It was late when Jansen arrived. He had, as usual, been spending the
evening with Julie; and had then escorted Angelica home, who complained
afresh each time that she was compelled to be a restraint upon two
lovers.
But Julie insisted upon being "matronized" by her during the year of
probation, and so she submitted, and knew how to conduct herself so
sensibly that the very fact of her presence gave the peculiar charm of
suppressed emotion to these happy hours. The after-glow of it still
shone upon Jansen's face as he entered the _salon_. A sudden stillness
ensued; all looked at him; but he seemed hardly to see any one but his
hostess, whom he greeted with a shake of the hand. She received him
with studied cordiality, immediately took exclusive possession of him,
and merely chided him for arriving so late by an allusion to older and
higher duties which had a prior claim upon him.
"Now don't deny it," she said, smiling. "It cost you a heroic struggle
to tear yourself away at all. It is true a man seldom finds it at all
difficult to leave one woman in order to go to another; but when he is
forced to leave a beauty in the lurch, in order to pay a little
attention to an old woman, one cannot estimate the sacrifice too
highly."
"You are mistaken, countess," he laughingly replied. "I have been
forced to tear myself away, not from _one_ but from two elderly women,
as they are fond of calling themselves--with just as little reason and
just as little seriousness as when you, countess, count yourself among
that class. But, if it had really cost me a sacrifice, you would have
deserved it of me. I know how ungratefully I conducted myself toward
you in former years. Yet you haven't treasured it up against me."
"Unfortunately there are men with whom one cannot be offended, no
matter what they do. _Ils le savent et ils en abusent_-- But what is
that?"
She suddenly broke off. Her sharp eye had seen that one of the young
ladies at the opposite end of the room had become faint, and that the
elder ones were busied over her. In a second she was at her side,
noiselessly and swiftly doing what was necessary. The insensible girl
was borne into the sleeping-chamber, and soon came to herself again.
When the countess returned, she said, in passing, to Jansen:
"The poor child! Think of practising nine hours daily, and eating
nothing all the while! What existences some people do lead!" Then to
the others: "The Fraeulein feels better already. The excessive heat was
the cause of her illness. Perhaps if we should turn down the gas just
for a little while, the temperature would be somewhat more bearable."
Several of the young people hastened to execute this hint. When the
gas-lights were extinguished, the candles on the piano and a lamp
on the mantel over the fireplace gave only a subdued light, so the
clear night sky, with its moon and stars, shed its lustre through the
wide-opened windows. In this twilight, every one seemed to feel happy
and at ease. A young person, who had previously been entreated to sing
in vain, now mustered up sufficient courage, and her sweet, sympathetic
contralto voice sounded charmingly in the breathless stillness. Jansen
had seated himself in a corner of the sofa in the adjoining room; it
did him good to sit there in the dim light, with half-closed eyes,
watching the play of the shadows as they passed before him, drinking in
the soft tones and thinking all the while upon his happiness. He spoke
with no one. Rosenbusch had at first taken a seat by his side; but as
he had received only monosyllabic answers, he had soon withdrawn again.
Felix had disappeared without taking leave; he could not longer
suppress all that he felt. And now the scene in the _salon_ grew
livelier and more fantastic. No one thought any longer of playing an
entire piece of music. The instrument merely served to illustrate this
or that assertion, as it came up in the course of the confused
conversation; now a few chords were struck, now the hoarse voice of
some composer hummed an air in order to explain some passage; the
younger guests had separated into little groups, and were apparently
engaged in other conversation than that relating to art. In the midst
of all was heard from time to time the high, thin voice of the
professor, who was continually in search of new victims for his
eloquence, and buttonholed now one person and now another. This
intellectual exertion exhausted him all the less from the fact that he
consumed an incredible quantity of the refreshments which were handed
about. After having emptied a whole basket of cakes, he devoted himself
persistently to the ices, and, finally, when, toward midnight, the
champagne was brought in, he seized a whole bottle out of the waiter's
hands and placed it with his glass in a little niche behind a pillar.
As he did so the countess honored him with a cold, almost contemptuous
glance, and her lips curled slightly. The expression enhanced the
beauty of her face exceedingly. Then, too, the dim light that now
prevailed in the room lent her a strange charm. She looked very much
younger, and her eyes flashed sparks that were still capable of
kindling fire. Stephanopulos devoured her with his eyes, and was
continually seeking a chance to approach her. But she always passed
without noticing him; nor did she sit down by Jansen again. It was easy
to see that her mind was fixed upon something which took her thoughts
away from all that was going on about her.
As it struck midnight, it so chanced that there was a momentary hush in
the conversation. The aesthetical professor advanced into the middle of
the _salon_, holding a full glass in his hand, and said:
"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to propose a toast to our honored
mistress, in whose name we are here assembled. I do not mean by this
the gracious lady, so sincerely honored by us all, whose guests we are.
I have praised her too often not to be willing to resign, for once, to
her younger guests this privilege of an old friend. My toast is offered
to a mistress even greater than she--to the sublime art of Music, the
art of arts, whose supremacy is becoming more and more acknowledged and
exalted, without envy by her sisters. May she, the mightiest of all
the powers which move the world--thrice glorious and thrice holy
Music--live, flourish, and prevail to the end of time!"
Enthusiastic applause followed these words, but even the clinking of
the glasses, and the shouts of the different voices, were drowned by a
loud flourish which a young musician improvised upon the piano. The
professor, who had emptied his bumper at a draught and instantly filled
it again, now stepped, with a complacent smile, into the cabinet where
Jansen sat, thoughtfully holding his half-filled glass, from which he
had scarcely sipped, as if he were counting the rising pearls within
it.
"My honored master," he heard a voice say at his side, "we have not yet
touched glasses with one another."
He quietly looked up at the speaker.
"Do you care very much to have your resolution passed by a strictly
unanimous vote?"
"My resolution?"
"I mean your exaltation of music above all other arts. If it was merely
a polite phrase to catch the applause of the musicians and the devotees
of music, I have nothing to say against it. It is always expedient to
howl with the wolves. But in case you expressed your real opinion, and
ask me now, on my conscience and between ourselves, whether I share it,
you must permit me to draw back my glass in silence, and, if I drink,
to think my own thoughts in so doing."
"Do what you can't help doing, _carissimo_!" replied the professor,
with a thoughtful nod of the head. "I know very well that you worship
other gods, and only esteem you the more for having the true artist's
courage to be one-sided. To your health!"
Jansen held his glass in the same position, and did not seem in the
least inclined to approach it to that of the professor.
"I am very sorry to sink in your estimation," he said, "but I am really
not quite so one-sided as you think. I not only love music, but it is
fairly necessary to my existence; and if I am deprived of it for any
length of time, my spirit is as ill as my body would be if it were
forced to go without its bath."
"A strange comparison!"
"And yet, perhaps, it is more appropriate than it would seem at first.
Doesn't a bath stimulate and excite, calm, or quicken the blood, wash
away the grime of everyday life from the limbs, and soothe all manner
of pain? But it stills neither hunger nor thirst, and he who bathes too
often feels his nervous strength relaxed, his blood over-excited, and
his organs toned down to a voluptuous languor. Isn't it just so with
music? It is possible our thanks are due to her alone that mankind has
gradually lost its bestiality, and grown nearer the likeness of God.
But this is equally certain, that men who now carry this enjoyment to
excess sink gradually into a vegetating dream-life, and that if a time
should come when music should really be exalted as the highest art, the
highest problems of humanity would remain unsolved, and the very marrow
of mankind would be forceless and feeble.--I know well," he continued,
without noticing that the people in the _salon_ were listening to his
monologue, and that groups of listeners had approached the door--"I
know well that these are heresies which one cannot utter in certain
circles without being stoned a little. Nor would I care to discuss the
question with a musician, for he would scarcely understand what I
really mean. The effect of this art 'of thinking in tones' is gradually
to dissolve all that is solid in the brain into a softened mass, and
only the great, truly creative talents can preserve the capacity and
disposition for other intellectual interests. That the highest masters
of every art stand on an equality with one another, I need not say. As
to the others, the expression which some one used in regard to lyric
poets maybe justly used toward them--'They are like geese whose livers
have been fattened; excellent livers, but sick geese.' How can the
balance of the intellectual powers be preserved, when any one sits nine
hours a day at an instrument and continually practises the same
exercises? And for that reason I should be careful how I tried to
convince a musician of the error of his fanaticism. But to you, who are
an aesthetic by profession--"
He chanced to let his eyes wander toward the door, and broke off
suddenly. He noticed now, for the first time, before what an audience
he had been speaking. The professor observed his surprise, and grinned
maliciously.
"You are talking to your own destruction, my dear sir," he said,
raising his voice. "You might just as well declare in a mosque that
Allah was not Allah, and Mohammed was not his prophet, as to assert to
this crowd of enthusiastic youths that there is anything more divine
than music, or that devotion to it, its service and its cultivation,
could ever be pushed too far. Entrench yourself behind your blocks of
marble, so that we may grant you peace on favorable terms. What would
you say if some one declared that whoever uses his mallet nine hours of
the day must, in the course of time, lose his sense of hearing and
sight, that his intellectual power would finally become deadened and
petrified, and that his soul would get to be as dusty and muddy as the
blouse he wears when he hammers his stones?"
A unanimous shout of bravos arose from the group standing nearest him,
and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the _salon_.
The countess, who now for the first time became aware of the dialogue,
was seen hastily approaching, with the intention of averting the
threatened storm by a timely word. But Jansen had already risen to his
feet, and stood confronting the professor with the most unruffled
composure.
"What would I say?" he cried, loud enough to be understood by all. "I
would say that in every art there are artists and mechanics, and that
the latter know as little of the god whom they serve as the sexton who
sweeps out the church and hands about the contribution-box. Of all the
arts there is but one which does not know the dust of the workshop,
that has no underlings and assistants, or, at the worst, merely
charlatans who fancy themselves masters; and even these know nothing of
that kind of mechanical readiness which murders the soul and deadens
thought. For that reason it is the highest and most divine of the arts,
before which the others bow, and which they ought to worship as their
mistress and goddess. To you, who are in the habit of lecturing upon
aesthetics, I should be ashamed to explain myself more fully by saying
that I refer to poetry, were it not that in your toast you offered an
insult to the majesty of this, the highest muse, which I can only
excuse upon the supposition that you have strayed from the temple of
the true divinity, and wandered by mistake into a mosque."
With these words he raised his glass, held it before the flame of the
lamp and slowly drank it off. A deathlike silence followed; the
professor, who was apparently on the point of making a rather
irritating reply, was restrained by a meaning look from the countess.
She herself had looked at the sculptor while he spoke, with a peculiar,
searching, flashing look, and merely threatened him playfully with her
finger as he now advanced toward her as if to take leave.
"Stay," she whispered to him, "I have a word to speak with you."
Then she turned to the others, and invited them to be seated again and
not to think of breaking up so soon. But her most cordial words and
demeanor could not banish a certain uncomfortable feeling that had
taken possession of the company. No one could be induced to take a
place at the piano, and a court musician, who still had a violin sonata
_in petto_, shut up his instrument-case with conspicuous noise and took
his leave of the countess, bestowing upon Jansen as he passed a look
full of meaning. The others followed his example, and, finally, even
the professor, who took his defeat most easily, entered upon his
retreat after addressing a few jesting remarks to his opponent.
Rosenbusch, who would probably otherwise have waited for Jansen, had
offered his services in escorting home the young Fraeulein who had
fainted earlier in the evening.
The artist and the countess now stood alone confronting one another, in
the dimly-lighted room. From the street below they could hear the
departing guests as they went away, laughing, talking, and singing.
"I beg for a mild punishment, countess," began Jansen, smiling. "Of
course you have only detained me in order to exact a penance in the
absence of witnesses. I thank you for this kind intention, although, to
be honest, I rather favor a public execution if the head really must
come off!"
"You are very, very wicked!" she answered, slowly shaking her head as
if she were deeply in earnest in what she said. "You fear neither God
nor man, least of all that which seems to many the most terrible--the
anger of a woman. And, for that reason, I shall not succeed in
punishing you for your sins as you have deserved."
"No," he said. "I submit voluntarily to any penance you may put upon
me. How I wish that by so doing I could rid myself of my old fault of
thinking aloud without first looking around to see who may be
listening!"
She walked up and down the room with folded arms, gazing thoughtfully
before her.
"Why should we disguise ourselves?" she said, after a pause. "It is not
worth the trouble to deceive the thoughtless masses, and we cannot fool
the wise few. Let us drop our masks, dear friend. I think exactly as
you do, only perhaps I feel it even more keenly because I am a woman.
For me, too, music is merely a bath. But I enjoy it more passionately
because a woman, who is much more restricted than you men, is more
grateful for every opportunity to cast off all her chains and fetters,
and plunge her soul in a great excited and exciting element. To me such
an element is music; of course not all music--not that shallow kind
that merely bubbles and murmurs pleasantly, yet scarcely rises to my
knees, but that fathomless music whose billows break over my head. To
me Sebastian Bach is like a shoreless sea, 'and it is sweet to plunge
into its depths.' But do not let us talk of the petty souls, the
bunglers and the underlings! With you great men--you yourself have said
as much--does the material make such a great difference? When you see a
work of Phidias, does not your whole being sink as if into divinely
cool waters? And that is the main thing in the end. The few moments in
life that satisfy our innermost desires are, after all, those only in
which we almost believe we are dying. Enjoyment of art, enthusiasm, a
great deed, a passion--in the main they all have the same ending. Or do
not you agree, dear friend?"
He indicated his assent by a gesture, though he had only caught a few
stray words. This woman interested him so little that his thoughts,
even when he was at her side, secretly flew away to her whose image
filled his heart.
She took his silence as a sign that she had made a deep impression upon
him.
"You see," she continued, "it is a satisfaction to me to tell you this.
It is so seldom one finds people capable of comprehending one, and from
whom one need have no secrets. It is a privilege of all sovereign
natures that they dare to confess all to one another--the highest as
well as the lowest thoughts--for, even when we confess our weakness, we
are ennobled by the boldness and daring with which we do it. Oh, my
dear friend! if you knew how hard a woman has to struggle to attain
that freedom which you men claim as a birthright! For how long a time
do we throw away the best years of our life because of false shame, and
a thousand other considerations! It is only since I acknowledged it as
a moral duty toward my own nature to possess myself of anything toward
which I felt drawn, to dare anything which was not beyond my powers, to
say anything for which I could find a sympathetic listener--it is only
since that time that I can say I have learned to respect myself. But I
forget; it does not follow that these confessions interest you, no
matter how much sympathy you may feel for them. I am, doubtless, not
the first woman who has given you similar confidences. The world in
which you live is used to seeing fall the veils and coverings with
which we drape ourselves in the prudish society of ordinary mortals.
Nor would I, perhaps, have detained you here with me merely to talk to
you of such feelings and thoughts, if I had not besides something very
particular at heart, a great, great favor--"
She had thrown herself down on a sofa and rested there in a careless,
picturesque attitude, her arms thrown back gracefully behind her head.
Her face was pale as marble, and her lips were slightly parted--but not
with a smile.
"A favor?" he asked, absently. "You know, countess, I was prepared to
receive a penance. How much sooner--"
"Who knows whether the granting of this favor will not seem to you a
penance, and none of the lightest either!" she hastily interrupted. "In
a word, will you make my portrait?"
"Your portrait?"
"Yes; a portrait-statue, sitting or standing, as you like. I confess to
you that the thought first came to me this morning. I can't get that
beautiful portrait of your charming friend out of my head, though I am
not so conceited as to wish to compare myself with this unknown woman,
especially in your eyes. I have a special reason for wanting it; I know
a foolish man who still finds me young and pretty enough to want my
portrait--particularly if it were done by such a master--a friend, from
whom I have been separated often and long, and whom I should make very
happy if I could send him my effigy as a compensation."
While she delivered this excited speech, Jansen had let his eyes rest
on her, without betraying by any sign whether he was disposed to grant
her the favor or not. She blushed under this cool, searching look, and
cast down her eyes.
"He is beginning to study me already," she thought. "But you mustn't
think," she continued, "that I am altogether too modest in my request.
He, for whom this master-work is intended, would be ready to pay its
weight in gold for even the most hasty sketch from your hand. But it
appears as if the undertaking had no great charm for you? Tell me
frankly; in any case, we will still remain good friends."
"Countess," he began, for the first time this evening betraying some
confusion, "you are really too good--"
"No! You are trying to escape me--now, don't deny it. Perhaps I know
the reason which makes you unfavorable to my request. You have delicate
duties that you must regard. If your friend should discover that you
had shown the same favor to me as to her--I don't know her, but, for
all that, it might be possible, and certainly pardonable, for her to be
a little jealous! Am I not right? Isn't it that which makes you
hesitate?"
He was silent for a moment. Then, still in an absent way and as if
speaking to himself, he said, quietly:
"Jealous? She would certainly have no cause to be."
The unfortunate expression had scarcely passed his lips when a hot
and cold shudder passed over him, and he suddenly became conscious
what a deadly insult he had uttered. He looked at her in alarm; he saw
that all the blood had fled from her cheeks, leaving even her lips a
deathly white. But immediately, before he could even recover sufficient
self-possession to soften the impression of his words, she forced a
pleasant laugh, hastily rose from the sofa and stepped up to him with
both her hands extended.
"Thank you, my friend," she said, in her easiest tone; "you are not
particularly gallant, but something better and rarer--you are candid.
You are right; unless a woman is able to set the whole female sex wild
with envy and jealousy, like your beautiful unknown friend, she is not
a worthy subject for your art. I really ought to be old enough to see
that myself. But, as I said, you are partly to blame for my having hit
on such a foolish idea--the portrait of that beautiful woman had turned
my head. But now it is in its right place again, and I thank you for
your speedy cure. _Prenez que je n'aie rien dit._ That my tardy wish,
which perhaps would have been an impudent one even in earlier days,
remains our secret, I expect from your chivalry. So--your hand upon
it--and _soyons amis!_ And now, good-night. Though I am in no danger of
awakening jealousy, I am not old enough yet to be secure from malicious
gossip, and--you have already staid longer than is proper."
In the most painful confusion he attempted to stammer out a few
palliating words. But she would not listen to them, and, amid all sorts
of pretty speeches and jests, almost hustled him by main force out of
the door, which she immediately locked behind him.
No sooner did she find herself alone than her features became
transformed; the smile on her lips faded into a grimace, and a
threatening scowl appeared on her smooth forehead. She brushed from her
eyelashes the tears of angry humiliation which she had held back too
long already, and drew a long, deep breath, as if to save her heart
from suffocation. Thus she stood, near the threshold, her little hands
clinched tight, gazing motionless at the door through which the man who
had insulted her had passed out. If a passionate wish possessed the
magic power to kill, Jansen would probably have never left her house
alive.
She heard steps in the adjoining cabinet. She looked up, passed her
hands across her eyes and seized a glass of water, which she emptied at
a single draught. She was herself again. An elderly woman entered
cautiously, dressed simply and entirely in black, but with a care which
betrayed long practice in the arts of the toilet. Moreover, her manner
of speaking and carrying herself showed, at the first glance, that she
had once been at home behind the foot-lights. She was apparently well
on in the forties; but her real face was concealed under a coating of
paint, very skillfully laid on, and her soft, regular features made no
disagreeable impression.
"You are still here, my dear?" cried the countess, scarcely attempting
to conceal a feeling of displeasure. "I thought you had long ago felt
bored at your self-chosen part and gone away."
"I have passed an unspeakably pleasurable evening, my dear countess,
and wanted to thank you for it. Since I lost my voice and left the
stage, I scarcely remember to have heard so much good music in so few
hours. Manna in the desert, my dear countess!--manna in the desert! But
how lucky it was that I listened to the concert, as I did, in my dark
box over there! It is true that he, before whom I particularly wished
to avoid appearing, might not have noticed me. Since his new _liaison_
he seems to be blind for everything else, and the many years since we
last met have done their best to make it hard for him to recognize me.
But imagine, countess, that young painter--the same one who got in my
way that night when we discovered the burning picture--strayed by
chance into your bedroom! Fortunately, he hastily retired again. But
it was a bright moonlight night the first time. Who knows whether he
did not recognize me again, especially as the picture in the cabinet
there--"
"Certainly," nodded the countess, "you are right. Who knows?"
She had not heard a word the other had spoken.
"Oh, my honored patroness!" continued the latter, "if I could only tell
you how it infuriated me again to see him--the hard and cruel man who
made my poor daughter's life so wretched--enter the room with such a
proud, arrogant air, and receive homage everywhere; to hear his voice,
and his aggressive speeches that seemed meant to throw down the glove
to the whole company--oh, you cannot tell how I hate him! But has not a
mother a right to hate the enemy of her daughter?--all the more when
this daughter is so foolish as still to love the man who cast her out
of his house, and even begrudged her the consolation of weeping over
her wrongs on the neck of her own child?"
She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes in a theatrical manner, as if
her grief had overpowered her.
The countess gave her a cold look.
"Don't play comedy before me, my dear," she said, sharply. "According
to all that I have heard of your daughter, I don't imagine she is
inconsolable. What reasons have you for thinking she still loves him?"
"I know her heart, countess. She is too proud to mourn and weep. But
would she not ask her mother to come and live with her, were it not
that then she would be obliged to give up ever hearing any news of
the child? If she only knew what it cost me to be a spy, so that I
can write to her now and then how it fares with her hardhearted
husband--the poor, innocent child! And yet, gracious countess, if I
could ever succeed in tying the broken bond again, in freeing this
ungrateful, inconstant man from this snare of unworthy passion, in
leading him back again to his rightful wife--"
Her voice appeared to be choked with tears. The countess made a
movement of impatience.
"Enough!" she said. "It is late, and I am very tired. Still, it is
true, something must be done. This man's great talent will go to rack
and ruin amid false surroundings and vulgar love affairs, unless some
one brings him back into the right path. Come to me again to-morrow
forenoon, my dear. We will talk further on the subject then. Adieu!"
She nodded to the singer in an absent way. The latter bowed low before
her, and started in haste to leave the room. As she was crossing the
threshold she heard her name called.
"Don't you think me very unbecomingly dressed today, dear Johanna? It
seems to me I appear very old and haggard in this Venetian coiffure.
For that matter, I really ought to have put off the _soiree_
altogether; I could hardly keep on my feet, I had such a headache."
"You have this advantage over us, that even suffering makes you appear
more beautiful. From my place in my invisible box, I caught words that
would prove to you how great injustice you do yourself."
"Flatterer!" laughed the countess, bitterly. "Go away I--do go away! At
all events you can't contradict the evidence of my own eyes."
After the singer had gone, Nelida remained for a time standing on the
same spot where the former had taken leave of her. She murmured a few
words in her mother tongue, and then said in German:
"He wants to do penance, does he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!"
She stepped in front of the mirror above the fireplace, before which a
lamp, nearly out, burned with a weak, red flame. The candles on the
piano were burned down almost to the socket. In this dim light her
cheeks looked still more wan, her eyes more sunken, and the scowl on
her forehead as if it could nevermore be smoothed away.
"Is it really too late for happiness?" she said aloud, in a hollow
voice.
She shuddered, for the night wind swept coldly through the room. Slowly
she took the rose from her hair and let it fall to the ground, so that
the leaves were strewed over the carpet; then she unwound the veil from
her head, took out the comb and shook her hair down over her shoulders.
As she did so the blood returned to her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, and
she began to be pleased with herself once more. "_Il y a pourtant
quelques beaux restes!_" she said to herself. Then, with sunken head,
she strode across the _salon_, talking half aloud to herself, and
stepped up to the open piano. She struck the keys with her open hand so
that they gave forth a loud, harsh discord. She laughed scornfully at
this. "He will do penance, will he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!"
and, once more folding her arms across her breast, she stepped into the
cabinet and stood still before the young Greek's cartoon. She knew the
picture by heart. And yet she stood before it as lost in contemplation
as though she saw it for the first time.
Suddenly she felt a hot breath upon her neck. She shuddered slightly
and looked round.
Stephanopulos stood behind her.
"Are you crazy?" whispered Nelida. "What are you doing here? Leave me
this moment! My maid is coming!"
"She is asleep," whispered the youth. "I told her you would not need
her. Do you reproach me, countess?--me, who only live in your
smiles--to whom a glance of your eyes is heaven or hell!"
"Hush!" she said, leaving him her hand which he had seized. "You are
talking nonsense, my friend. But you have a good voice, and, besides,
one cannot be angry with you. _Vous etes un enfant!_"