolity were unavoidable in the dramatic art, the most
corporal and difficult of all, but the only one in which woman could
grow up to the highest genius?
These doubts spoiled the second act for me. Yet I saw how lovingly
she was stroking Macbeth's forehead, like a nurse who would cool the
burning brow of a sick man. I saw, too, how she smiled at the ghost,
how she mocked him, and I heard how she sang the words: "_What, quite
unmanned in folly?_" and afterwards: "_Fie, for shame!_" exactly as I
had taught her, slowly, softly, and more like a warning than a reproach.
There was even less applause after the second act than the first.
However, Doctor Bernheim, whom you know as a sensible, judicious man,
came and heartily congratulated me.
"In this particular case," he said, "the success cannot be measured
from the applause. The public is much too moved to applaud loudly.
Instinctively they fear to destroy the atmosphere."
I did not go on the stage after this act. I was afraid lest I should
meet Mitzi and say one word too many.
The last act began, and soon the famous sleep-walking scene arrived.
Never before had the ruin of a poor, over-burdened heart been acted
thus.
She came.
At once I noticed that she was not dressed as she had been the day
before at the dress rehearsal, when she had worn a long night-gown.
She came like a child, with bare feet and bare legs--there was just
then the craze of dancers who appeared like that--tripping full of
anguish ... not in a night-gown, but in a chemise ... looking tortured,
deceived, broken, a child vanquished in a fight which was too much for
her.
And with a voice more gentle, soft, and lovely than anything which
I ever heard, she began. Sweet as the singing of a breeze her voice
vibrated through the soundless, trembling audience.
"_Yet here's a spot._"
How she wept after the words: "_Yet who would have thought the old man
to have had so much blood in him?_"
And later: "_All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little
hand. Oh, oh, oh!_" How she whined these three oh's! The audience
pitied her. And how helpless she looked, with her poor, naked legs, in
her poor chemise....
Then ... then, when she had said the words: "_To bed--to bed_," there
came a musical afterpiece in which I once more repeated all the motives
of the opera, including the lullaby. Mitzi was slowly to turn round and
to remain there with her taper--showing her back to the audience and
advancing only one step from time to time.
She had been rehearsing it with a long, flowing night-gown; and now she
was standing there in that short chemise. She had dared that! And to my
horror I saw that it was transparent, very transparent even, and tight,
and that it outlined the contours of....
There! I am once more in difficulty. You, chaste reader, who have
accompanied me through these pages, have surely noticed my struggles
at different times to find the right expression for ... you know what
I mean. And this time I feel truly awkward because I have reached an
important point. I must find a name for that lovely _it_, which had
seduced me from the very first moment I had seen her, for _it_ was
pretty, so pretty, quite bewitching.
Ah, Barrie! Thou who has invented that charming name "Little Mary" for
something which was as difficult to baptize, help me ... help me to
find a name for it ... for that darling ... for that double darling!
Double Darling?
Barrie! Did this idea come from thee?
I'll name it Double Darling, but being shy, I'll write only D. D.
Well, I have explained that I was horror-stricken. This, I must
confess, is a lie. I felt no horror at all, on the contrary. The truth
is that the attractive sight made me forget my anger, my dejection. She
did look fascinating, and the wicked thing knew it. She knew that she
was bewitching and was sure that she risked nothing by showing her D. D.
Nor did she fail in her bold venture. When a minute or so later she
disappeared in the background, and at the same time the curtain was
slowly closed, a storm of applause broke forth as I never had imagined.
Again and again Mitzi had to bow before the public, although she
disappointed it somewhat by appearing hidden in a light dressing-gown.
But the wanton people had had their sensation, they applauded and
shouted, and it reached a degree of real paroxysm when dad's immense
basket of flowers was carried on the stage.
But the louder the noise was, the more did I understand that nothing of
it was meant for me, for my work. It was not _Lady Macbeth_ over which
the public rejoiced, it was Mitzi's D. D.
I heard the people talk. There was not one word for the misery of Lady
Macbeth, her sighs and her struggles and her wretchedness. The crowd
will never recognize the nobility of suffering. No, they spoke of La
Dobanelli.... La Dobanelli in her little chemise. The D. D. had been an
event.
And the same thing occurred at the next performances. Only that on the
first night the audience had been shaking with terror, and that the
following times it was shaking with sensation ... or with deception,
for many people left the theatre with words of regret:
"Oh--it was not so wicked as all that!"
The snobs of the town fell in love with La Dobanelli by the dozen. One
out of each dozen was struck by the sweetness of her voice, by her
sublime acting, by her power of remaining lovable even in crime--the
other eleven were in love with the D. D.
Anyhow, when we all met half an hour after the end of the performance
at the Grand Hotel there was much joy in the air. Dad was offering to
my friends a superb supper in honour of my first night--and they were
all present, you bet.