George stood by the window. The stone backs of the bearded giants
who bore on their powerful arms the battered armorial bearings of a
long-past race were arched just beneath him. Straight opposite, out of
the darkness of ancient houses the steps crept up to the door of the
old grey church which loomed amid the falling flakes of snow as though
behind a moving curtain. The light of a street lamp on the square
shone palely through the waning daylight. The snowy street beneath,
which, though centrally situated, was remote from all bustle, was even
quieter than usual on this holiday afternoon, and George felt once
more, as indeed he always did when he ascended the broad staircase of
the old palace that had been transformed into an apartment house, and
stepped into the spacious room with its low-arched ceiling, that he was
escaping from his usual world and had entered the other half of his
wonderful double life.
He heard a key grating in the door and turned round. Anna came in.
George clasped her ecstatically in his arms, and kissed her on the
forehead and mouth. Her dark-blue jacket, her broad-rimmed hat, her fur
boa were all covered with snow.
"You have been working then," said Anna, as she took off her things and
pointed to the table where music paper with writing on it lay close to
the green-shaded lamp.
"I have just looked through the quintette, the first movement, there is
still a lot to do to it."
"But it will be extraordinarily fine then."
"We'll hope so. Do you come from home, Anna?"
"No, from Bittner's."
"What, to-day, Sunday?"
"Yes, the two girls have got a lot behind-hand through the measles, and
that has to be made up. I am very pleased too, for money reasons for
one thing."
"Making your fortune!"
"And then one escapes for an hour or two at any rate from the happy
home."
"Yes," said George, put Anna's boa over the back of a chair and stroked
the fur nervously with his fingers. Anna's remark, in which he could
detect a gentle reproach, as it were, a reproach too which he had
heard before, gave him an unpleasant feeling. She sat down on the
sofa, put her hands on her temples, stroked her dark blonde wavy hair
backwards and looked at George with a smile. He stood leaning on the
chest of drawers, with both hands in his jacket pocket, and began to
tell her of the previous evening, which he had spent with Guido and his
violinist. The young lady had, at the Count's wish, been for some weeks
taking instruction in the Catholic religion with the confessor of an
Arch-duchess; she, on her side, made Guido read Nietzsche and Ibsen.
But according to George's account the only result of this course of
study which one could report so far was that the Count had developed
the habit of nicknaming his Mistress "the Rattenmamsell," after that
wonderful character out of _Little Eyolf_.
Anna had nothing very bright to communicate about her last evening.
They had had visitors. "First," Anna told him, "my mother's two
cousins, then an office friend of my father's to play tarok. Even Josef
was domesticated for once and lay on the sofa from three to five. Then
his latest pal, Herr Jalaudek, who paid me quite a lot of attention."
"Really, really."
"He _was_ fascinating. I'll just tell you: a violet cravat with yellow
spots which puts yours quite into the shade. He paid me the honour too
of suggesting that I should help him in a so-called charity-performance
at the 'Wild Man,' for the benefit of the Wahringer Church Building
Society."
"Of course you accepted?"
"I excused myself on account of my lack of voice and want of religious
feeling."
"So far as the voice is concerned...."
She interrupted him. "No, George," she said lightly, "I have given up
that hope at last."
He looked at her and tried to read her glance, but it remained clear
and free. The organ from the church sounded softly and dully.
"Right," said George, "I have brought you the ticket for to-morrow's
'Carmen.'"
"Thanks very much," she answered, and took the card. "Are you going
too, dear?"
"Yes, I have a box in the third tier, and I have asked Bermann to come.
I am taking the music with me, as I did the other day at Lohengrin, and
I shall practise conducting again. At the back, of course. You can have
no idea what you learn that way. I should like to make a suggestion,"
he added hesitatingly. "Won't you come and have supper somewhere with
me and Bermann after the theatre?"
She was silent.
He continued: "I should really like it if you got to know him better.
With all his faults he is an interesting fellow and...."
"I am not a Rattenmamsell," she interrupted sharply, while her face
immediately assumed its stiff conventional expression.
George compressed the corners of his mouth. "That doesn't apply to me,
my dear child. There are many points of difference between Guido and
me. But as you like." He walked up and down the room.
She remained sitting on the ottoman. "So you are going to Ehrenbergs'
this evening?" she asked.
"You know I am. I have already refused twice recently, and I couldn't
very well do so this time."
"You needn't make any excuses, George, I am invited too."
"Where to?"
"I am going to Ehrenbergs' too."
"Really?" he exclaimed involuntarily.
"Why are you so surprised?" she asked sharply; "it is clear that they
don't yet know that I am not fit to be associated with any more."
"My dear Anna, what is the matter with you to-day? Why are you so
touchy? Supposing they did know ... do you think that would prevent
people from inviting you? Quite the contrary. I am convinced that you
would really go up in Frau Ehrenberg's respect."
"And the sweet Else, I suppose, would positively envy me. Don't you
think so? Anyway, she wrote me quite a nice letter. Here it is. Won't
you read it?" George ran his eye over it, thought its kindness was
somewhat deliberate, made no further remark and gave it back to Anna.
"Here is another one too, if it interests you."
"From Doctor Stauber. Indeed? Would he mind if he knew that you gave it
to me to read?"
"Why are you so considerate all of a sudden?" and as though to punish
him she added, "there are probably a great many things that he would
mind."
George read the letter quickly through to himself. Berthold described
in his dry way, with an occasional tinge of humour, the progress of
his work at the Pasteur Institute, his walks, his excursions and the
theatres he had visited, and quite a lot of remarks also of a general
character. But in spite of his eight pages the letter did not contain
the slightest allusion to either past or future. George asked casually
"How long is he staying in Paris?"
"As you see he doesn't write a single word about his return."
"Your friend Therese was recently of opinion that his colleagues in the
party would like to have him back again."
"Oh, has she been in the café again?"
"Yes. I spoke to her there two or three days ago. She really amuses me
a great deal."
"Really?"
"She starts off, of course, by always being very superior, even with
me. Presumably because I am one of those who rot away their life with
art and silly things like that, while there are so many more important
things to do in the world. But when she warms up a bit it turns out
that she is every bit as interested as we ordinary people in all kinds
of silly things."
"She easily gets warmed up," said Anna imperturbably.
George walked up and down and went on speaking. "She was really
magnificent the other day at the fencing tournament in the Musikverein
rooms. By-the-bye, who was the gentleman who was up there in the
gallery with her?"
Anna shrugged her shoulders. "I did not have the privilege of being at
the tournament, and besides, I don't know all Therese's cavaliers."
"I presume," said George, "it was a comrade, in every sense of the
term. At any rate he was very glum and was pretty badly dressed.
When Therese clapped Felician's victory he positively collapsed with
jealousy."
"What did Therese really tell you about Doctor Berthold?" asked Anna.
"Ho, ho!" said George jestingly, "the lady still appears to be keenly
interested."
Anna did not answer.
"Well," reported George, "I can give you the information that they want
to make him stand in the autumn for the Landtag. I can quite understand
it too, in view of his brilliant gifts as a speaker."
"What do you know about it? Have you ever heard him speak?"
"Of course I have; don't you remember? At your place."
"There is really no occasion for you to make fun of him."
"I assure you I'd no idea of doing so."
"I noticed at once that he struck you at the time as somewhat funny. He
and his father, too. Why, you immediately ran away from them."
"Not at all, Anna. You are doing me a great injustice in making such
insinuations."
"They may have their weaknesses, both of them, but at any rate they
belong to the people whom one can count on. And that is something."
"Have I disputed that, Anna? Upon my word, I have never heard you talk
so illogically. What do you want me to do then? Did you want me by any
chance to be jealous about that letter?"
"Jealous? that would be the finishing touch. You with your past."
George shrugged his shoulders. Memories swam up in his mind of similar
wrangles in the course of previous relationships, memories of those
mysterious sudden discords and estrangements which usually simply meant
the beginning of the end. Had he really got as far as all that already
with his good sensible Anna? He walked up and down the room moodily and
almost depressed. At times he threw a fleeting glance towards his love
who sat silent in her corner of the sofa, rubbing her hands lightly as
though she were cold. The organ rang out more heavily than before in
the silence of the room that had suddenly become so melancholy; the
voices of singing men became audible and the window-panes rattled
softly. George's glance fell on the little Christmas-tree which stood
on the sideboard and whose candles had burnt the evening before last
for the benefit of Anna and himself. Half-bored, half-nervous, he took
a wooden vesta out of his pocket and began to light the little candles
one after another.
Then Anna's voice suddenly rang out to him. "There is no one I should
prefer to old Doctor Stauber to confide in about anything serious."
George turned coldly towards her and blew out a burning vesta which
he still held in his hand. He knew immediately what Anna meant, and
felt surprised that he had never given it another thought since their
last meeting. He went up to her and took hold of her hand. Now for the
first time she looked up. Her expression was impenetrable, her features
immobile. "I say, Anna...." He sat down by her side on the ottoman with
both her hands in his.
She was silent.
"Why don't you speak?"
She shrugged her shoulders. "There is nothing new to tell you," she
explained simply.
"I see," he said slowly. It passed through his mind that her strange
sensitiveness to-day was to be regarded as symptomatic of the condition
to which she was alluding, and the uneasiness in his soul increased.
"But you can't tell definitely for a good time yet," he said in a
somewhat cooler tone than he really meant. "And ... even supposing ..."
he added with artificial cheerfulness.
"So you would forgive me?" she asked with a smile.
He pressed her to him and suddenly felt quite transported. A vivid and
almost pathetic feeling of love flamed up in him for the soft good
creature whom he held in his arms, and who could never occasion him,
he felt deeply convinced, any serious suffering. "It really wouldn't
be so bad," he said cheerily, "you would just leave Vienna for a time,
that's all."
"Well, it certainly wouldn't be as simple as you seem all of a sudden
to think it would."
"Why not? You can soon find an excuse; besides, whom does it concern?
Us two. No one else. But as far as I am concerned. I can get away any
day as you know; can stay away too as long as I want to. I have not
yet signed any contract for next year," he added with a smile. He then
got up to put out the Christmas candles, whose tiny flames had almost
burnt down to the end, and went on speaking with increasing liveliness.
"It would be positively delightful; just think of it, Anna! We should
go away at the end of February or the beginning of March. South, of
course, Italy, or perhaps the sea. We would stay at some quiet place
where no one knows us, in a beautiful hotel with enormous grounds. And
wouldn't one be able to work there, by Jove?"
"So that's why!" she said, as though she suddenly understood him. He
laughed, held her more tightly in his arms and she pressed herself
against his breast. There was no longer any noise from outside. The
last sounds of the organ and the men's voices had died away. The snow
curtains swept down in front of the window.... George and Anna were
happy as they had never been before.
While they were at peace in the darkness he spoke about his musical
plans for the near future, and told her, so far as he was able, about
Heinrich's opera plot. The room became filled with shimmering shadows.
The clatter of a wedding-feast swept through the fantastic hall of an
ancient king. A passionate youth stole in and thrust his dagger into
the prince. A dark sentence was pronounced more sinister than death
itself. A sluggish ship sailed on a darkling flood towards an unknown
goal. At the youth's feet there rested a princess, who had once been
the betrothed of a duke. An unknown man approached the shining boat
with strange tidings; fools, star-gazers, dancers, courtiers swept
past. Anna had listened in silence. When he had finished George was
curious to learn what impression the fleeting pictures had made upon
her.
"I can't say properly," she replied. "I certainly feel quite puzzled
to-day, how you are going to make anything real out of this more or
less fantastic stuff."
"Of course you can't realise it yet to-day--particularly after just
hearing me describe it.... But you do feel, don't you? the musical
atmosphere. I have already noted down a few _motifs_--and I should be
really very glad if Bermann would soon get to work seriously."
"If I were you, George ... may I tell you something?"
"Of course, fire ahead."
"Well, if I were you, I'd first get the quintette really finished. It
can't want much doing to it now."
"Not much, and yet ... besides, you mustn't forget that I've started
all kinds of other things lately. The two pianoforte pieces, then the
orchestra _scherzo_--I've already got pretty far with that. But it
certainly ought to be made part of a symphony."
Anna made no answer. George noticed that her thoughts were roving, and
he asked her where she had run away to this time.
"Not so far," she replied; "it only just passed through my mind what a
lot of things can happen before the opera is really ready."
"Yes," said George slowly, with a slight trace of embarrassment. "If
one could just look into the future."
She sighed quite softly and he pressed her nearer to him, almost as
though he pitied her. "Don't worry, my darling, don't worry," he said.
"I am here all right, and I always shall be here." He thought he felt
what she was thinking; can't he say anything better than that?...
anything stronger? anything to take away all my fear--take it away from
me for ever? And he asked her disingenuously, as though conscious of
running a risk: "What are you thinking of?" And as she was obstinately
silent he said once more: "Anna, what are you thinking of?"
"Something very strange," she answered gently.
"What is it?"
"That the house is already built, where it will come into the
world--that we have no idea where ... that is what I couldn't help
thinking of."
"Thinking of that!" he said, strangely moved. And pressing her to his
heart with a love that flamed up afresh, "I will never desert you, you
two...."
When the room was lighted again they were in very good spirits,
plucked the last forgotten sweets from the branches of the little
Christmas-tree and looked forward to their next meeting among people
who were absolutely indifferent to them, as though it were quite a
jolly adventure, laughed and talked exuberant nonsense.
As soon as Anna had gone away George locked his music manuscript up in
a drawer, put out the lamp and opened the window. The snow was falling
lightly and thinly. An old man was coming up the steps and his laboured
breathing sounded through the still air. Opposite the silent church
towered aloft ... George remained awhile standing at the window. He
felt almost convinced at this moment that Anna was mistaken in her
surmise. He felt almost reassured as there came into his mind that
remark of Leo Golowski's that Anna was destined to end her days in
respectable middle-class life. Having a child by a lover really could
not be part of her fate line. It was not part of his fate line either
to carry the burden of serious obligation, to be tied fast from to-day
and perhaps for all time to a person of the other sex; to become a
father when he was still so young, a father ... the word sank into his
soul, oppressive, almost sinister.
He went into the Ehrenbergs' drawing-room at eight o'clock in the
evening. He was met by the sound of waltz music. Old Eissler sat at the
piano with his long grey beard almost drooping on to the keys. George
remained at the entrance in order not to disturb him, and met welcoming
glances from every quarter. Old Eissler was playing his celebrated
Viennese dances and songs with a soft touch and powerful rhythm, and
George enjoyed, as he always did, the sweet crooning melodies.
"Splendid," said Frau Ehrenberg, when the old man got up.
"Keep your big words for great occasions, Leonie," answered Eissler,
whose time-honoured privilege it was to call all women and girls by
their Christian names. And it seemed to do everybody good to hear
themselves spoken to by this handsome old man with his deep ringing
voice, in which there quivered frequently, as it were, a sentimental
echo of the vivid days of his youth.
George asked him if all his compositions had appeared in print.
"Very few, dear Baron. Unfortunately I can scarcely write a single
note."
"It would certainly be an awful pity if these charming melodies were to
be absolutely lost."
"Yes, I have often told him that," put in Frau Ehrenberg, "but
unfortunately he is one of those men who have never taken themselves
quite seriously."
"No, that is a mistake, Leonie. You know how I began my artistic
career: I wanted to compose a great opera. Of course I was seventeen
years old at the time and madly in love with a great singer."
Frau Oberberger's voice rang out from the table towards the corner: "I
am sure it was a chorus girl."
"You are making a mistake, Katerina," answered Eissler. "Chorus girls
were never my line. It was, as a matter of fact, a platonic love, like
most of the great passions of my life."
"Were you so clumsy?" queried Frau Oberberger.
"I was often that as well," replied Eissler, in his sonorous voice and
with dignity. "For as far as I can see I could have had as much luck as
a hussar riding-master, but I don't regret having been clumsy."
Frau Ehrenberger nodded appreciatively.
"Then one would not be making a mistake, Herr Eissler," remarked
Nürnberger, "if one attributed the chief part in your life to
melancholy memories?"
Frau Ehrenberger nodded again. She was delighted whenever any one was
witty in her drawing-room.
"Why did you say," she inquired, "that you could have had as much
happiness as a hussar riding-master? It is not true for a minute
that officers have any particular luck with women, even though my
sister-in-law once had an affair with a First-Lieutenant...."
"I don't believe in platonic love," said Sissy, and beamed through the
room.
Frau Wyner gave a slight shriek.
"Fräulein Sissy is probably right," said Nürnberger; "at any rate I am
convinced that most women take platonic love either as an insult or an
excuse."
"There are young girls here," Frau Ehrenberg reminded him gently.
"One sees that already," said Nürnberger, "from the fact of their
joining in the conversation."
"All the same, I would like to take the liberty of adding a little
anecdote to the chapter of platonic love," said Heinrich.
"But not a Jewish one," put in Else.
"Of course not. A blonde little girl...."
"That proves nothing," interrupted Else.
"Please let him finish his story," remonstrated Frau Ehrenberg.
"Well then, a blonde little girl," began Heinrich again, "once
expressed her conviction to me, quite different, you see, from Fräulein
Sissy, that platonic love did, as a matter of fact, exist, and do you
know what she suggested as a proof of it? giving ... an experience out
of her own life. She had, you know, once spent a whole hour in a room
with a lieutenant and...."
"That is enough!" cried Frau Ehrenberg nervously.
"And," finished Heinrich, quite unperturbed and in a reassuring voice,
"nothing at all happened in that hour."
"So the blonde girl says," added Else.
The door opened. George saw a strange lady enter in a clear blue
square-cut dress, pale, simple and dignified. It was only when she
smiled that he realised that the lady was Anna Rosner, and he felt
something like pride in her.
When he shook hands with his love he felt Else's look turn towards him.
They went into the next room, where the table was laid with a moderate
show of festivity. The son of the house was not there. He was at
Neuhaus at his father's factory. But Herr Ehrenberg suddenly turned up
at the table when the supper was served. He had just come back from
his travels, which as a matter of fact had taken him to Palestine.
When he was asked by Hofrat Wilt about his experiences he was at first
reluctant to let himself go; finally it turned out that he had been
disappointed in the scenery, annoyed by the fatigue of the journey, and
had practically seen nothing of the Jewish settlements which, according
to reliable information, were in process of springing up.
"So we have some ground to hope," remarked Nürnberger, "that we may
keep you here even in the event of a Jewish state being founded in the
imminent future?"
Ehrenberg answered brusquely: "Did I ever tell you that I intended to
emigrate? I am too old for that."
"Really," said Nürnberger, "I didn't know that you had only visited
the district for the benefit of Fräulein Else and Herr Oskar."
"I am not going to quarrel with you, my dear Nürnberger. Zionism is
really too good to serve as small talk at meals."
"We'll take it for granted," said Hofrat Wilt, "that it is too good,
but it is certainly too complicated, if only for the reason that
everybody understands something different by it."
"Or wants to understand," added Nürnberger, "as is usually the case
with most catchwords, not only in politics either--that's why there is
so much twaddle talked in the world."
Heinrich explained that of all human creatures the politician
represented in his eyes the most enigmatic phenomenon. "I can
understand," he said, "pickpockets, acrobats, bank--directors,
hotel--proprietors, kings ... I mean I can manage without any
particular trouble to put myself into the souls of all these people.
Of course the logical result is that I should only need certain
alterations in degree, though no doubt enormous ones, to qualify myself
to play in the world the rôle of acrobat, king or bank-director. On
the other hand I have an infallible feeling that even if I could
raise myself to the _n_th power I could never become what one calls a
politician, a leader of a party, a member, a minister."
Nürnberger smiled at Heinrich's theory of the politician representing
a particular type of humanity, inasmuch as it was only one of the
superficial and by no means essential attributes of his profession
to pose as a special human type, and to hide his greatness or his
insignificance, his feats or his idleness behind labels, abstractions
and symbols. What the nonentities or charlatans among them represented,
why, that was obvious: they were simply business people or swindlers or
glib speakers, but the people who really counted, the people who did
things--the real geniuses of course, they at the bottom of their souls
were simply artists. They too tried to create a work, and one, too,
that raised in the sphere of ideas quite as much claim to immortality
and permanent value as any other work of art. The only difference was
that the material in which they worked was one that was not rigid or
relatively stable, like tones or words, but that, like living men, it
was in a continual state of flux and movement.
Willy Eissler appeared, apologised to his hostess for being late, sat
down between Sissy and Frau Oberberger and greeted his father like a
friend long lost. It turned out that though they both lived together
they had not seen each other for several days.
Willy was complimented all round on his success in the aristocratic
amateur performance where he had played the part of a marquis with the
Countess Liebenburg-Rathony in a French one-act play. Frau Oberberger
asked him, in a voice sufficiently loud for her neighbours to catch it,
where his assignations with the countess took place and if he received
her in the same _pied-à-terre_ quarter as his more middle-class flames.
The conversation became more lively, dialogues were exchanged and
became intertwined all over the room.
But George caught isolated snatches, including part of a conversation
between Anna and Heinrich which dealt with Therese Golowski. He noticed
at the same time that Anna would occasionally throw a dark inquisitive
look at Demeter Stanzides, who had appeared to-night in evening
dress with a gardenia in his buttonhole; and though he had no actual
consciousness of jealousy he felt strangely affected. He wondered if
at this moment she was really thinking that she was perhaps bearing
a child by him under her bosom. The idea of "the depths ..." came to
him again. She suddenly looked over to him with a smile, as though she
were coming home from a journey. He felt an inner sense of relief and
appreciated with a slight shock how much he loved her. Then he raised
his glass to his lips and drank to her. Else, who up to this time had
been chatting with her other neighbour Demeter, now turned to George.
With her deliberately casual manner and with a look towards Anna she
remarked: "She does look pretty, so womanly. But that's always been her
line. Do you still do music together?"
"Frequently," replied George coolly.
"Perhaps I'll ask you to start accompanying me again at the beginning
of the new year. I don't know why we have not done so before."
George was silent.
"And how are you getting on"--she threw a look at Heinrich--"with your
opera?"
"Nothing is done so far. Who knows if anything will come of it?"
"Of course nothing will come of it."