"It is the Archduke," he stammered, "who has forbidden the performance."
There was something like a sob in his voice.
"The Archduke? His own work? Why?"
"I don't know myself."
After a few steps made in a painful silence, he added:
"We had a little difference yesterday, at the dress rehearsal, but
nothing of importance."
"What was it?"
"He wanted to cancel the dance of the precious stones, saying that it
was like a _kindergarten_ that had gone mad."
"And?"
"Well, I objected to such a cut and said: 'Nonsense, _Herr Graf_.'
Thereupon he sat down, pronouncing not another word more."
"And what did he do to-day?"
"He did nothing. He did not even come. During the first act a letter
from the First Master of Ceremonies was delivered, saying that he
forbade the performance to go on."
"But how is it possible to treat the public in this way?"
"Oh, the public!"
He shrugged his shoulders and went on explaining:
"They are not supposed to be regular spectators as in an ordinary
theatre. They are the guests of the Emperor, and they, as it were,
buy an invitation to assist at the performance, which is in reality
supposed to be given not for the general public, but for the private
pleasure of His Majesty."
"And was there nothing to be done?"
"We have tried, that is why we had to keep the audience waiting so
long. The conductor hurried to the First Master of Ceremonies, and
the Manager to His Majesty himself, while I drove to the palace of
the Archduke. I was not received at all, nor did the manager see the
Emperor, and as for the conductor, he was told by the First Master of
Ceremonies that he regretted, but had to obey orders."
Instinctively, we had taken the direction of the Karlsgasse. I had a
very nasty feeling, as if poor, innocent Doblana had suddenly become a
criminal, and I his accomplice. I was dazed as if I had had a smack in
the face.
We were passing a large café near the Elisabeth Bridge, where Doblana
and I sometimes used to meet some friends.
"Let us go in," I said, "and show your self publicly. Make the best
out of a bad case. After all you are innocent of the disaster that has
befallen you. Go in, there are surely a few journalists inside. Let
yourself be interviewed and protest against the manner you have been
treated."
You ought to have seen the terror in the poor man's face. He opened his
eyes, his nostrils, his mouth and drew backwards his lower jaw as if
he had wanted to swallow it. (As a matter of fact, he must have been
starving, for he had had no food the whole day.)
"Protest!" he cried at last. "I?--Mr. Cooper, you desire my death. As
if my situation was not sufficiently bad! This is not a free country
like yours, where you can talk as you like. No! I have but one thing to
do, to go home and hide myself. I am done for."
And so we went to the Karlsgasse. The house seemed desolate to me.
The servant, Fanny's unworthy successor, believing that we would sup
outside and come home late, had gone to bed. So I proceeded into the
dreary kitchen (a kitchen without a cook is always dreary, and without
fire it can drive you to desperation) and made some tea on the
gas-stove, while Doblana who had lit a cigar was walking up and down in
the _salon_.
"It is terrible," said he at last, after he had swallowed a little tea,
"how Austria is changing. What happens to me is but an instance of the
new spirit that reigns here. Or should I not call it otherwise? This
spirit, which comes from Berlin, this Pangermanic spirit is not a new
spirit, but a reactionary spirit, a dark, mediæval spirit, a spirit
that recognizes no right, but only might. What this Archduke has done
to me to-day, in our time of enlightenment, is nothing else than an act
of mediæval brutality.
"All evil comes us from Berlin. It spoils our art, it spoils our music.
What they call the higher form is simply amorphous. What they call
deep ideas is empty commonplace. The motives which are behind it all
are vicious, sensual, degenerate, disgusting depravity. What we see
in their painting, figures now too long, now too short, with swollen
abdomens, with grinning faces, we find in their music, in the grossness
of their motives, in the brutality of their orchestrations. This music
is a breath from a stinking morass.
"And this is not all. Berlin is so mediæval in its views that they want
war, universal war. War which will give the death blow to Austrian
music, for music does not live in times of war. Fifty years ago they
said: Germany for the Germans! Now they are crying: the world for the
Prussians! And as though Austria were a German state, as though there
were no Slavs and no Italians in Austria, Berlin wants to drag us into
her war schemes. And they will succeed. From our cruel paintings you
can see it, from our coarse, frightful music you can hear it: they will
succeed!"
Thus spoke Doblana, not a great prophet, no, only a humble musician. Do
not believe, incredulous reader, that I make him utter a prophesy after
the event. Nay! These words were actually spoken, a long time before
anybody, before even he who spoke them, thought of the war, that war
in which I am fighting, that war which, as in irony, Austria, gentle,
joyous, dancing Austria began.
I looked at my watch, and suddenly I remembered that I was to meet
Mitzi at the Northern Station. It was very late, perhaps too late.
Still by making haste I might arrive in time. So I speedily went away.
But as it is always when you are in a hurry, the taxi took a long,
circuitous route, what they call a short cut, and I arrived too late.
The train had arrived nearly ten minutes ago, and I could find no trace
of Mitzi at the station.
Heaven knows what gave me the idea that something was wrong. When I
came back to the Karlsgasse, I saw the light in the windows of the
_salon_ as they had been when I had left. I ascended the stairs and
rang the bell. Nearly at once I heard Doblana's dragging step, who came
to open the door.
"Alone?" he cried, in a state of utmost anxiety.
Mitzi had not arrived.
The nervousness of the poor man was terrible. Exhausted as he was I
did not dare to leave him, and I passed with him the worst night of my
life. I have only to think of it to find any night in the trenches,
amidst the roaring of the shells, restful by comparison.
At the earliest hour in the morning we went to a telephone office where
we asked for communication with the Grand Hotel in Brünn. After a long
half-hour we got through, only to learn that _Fräulein_ had not been
seen on the previous day at the hotel.
We tried the theatre. The one thing we heard was that she had been very
successful as always and had left immediately after the performance.
We returned to the Karlsgasse. Mitzi had not arrived. Only the
postman had called and brought several letters. None of them being
from her, Doblana threw them carelessly into his pocket and asked me
whether I was coming with him to Brünn. Of course, I acquiesced. But
I will confess that I, so to say, made a condition of our having some
breakfast before. It may be that youth is more hungry, but I could not
go on without food.
At last we sat in the train. We had more than an hour before us.
Mechanically Doblana looked through his letters, passing them silently
to me. The first was an invoice for flowers he had offered the evening
before to several dancers.
The second was one of good Hammer, written immediately after the
interrupted performance in very warm words, taking part in the sorrow
that had befallen his friend.
The third was from the publisher. But I could not read it to the end,
for Doblana, who was perusing the fourth one, suddenly uttered a
stifled cry.
The letter was from the Archduke.
"My dear collaborator, my worthy Mr. Doblana," (it ran about--I do
not recollect the exact words--), "I have taken my revenge. You have
treated my dear wife like the basest of women, only because the chief
of my family had prohibited my marrying her. Your behaviour was an
unforgettable insult to the best, the most deserving and amiable
woman, in whom you have seen nothing but a despicable, venal dancer.
You have continued your disdain, your hatred beyond the tomb. What I
have done is my retaliation.
"It is I who have taken away from your house and destroyed your
_Griseldis_. It is I who have prohibited the performance of your
_Aladdin_, knowing that I would hit you in your weakest spot, your
ambition. And I may as well tell you that, while you may keep your
position as a horn-player at the Opera, its doors are henceforth
closed to the composer Doblana.
"You need not worry about the cost of the production at the Opera. I
have made good the damage my vengeance has occasioned.
"As for you, I do not wish that it should cause you any pecuniary
loss. The idea of having harmed my former collaborator in this paltry
way would be unpleasant to me. I put the value of _Griseldis_ and
_Aladdin_ at 25.000 crowns each and enclose therefore a cheque for
50.000 crowns to indemnify you.
"ALPHONS HECTOR."
I cannot describe the wrath of my poor friend. And I had to struggle
with him to prevent him from tearing the cheque to pieces. And this may
give you the measure of his indignation. For you know how great was his
love of money.
I should like to state that the Archduke had moreover shown himself
wrong in two points. Ambition was not Doblana's weakest spot, it was
precisely money. Nor was Alphons Hector's prediction right, for two
years later an opera of Doblana's composition was successfully produced
at the Viennese Opera.
As for the Archduke, or the _Herr Graf_, or _Joseph Dorff_, however you
may call him, he completely disappeared a few days after the memorable
_Aladdin_ night. Some say that he undertook a journey on his yacht, and
that it was lost with all hands. Other people think that he has settled
down to a private life somewhere in South America. In any case he was
nevermore heard of.
But to resume my story. All researches in Brünn as afterwards in Vienna
did not succeed in finding Mitzi. The only clue we obtained (it was
from Augusta von Heidenbrunn that we got it) was the fact that her
brother Franz had disappeared together with my fiancée. He had, for her
sake, become a deserter.
A few weeks went by, which I passed nearly without interruption on
Doblana's side. He slowly recovered from the awful shock this whole
affair had caused him. Then I proceeded to Graz to assist at the
performance of _Lady Macbeth_ in this town. Without Mitzi, without her
overwhelming talent, without her charm it was bound to be a failure.
And I came back to Vienna more discouraged, more disheartened than
ever. Again I saw much of Doblana, and I can assure you that we were a
pretty pair of dejected composers. On this subject I could write pages,
but out of pity for you I won't.
One day, as we sat there smoking, and pondering silently over our
shattered hopes, the bell rang. We heard the maid opening the door, and
in the next minute Mitzi entered. She was dressed exactly as I had last
seen her, but her features were drawn, she was pale and seemed to have
suffered. In this moment I swore that I would avenge her, if ever I
could, of the scoundrel who had brought her to this.
She had stopped at the door. We had both, Doblana and I, risen in a
violent surprise. During an unterminable minute no word was spoken.
Then, at last, she whispered piteously:
"Father!"
And as no answer came she said:
"Patrick, I have come back."
Again there was that gloomy, cruel silence. And suddenly we saw her
fall down crying, sobbing, shaking. Then her father approached her and
lifted her up. He did it with infinite gentleness, but he said no word.
My dear reader, you are perhaps a sentimental person and you will, may
be, condemn your old friend Patrick for not having made the movement
which her father made. But you see....
A few days before I had read William J. Locke's novel _The Morals
of Marcus Ordeyne_, one of the most brilliant and delightful this
wonderful writer has achieved. There was a certain analogy in Mitzi's
return and in that of Carlotta. Like her she came back empty handed,
having also probably pawned everything. It was heart-breaking, and like
Marcus I felt faint. Perhaps, if I had spoken one single word at that
moment everything would have happened otherwise. However, my morals are
not the morals of Marcus Ordeyne--and that one word, I spoke it not.
Slowly her father led her into her room. I used the moment to slip out
of the house. I went to my lodgings, nearly mad, and packed my things.
The same evening saw me on my way to England, never to go back.