Frederick washed and went down-stairs to the basement with Willy Snyders.
Here there was a tidy little dining-room with a table set for eight. As
in the other rooms, the floors were of brick, and the walls half-way up
were hung with burlap. Where the burlap ended, a narrow shelf ran around
the entire room, set with all sorts of household utensils, chiefly
_fiaschi_ of wine in straw cases. Like everything else about the place,
the napery was exquisitely clean.
Willy in the meantime had in his droll, lively way fully informed
Frederick of the character and purpose of this extremely comfortable
house. It was leased by a group of German artists, whose main prop was a
sculptor of twenty-eight by the name of Ritter. Willy lauded Ritter as a
genius. He had entered upon a career in the New World most remarkable for
a man of his age. Among his patrons were the Astors, the Goulds, and the
Vanderbilts; and he had received most of the orders for exterior
sculpture work on the buildings of the Chicago Exposition. Willy called
Ritter "a devil of a fellow," and praised him for his "smartness."
In a corner of the dining-room, in the halls and on the stairway
landings, were reproductions of Ritter's works. Willy extolled them to
the skies; Frederick honestly admired them. The large bas-relief in the
corner of the dining-room represented a group of singing boys, for which
Ritter, probably at the suggestion of his customer, a Vanderbilt or an
Astor, had used the famous relief of Luca della Robbia as a model. In
style, nobility and freshness, his work surpassed anything then being
done in Germany.
Another sculptor partaking of the benefits of the club-house was a friend
of Ritter, who helped him with his work. Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was a
native Austrian. The fourth member of the group was Franck, a painter
from Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon whose talents his comrades
placed an extremely high estimate. It was Willy Snyders the kind-hearted
who, soon after a chance meeting with his fellow-Silesian, dragged him
from his wretched quarters, not without much coaxing, and transferred him
to the club-house.
"Wait and see the way that lunatic Franck is going to behave," said Willy
in his peculiar voice, in which there was a blending of the guttural and
nasal tones of American English with the Austrian German accent of his
friends. "He snaps like a mad dog. He's enough to make you split your
sides laughing--that is, if the perverse creature comes at all and
doesn't have dinner served in his room."
As a matter of fact, Franck was the first to enter the dining-room.
Willy's tongue kept wagging, while the eccentric merely shook hands
limply with Frederick and said nothing. Though the three were countrymen,
Franck's appearance--like Willy, he was wearing evening dress--added a
touch of embarrassment where there had been perfect unconstraint; and
though Willy had lent Frederick a suit, and a tailor had already been
ordered, Frederick expressed regret at not being appropriately dressed.
"Yes, Ritter's a great stickler for form," Willy observed. "Every evening
we have to present the appearance of at least attachés to an embassy."
Petronilla entered and explained in wordy Italian that the poor, dear,
sweet little signorina had fallen asleep in bed and was breathing quietly
and regularly.
"You could shoot off a cannon, bum! bum! Outside her window, and she
wouldn't wake up," she said. Then holding out a newspaper, she asked
whether the gentlemen had heard of the sinking of the _Roland_ and the
few survivors. When Willy, with his dilating nostrils and his
characteristic half-serious, half-comic expression, introduced Frederick
as one of those survivors, she burst into a noisy laugh, which vastly
amused two of the three Silesians. When convinced that Willy was not
teasing, she stared at Frederick speechlessly, burst into tears, and
kissed his hands. Then she ran out.
Soon after, Lobkowitz entered, a tall, quiet man. He had heard of
Frederick's recent experience, and greeted him with simple cordiality.
"Ritter has just come in his cart," he said.
They looked out of the window. Frederick saw an elegant two-wheeled
dog-cart with a handsome coachman in black livery preparing to drive off,
while a thoroughbred grey, feeling the tightening of the reins, was
rearing and plunging in the shafts.
"The coachman," said Willy, whose lack of reserve and extreme
indiscretion his friends accepted good-naturedly, "is a ruined officer
of the Austrian army. He ran away from his gambling debts. I don't know
whether he got out of the army or was put out. At any rate he is of
invaluable service to Ritter. He tells him to the dot how he must dress
for luncheons and dinners, for tennis and golf and riding and driving;
how to manage a four-in-hand, when to wear a black chimney-pot or a grey
one, what colour gloves to wear, what sort of necktie, what sort of cuff
links, what sort of stockings. In short, he tells him all the things a
man has to pay attention to in order to succeed here in high life."
At this point Bonifacius Ritter, whom fortune had favoured in America
beyond his most extravagant expectations, now entered, young, brisk,
handsome, amiable as Alcibiades. Frederick was instantly carried away
by his manner, radiating bonhomie, naïveté, joy in life, and simple
heartiness. The atmosphere of the New World had imparted ease and fire
to the flabby amiability of the Austrian.
Dinner was served, and over genuine Italian soup, conversation was soon
in full swing. Willy Snyders, as commissary, poured the wine. It was
evident how proud he was of Bonifacius Ritter and what satisfaction it
gave him to present his quondam teacher to such friends and such a home
in this foreign land. The company thawed; and by the time the maid in
white cap and apron had finished serving, the four had all touched
glasses with Frederick on his and his protégée's rescue. A short pause
of embarrassment followed, which Frederick interpreted as a demand for
a statement regarding himself. His pale scholarly face still showed deep
traces of the hardships he had undergone.
"I came over," he said, "to continue some studies with a friend which he
and I began years ago. You know him, Willy. He is Peter Schmidt, the
physician, in Springfield, Massachusetts."
"He's in Meriden now, an hour's ride from Springfield."
"Yes?" said Frederick, "I assumed he was still in Springfield. But
no matter. While I was in Berlin and Paris, I conferred with some
scientists, friends of mine, before boarding the _Roland_ at Southampton.
Everybody told me the _Roland_ was one of the best vessels. To my
astonishment, I met the young lady who is now enjoying your hospitality.
She was going to the United States with her father. We were fortunate.
We got into the life-boat perfectly quietly, before the panic broke out,
but we had to leave the young lady's father behind. I forgot to say I had
already become acquainted with Hahlström and his daughter in Berlin.
Thus, fate brought us together, and I consider myself responsible for
Miss Hahlström, both as a physician and a human being. She is an artistic
wonder. She is a dancer."
Willy Snyders gave a witty account of the attack of Webster and Forster's
agent; and the conversation turned on art in general and on American art
in particular.
"Millions of dollars annually," said Bonifacius Ritter, "are spent upon
all sorts of art objects, an enormous sum on paintings alone. At the same
time, there is a class of persons here of Puritanic descent to whom any
kind of art is the abomination of the arch-enemy. For instance, there is
an association of pious pillars of society, an association of vandals,
invested with certain civic rights, whose object is the abolition of
filth and the maintenance of chastity. To that end it recently broke into
one of the famous clubs of the New York _jeunesse dorée_ and destroyed a
number of irreplaceable art treasures, masterpieces, among them even a
Venus by Titian."
"And the relation of the amateurs here," said Lobkowitz, "to their
artistic possessions is very funny. You should see how they place their
paintings. The "Crucifixion" by Munkaczy is displayed in a department
store in Philadelphia. The Goulds have Rembrandts in their extremely
comfortable bathrooms. Of course, I have nothing to say against good
pictures hanging in hotel halls and stairways. The largest bar-room
in New York has the whole Barbizon school--Millets, Courbets,
Bastien-Lepages, and Daubignys--hanging over the bar."
"My sole reason," said Franck, "for going there every day for my whisky
and soda."
Ritter, Snyders and Lobkowitz burst out laughing.
Franck had the looks of a gypsy; so that two more un-European types,
as Frederick said to himself, than he and Willy Snyders were scarcely
conceivable. Though a year older than Frederick, Franck, small-boned and
youthfully slim, seemed to be seven or eight years younger. He was
forever shoving from his eyes a pitch-black lock, which promptly fell
over his forehead again to the top of his nose. He drank heavily and kept
smiling. He smiled, while the others laughed as he expounded the relation
of art to whisky.
A sense of security such as he had not experienced in years came over
Frederick. He had always felt drawn to artists. Their conversation, their
camaraderie never failed to exercise a charm over him. Now was added the
fact that here, where he had counted upon a chilly foreignness and
complete isolation, he had been ardently expected, had been welcomed with
open arms by such a circle. In the midst of their merry toasting and
informal dining, informal despite their evening dress, Frederick every
now and then asked himself whether the awful experiences he had gone
through had really occurred. Was he actually in New York, three thousand
miles away from old Europe? Was not this his home? Within the past ten
years in his own country had he ever felt even nearly so comfortable
and at home as here? How life came surging toward him! Each minute a new
wave rolling to his feet--to him who had undeservedly escaped with his
bare existence from almost universal perdition.
"I thank you from the depths of my heart, gentlemen and countrymen," he
said, "for the hospitality you show me. I don't deserve it." He raised
his glass, and they all touched glasses with him. Suddenly, to his own
surprise Frederick expanded in a wave of frankness, calling himself a
shipwrecked man in two senses of the word. "I have gone through much in
my past; and were not the sinking of the _Roland_ so fearfully tragic, I
should feel inclined to look upon it as a symbol of my former life. The
Old World, the New World. I have taken the step across the great pond,
and already feel something like new life within me.
"I don't know just what I shall do." He did not realise he was
contradicting himself. "I shall certainly not practise medicine or take
up my profession as a bacteriologist. Possibly I shall write books.
What sort of books I don't know. One of the things I think of a great
deal is the restoration of the Venus of Milo's body. I have already
completed in my mind a work on Peter Vischer and Adam Krafft. But for all
I know, I may merely write on the use of artificial manure. For I am
thinking of buying some land, felling trees, and living a retired life,
farming and raising cattle. Then again, I may write nothing but a sort of
romance, the romance of a whole life, which may turn out to be something
like a modern philosophy. In that case, I should begin where Schopenhauer
left off. I mean the sentence that is always going around in my head from
_Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_: 'Something lurks behind our existence
which is inaccessible to us until we shake off the world.'"
The discourse of the young scholar, passing through his belated period
of storm and stress, was listened to respectfully. His reference to
artificial manure produced a burst of merriment, and when he ended, his
audience applauded.
"Shaking off the world, that's something for Franck, Doctor von
Kammacher. Tell him, Franck, how you came to America," said Willy.
"Or about your tramping on foot to Chicago," said Lobkowitz.
"Or," said Ritter, "your adventure in Boston, when two policemen,
strangely mistaking your condition for a tremendous jag, took you on a
drive in the patrol wagon to the lock-up."
"It's very good they did," said Franck, smiling and tossing the lock from
his forehead. "I should certainly have caught a cold if they hadn't."
To Frederick's puzzlement, every one of Franck's utterances was greeted
by a shout of laughter.
"Franck is a genuine genius," whispered Willy to Frederick, while filling
a glass with Chianti, "and the greatest eccentric in the world. Franck,"
he cried, "didn't you come to America without a cent of money?"
"For what does one need money?" Franck rejoined, at great leisure, with a
naïve smile.
"Didn't you come over as a stoker?"
"Ye-e-es," said Franck, "I was engaged as a stoker."
"But you didn't do any stoking?"
"No, I didn't have the muscle for it."
"But what did you do on the ship?" asked Lobkowitz.
"I? I sailed on the ocean."
"Of course. But you were engaged to work. You must have done something to
earn money."
"I played sixty-six with the first mate."
Finally Franck's story was extracted from him. It was by painting the
portrait of the head-steward that he had lived so handsomely on the
steamer and had landed on American soil with fifty dollars in his pocket,
though a day later not a cent of the fifty dollars was left.
"Money's a nuisance," said Franck.