domed Marienbad and its curved chain of hills. Hugh Krayne threw open
his window and, leaning out, exclaimed, as he eagerly inhaled the soft
air of an early May morning:--
"At last! And high time!" For nine days he had waded through the wet
streets, heavily leaping the raging gutters and stopping before the door
of every optician to scrutinize the barometer. And there are many in
this pretty Bohemian health resort, where bad weather means bad temper,
with enforced confinement in dismal lodgings or stuffy _restaurations_,
or--last resort of the bored--the promenade under the colonnade, while
the band plays as human beings shuffle ponderously over the cold stones
and stare at each other in sullen desperation.
But this day was a glorious one; in high spirits the Englishman left the
house on the Oberkreuzbrunnenstrasse and moved slowly toward the
springs. He was not thirty, but looked much older, for his weight was
excessive. An easy-going temperament, a good appetite, a well-filled
purse, and a conscience that never disturbed his night's slumber
contributed to this making of flesh. He waddled, despite his great
height, and was sufficiently sensitive to enjoy Marienbad as much for
its fat visitors as for its curative virtues. Here at least he was not
remarkable, while in London or Paris people looked at him sourly when he
occupied a stall at the theatre or a seat in a café. Not only had he
elbow room in Marienbad, but he felt small, positively meagre, in
comparison with the prize specimens he saw painfully progressing about
the shaded walks or puffing like obese engines up the sloping roads to
the Rübezahl, the Egerländer, the Panorama, or the distant Podhorn.
The park of the Kreuzbrunnen was crowded, though the hour of six had
just been signalled from a dozen clocks in the vicinity. The crowd,
gathered from the four quarters of the globe, was in holiday humour, as,
glass in hand, it fell into line, until each received the water doled
out by uniformed officials. Occasionally a dispute as to precedence
would take place when the serpentine procession filed up the steps of
the old-fashioned belvedere; but quarrels were as rare as a lean man. A
fat crowd is always good-tempered, irritable as may be its individual
members. Hugh Krayne kept in position, while two women shoved him about
as if he were a bale of hay. He heard them abusing him in Bohemian, a
language of which he did not know more than a few words; their
intonations told him that they heartily disliked his presence. Yet he
could not give way; it would not have been Marienbad etiquette. At last
he reached the spring and received his usual low bow from the man who
turned the polished wheel--the fellow had an eye tuned for gratuities.
With the water in his glass three-fourths cold and one-fourth warm, a
small napkin in his left hand, the Englishman moved with the jaunty
grace of a young elephant down the smooth terraced esplanade that has
made Marienbad so celebrated. The sun was riding high, and the tender
green of the trees, the flashing of the fountains, and the music of the
band all caused Hugh to feel happy. He had lost nearly a pound since his
arrival the week before, and he had three more weeks to stay. What might
not happen!
Just where the promenade twists under the shaded alleys that lead to the
Ferdinandsbrunnen, he saw four women holding hands. They were dressed in
Tyrolean fashion--pleated skirts, short enough to show white, plump
stockings, feet in slippers, upon the head huge caps, starched and
balloony; their massive white necks, well exposed, were encircled by
collars that came low on bodices elaborately embroidered. Behind them
marched several burly chaps, in all the bravery of the Austrian
Tyrol--the green alpine hat, with the feather at the back, the short
gray jacket, the bare knees, and the homespun stockings. Krayne regarded
curiously this strolling band of singers. Their faces seemed familiar to
him, and he rapidly recalled souvenirs of Salzburg and an open-air
concert. But this morning there was something that arrested his
attention in the group. It was a girl of eighteen or twenty, with a
brilliant complexion, large blue eyes, and a robust, shapely figure. As
she passed she gave him such an imploring look, such an appealing look,
that all his chivalric instincts rushed into the field of his
consciousness. He awkwardly dropped his tumbler. He turned around, half
expecting to see the big child still looking at him. Instead he gazed
upon the athletic backs of her male companions and to the unpleasant
accompaniment of hearty feminine laughter. Were these women laughing at
him? No fool like a fat one, he merrily thought, as he bought a new
glass at a bazaar, which a grinning, monkey-faced creature sold him at
the regular price redoubled.
Before his meagre breakfast of one egg and a dry rusk, Krayne
endeavoured to evoke the features of the pretty creature who had so
strongly attracted him. He saw a tangle of black hair, a glance that
touched his heart with its pathos, a pair of soft, parted red lips, and
dazzling teeth. It was an impression sufficiently powerful to keep him
company all the forenoon. Fat men, he reasoned on the steep pass that
conducts to the Café Forstwarte, are always sentimental, by no means
always amiable, and, as a rule, subject to sudden fancies. Ten years of
his sentimental education had been sown with adventures that had begun
well, caprices that had no satisfactory endings. He had fallen in love
with the girl who played Chopin on the piano, the girl who played
Mendelssohn on the violin, the girl who played Goltermann on the
violoncello. Then followed girls who painted, poetized, botanized, and
hammered metal. Once--an exception--he had succumbed to the charms of an
actress who essayed characters in the dumps--Ibsen soubrettes,
Strindberg servants, and Máxim Górky tramps. Yet he had, somehow or
other, emerged heart whole from his adventures among those masterpieces
of the cosmos--women.
Certainly this might be another romance added to the long list of his
sentimental fractures. He ate his dinner, the one satisfactory meal of
the day allowed him by a cruel doctor, with the utmost deliberation. He
had walked three hours during the morning, and now, under the spacious
balconies of the Forstwarte, he knew that his beef and spinach would be
none the worse for a small bottle of very dry, light Vöslauer. Besides,
his physician had not actually forbidden him a little liquid at the
midday meal. Just before bedtime he was entitled--so his dietetic
schedule told him--to one glass of Pilsner beer. Not so bad, after all,
this banting at Marienbad, he reflected. Anyhow, it was better than the
existence of those fellows at sea-shore and mountain, who gorged and
guzzled their summer away. Then he tried to remember among his London
club friends any who were as heavy as he, but he could not. Idly
smoking, he regarded the piazzas, with their tables and groups of obese
humanity, eating, drinking, and buzzing--little fat flies, he thought,
as he drew his waistcoat in, feeling quite haughty and slender.
He read on a placard that the "Präger Bavarian Sextet" would give a
"grand" concert at the Hotel Bellevue this very afternoon. "Ah ha!" said
Krayne aloud, "that's the girl I saw!" Then he wasted several hours more
loitering about the beautiful park on the Kaiserstrasse and looking in
the shop windows at views of Marienbad on postal cards, at
yellow-covered French, German, and Russian novels, at pictures of kings,
queens, and actresses. He also visited the houses wherein Goethe,
Chopin, and Wagner had dwelt. It was four o'clock when he entered the
garden of the Bellevue establishment and secured a table. The waiter at
his request removed the other chairs, so he had a nook to himself. Not a
very large crowd was scattered around; visitors at Marienbad do not care
to pay for their diversions. In a few minutes, after a march had been
banged from a wretched piano--were pianos ever tuned on the Continent,
he wondered?--the sextet appeared, looking as it did in the morning, and
sang an Austrian melody, a capella. It was not very interesting.
The women stood in front and yelled with a hearty will; the men roared
in the background. Krayne saw his young lady, holding her apron by the
sides, her head thrown back, her mouth well opened; but he could not
distinguish her individual voice. How pretty she was! He sipped his
coffee. Then came a zither solo--that abominable instrument of plucked
wires, with its quiver of a love-sick clock about to run down; this
parody of an æolian harp always annoyed Krayne, and he was glad when the
man finished. A stout soprano in a velvet bodice, her arms bare and
brawny, the arms of a lass accustomed to ploughing and digging potatoes,
sang something about turtle doves. She was odious. Odious, too, was her
companion, in a duo through which they screamed and rumbled--"Verlassen
bin i." At last she came out and he saw by the programme that her name
was Röselein Gich. What an odd name, what an attractive girl! He
finished his coffee and frantically signalled his waitress. It was
against the doctor's orders to take more than one cup, and then the
sugar! Hang the doctor, he cried, and drank a second cup.
She sang. Her voice was an unusually heavy, rich contralto. That she was
not an accomplished artiste he knew. He did not haunt opera houses for
naught, and, like all fat men who wear red ties in the forenoon, he was
a trifle dogmatic in his criticism. The young woman had the making of an
opera singer. What a Fricka, Brangaene, Ortrud, Sieglinde, Erda, this
clever girl might become! She was musical, she was dramatic in
temperament--he let his imagination run away with him. She only sang an
Oberbayerische yodel, and, while her voice was not very high, she
contrived a falsetto that made her English listener shiver. This yodel
seemed to him as thrilling as the "_Ho yo to ho!_" of Brunnhilde as she
rushes over the rocky road to Valhall. _La la liriti! La la lirita!
Hallali!_ chirped Röselein, with a final flourish that positively
enthralled Hugh Krayne. He applauded, beating with his stick upon the
table, his face flushed by emotion. Decidedly this girl was worth the
visit to Marienbad.
And he noted with delight that Fräulein Gich had left the stage. Basket
in hand, she went from table to table, selling pictures and programmes
and collecting admission fees. At last he would be able to speak with
the enchantress, for he prided himself on the purity of his German.
Smiling until she reached his table, she suddenly became serious when
she saw this big Englishman in the plaid suit and red necktie. Again he
felt the imploring glance, the soft lips parted in childish
supplication. It was too much for his nerves. He tossed into her basket
a gold piece, grabbed at random some pictures, and as her beseeching
expression deepened, her eyes moist with wonder and gratitude, he tugged
at a ring on his corpulent finger, and, wrenching it free, presented it
to her with a well-turned phrase, adding:--
"Thou hast the making of a great singer in thee, Fräulein Röselein. I
wish I could help thee to fame!"
The girl gave him an incredulous stare, then reddening, the muscles on
her full neck standing out, she ran like a hare back to her companions.
Evidently he had made an impression. The honest folk about him who
witnessed the little encounter fairly brimmed over with gossip. The
stout basso moved slowly to Krayne, who braced himself for trouble. Now
for it! he whispered to himself, and grasped his walking-stick firmly.
But, hat in hand, his visitor, a handsome blond man, approached and
thanked Hugh for his generosity. He was a lover of music, the yodler
assured him, and his wife and himself felt grateful for the interest he
displayed in Fräulein Röselein, his wife's sister. Yes, she had a
remarkable voice. What a pity--but wouldn't the gentleman attend the
concert to be given that evening up at the Café Alm? It was, to be sure,
rather far, the café, but the moon would be up and if he could find his
way there he might do the company the honour of coming back with them.
The Fräulein would sing a lot for him--Bohemian, Tyrolean, French, and
German songs. Ah, she was versatile! The man did not speak like a
peasant, and seemed a shrewd, pleasant fellow. Hugh Krayne, in excellent
though formal German, assured the other of his pleasure and accepted the
invitation. Then he looked over at Röselein, who stood on the stage,
and as he did so she waved a crimson handkerchief at him as a friendly
sign. He took off his hat, touched significantly his own tie to indicate
a reciprocity of sentiment, and all aglow he ordered a third cup of
coffee.
The cure could take care of itself. _Man lebt nur einmal!_
II
On his way to the Alm he met the fattest man in Marienbad, a former chef
of the German emperor, and gave him a friendly salute. He liked to see
this monster, who made the scales groan at six hundred pounds, more than
double his own weight, for it put him at ease with himself. But this
evening he felt uncomfortable. What if he were to reach such a climax in
adiposity What if in the years to come he should be compelled, as was
the unfortunate man from Berlin, to sit on a chair every five minutes, a
chair carried by an impudent boy! What--here his heart sank--if the
Fräulein should mock his size! He walked so rapidly at this idea that
other victims of rotundity stopped to look at his tall figure and nodded
approval. Ach! Marienbad was wonderful!
After he had found a seat at the Alm next to the low wall, across which
he could see a vast stretch of undulating country, lighted by a moon
that seemed to swing like a silver hoop in the sky, Krayne ordered
Pilsner. He was fatigued by the hilly scramble and he was thirsty. Oh,
the lovely thirst of Marienbad--who that hath not been within thy
hospitable gates he knoweth it not! The magic of the night was making of
him a poet. He could see his Tyrolean friends behind the glass partition
of the little hall. There would they sing, not in the open. It was
nearly the same, for presently the windows were raised and their voices
came floating out to him, the bourdon of Röselein's organ easily
distinguishable. Love had sharpened his ears. He drained his glass and
sent for another. He felt that he was tumbling down an abyss of passion
and that nothing in the world could save him.
The intermission! He stood up to attract the attention of Herr Johan
Präger. Röselein saw him and at once neared him, but without the basket.
This delicacy pleased Krayne very much. It showed him that he was not on
the same footing as the public. He made the girl take a seat, and though
he felt the eyes of the crowd upon him, he was not in the least
concerned. London was far away and the season was too young for the
annual rush of his compatriots. Would the Fräulein take something? She
accepted coffee, which she drank from a long glass with plenty of milk
and sugar. She again gazed at him with such a resigned expression that
he felt his starched cuffs grow warm from their contiguity to his
leaping pulses.
"Yes, Fräulein," he said, employing the familiar _du_, "thou hast
overcome me. Why not accept my offer?" Was this the prudent Hugh Krayne
talking? She smiled sweetly and shook her head. Her voice was delicious
in colour and intonation, nor did it betray humble origin.
"I fear, dear sir, that what you offer is impossible. My sister, the
soprano, would never hear of such a thing. My brother, her husband,
would not allow it. And I owe them my living, my education. How could I
repay them if I left them now?" she hesitated.
"Simply enough. You would be a singer at the opera some day, and take
them all to live with you. Is there no other reason?" He recollected
with a vivid sense of the disagreeable the lively antics of a lithe
youth in the company, who, at the close of the concert, executed with
diabolic dexterity what they called a _Schuhplattltanz_. This dance had
glued Krayne's attention, for Röselein was the young tenor singer's
partner. With their wooden sabots they clattered and sang, waving wildly
their arms or else making frantic passages of pretended love and
coquetry. It upset the Englishman to see the impudence of this common
peasant fellow grasping Röselein by the waist, as he whirled her about
in the boorish dance. Hence the clause to his question. She endured his
inquiring gaze, as she simply answered:--
"No, there is no other reason." She put her hand on the arm of her
companion and the lights suddenly became misty, for he was of an
apoplectic tendency. They talked of music, of the opera in Vienna and
Prague. She was born in Bavaria, not more than a day's ride from
Marienbad. You could almost see her country from the top of the
Podhornberg, in the direction of the Franconian Mountains, not far from
Bayreuth. The place was called Schnabelwaid, and it was very high, very
windy. Since her tenth year she had been singing--yes, even in the
chorus at the Vienna opera, with her sister and brother. They were no
common yodlers. They could sing all the music of the day. The yodling
was part of their business, as was the costume. Later, when she had
enough saved, she would study in Vienna for grand opera!
He was enraptured. How romantic it all was! A free-born maiden--he was
certain she was reared in some old castle--wandering about earning money
for her musical education. What a picture for a painter! What a story
for a novelist! They were interrupted. The dancer, a young man with a
heavy shock of hair growing low on his forehead, under which twinkled
beady black eyes, had been sent to tell Fräulein Röselein that her
colleagues were waiting for her. With a courtesy she went away. Krayne
now thoroughly hated the dancer.
It was long after eleven when the concert was over and the party started
on its homeward trip. Krayne and Röselein walked behind the others, and
soon the darkness and the narrowness of the road forced him to tread
after the girl. The moon's rays at intervals pierced the foliage,
making lacelike patches of light in the gloom. At times they skirted the
edges of a circular clearing and saw the high pines fringing the
southern horizon; overhead the heavens were almost black, except where
great streams of stars swept in irregular bands. It was a glorious
sight, Krayne told Röselein--too sublime to be distracted by mere mortal
love-making, he mentally added. Nevertheless he was glad when they were
again in the woods; he could barely distinguish the girl ahead of him,
but her outline made his heart beat faster. Once, as they neared the
town, he helped her down a declivity into the roadway, and he could not
help squeezing her hand. The pressure was returned. He boldly placed her
arm within his, and they at last reached the streets, but not before,
panting with mingled fright and emotion, he solemnly kissed her. She did
not appear surprised.
"Call me Rösie--thou!" she murmured, and her naïveté brought the ready
tears to his eyes. They made a rendezvous for the next morning on the
Promenade Platz. The only thing he did not like was the scowling face of
the dancer when he said good night to the others under the electric
lights of the Kreuzbrunnen. He was correct, then, in his premonition.
That night Hugh Krayne dreamed he was a very skeleton for thinness--not
an unusual vision of fat men--and also a Tyrolean yodler, displaying
himself before a huge audience of gigantic human beings, who laughed so
loudly that he could not open his lips to frame the familiar words of
his song. In the despair of a frantic nightmare, his face streaming with
anguished tears, he forced his voice:--
_La, la, liriti! La, la, larita! Hallali!_ Then he awoke in triumph. Was
he not a yodler?
III
He told her of his dream and strange ambition. She did not discourage
him. It could be settled easily enough. Why not join the company and
take a few lessons? "With such a teacher?" he had exclaimed, and his
gesture was so impassioned that the promenaders, with their shining
morning goblets of water, were arrested by the spectacle. Wonderful,
wonderful Marienbad! was the general comment! But Krayne was past
ridicule. He already saw Röselein his bride. He saw himself a yodler.
The cure? Ay, there was the rub. He laid bare his heart. She aided him
with her cool advice. She was very sensible. Her brother-in-law and her
sister would welcome him in their household, for he was a lover of music
and his intentions were honourable. Of course, he sighed, of course, and
fingered his red tie. Why not, she argued, remain at Marienbad for three
weeks more and complete his cure? Anyhow, he was not so stout! She
looked up at him archly. Again he saw mist.
That settled it. For another three weeks he lived in a cloud of
expectation, of severe training, long walks, dieting, and Turkish baths.
No man worked harder. And he was rewarded by seeing his flesh melt away
a pound or two daily. When the company returned after its itinerary in
the neighbourhood Rösie was surprised to meet a man who did not weigh
much over two hundred pounds, healthy, vigorous, and at least five years
younger in appearance. She was very much touched. So was her sister.
There was a family consultation, and despite the surly opposition of the
dancer, Hugh Krayne was welcomed as a member of the Präger Bavarian
Sextette company. Forgetting the future he had arranged for Rösie, he
began his vocal lessons immediately.
In July he sang for the first time in public at Eger. He was extremely
frightened, but as it was only a duo he managed fairly well. Then he
sang at Tepl, this time alone. His voice broke badly in the yodel and he
was jeered by a rude audience. He had grown very much thinner. His
doctor warned him against continuing the waters, and advised rice,
potatoes, and ale, but he did not listen. He now paid the bills of the
company while travelling. Rösie had confessed with tears that they were
fearfully poor. From that time he handed her his purse. He even placated
the jealous dancer with a gold watch and a box of hair pomade. Ah! how
he loathed the fellow's curly locks, his greasy familiarities! Rösie
told him this acrobat was necessary in the company until he could be
replaced. Already Hugh--she called him "Ü"--could yodel better. Some day
he might, when thinner, dance better. Perhaps--again that appealing
glance, the corner of her lips faintly touched by the mysterious smile
of a Monna Lisa. Krayne redoubled his arduous training, practised
yodling in the forests, danced jigs on the pine-needles, and doubled his
allowance of the waters.
They went to Carlsbad. He yodled. He was applauded. The dancer was in a
fine rage. Although Krayne had asked Rösie to buy a first-class
compartment on the railroad trip over and back, they went in a
third-class car. Präger declared that it was good enough for him, and he
didn't wish to spoil his troupe! His wife now held the purse-strings, as
Rösie was too engrossed with her art and Hugh too absorbed in his love
to notice such mere sublunary matters. The girl had promised nothing
positive for the future. She kept him on the brittle edge of nervous
expectation. The opposition of the dancer had been successfully met by
threats of dismissal; Hugh continued to lose flesh and gain in vocal and
pedal agility.
He danced for the first time at Königswart, not far from the château of
the Metternichs. It was August. So great was the applause that the
younger dancer was discharged. He left with muttered threats of
vengeance. The next day Krayne turned over all his business affairs to
the able hand of Frau Präger; he lived only for Rösie and his art....