"LOHENGRIN."
As time went on, the image of Eugen Courvoisier, my unspoken of,
unguessed at, friend, did not fade from my memory. It grew stronger. I
thought of him every day--never went out without a distinct hope that I
might see him; never came in without vivid disappointment that I had not
seen him. I carried three thalers ten groschen so arranged in my purse
that I could lay my hand upon them at a moment's notice, for as the days
went on it appeared that Herr Courvoisier had not made up his accounts,
or if he had, had not chosen to claim that part of them owed by me.
I did not see him. I began dismally to think that after all the whole
thing was at an end. He did not live at Elberthal--he had certainly
never told me that he did, I reminded myself. He had gone about his
business and interests--had forgotten the waif he had helped one spring
afternoon, and I should never see him again. My heart fell and sunk with
a reasonless, aimless pang. What did it, could it, ought it to matter to
me whether I ever saw him again or not? Nothing, certainly, and yet I
troubled myself about it a great deal. I made little dramas in my mind
of how he and I were to meet, and how I would exert my will and make him
to take the money. Whenever I saw an unusually large or handsome house,
I instantly fell to wondering if it were his, and sometimes made
inquiries as to the owner of any particularly eligible residence. I
heard of Brauns, Müllers, Piepers, Schmidts, and the like, as owners of
the same--never the name Courvoisier. He had disappeared--I feared
forever.
Coming in weary one day from the town, where I had been striving to make
myself understood in shops, I was met by Anna Sartorius on the stairs.
She had not yet ceased to be civil to me--civil, that is, in her
way--and my unreasoning aversion to her was as great as ever.
"This is the last opera of the season," said she, displaying a pink
ticket. "I am glad you will get to see one, as the theater closes after
to-night."
"But I am not going."
"Yes, you are. Miss Hallam has a ticket for you. I am going to chaperon
you."
"I must go and see about that," said I, hastily rushing upstairs.
The news, incredible though it seemed, was quite true. The ticket lay
there. I picked it up and gazed at it fondly. Stadttheater zu Elberthal.
Parquet, No. 16. As I had never been in a theater in my life, this
conveyed no distinct idea to my mind, but it was quite enough for me
that I was going. The rest of the party, I found, were to consist of
Vincent, the Englishman, Anna Sartorius, and the Dutch boy, Brinks.
It was Friday evening, and the opera was "Lohengrin." I knew nothing,
then, about different operatic styles, and my ideas of operatic music
were based upon duets upon selected airs from "La Traviata," "La
Somnambula," and "Lucia." I thought the story of "Lohengrin," as related
by Vincent, interesting. I was not in the least aware that my first
opera was to be a different one from that of most English girls. Since,
I have wondered sometimes what would be the result upon the musical
taste of a person who was put through a course of Wagnerian opera first,
and then turned over to the Italian school--leaving Mozart, Beethoven,
Gluck, to take care of themselves, as they may very well do--thus
exactly reversing the usual (English) process.
Anna was very quiet that evening. Afterward I knew that she must have
been observing me. We were in the first row of the parquet, with the
orchestra alone between us and the stage. I was fully occupied in
looking about me--now at the curtain hiding the great mystery, now
behind and above me at the boxes, in a youthful state of ever-increasing
hope and expectation.
"We are very early," said Vincent, who was next to me, "very early, and
very near," he added, but he did not seem much distressed at either
circumstance.
Then the gas was suddenly turned up quite high. The bustle increased
cheerfully. The old, young, and middle-aged ladies who filled the
_Logen_ in the _Erster Rang_--hardened theater-goers, who came as
regularly every night in the week during the eight months of the season
as they ate their breakfasts and went to their beds, were gossiping with
the utmost violence, exchanging nods and odd little old-fashioned bows
with other ladies in all parts of the house, leaning over to look
whether the parquet was well filled, and remarking that there were
more people in the _Balcon_ than usual. The musicians were dropping
into the orchestra. I was startled to see a fair face I knew--that
pleasant-looking young violinist with the brown eyes, whose name I had
heard called out at the eye hospital. They all seemed very fond of him,
particularly a man who struggled about with a violoncello, and who
seemed to have a series of jokes to relate to Herr Helfen, exploding
with laughter, and every now and then shaking the loose thick hair from
his handsome, genial face. Helfen listened to him with a half smile,
screwing up his violin and giving him a quiet look now and then. The
inspiring noise of tuning up had begun, and I was on the very tiptoe of
expectation.
As I turned once more and looked round, Vincent said, laughing, "Miss
Wedderburn, your hat has hit me three times in the face." It was, by the
by, the brown hat which had graced my head that day at Köln.
"Oh, has it? I beg your pardon!" said I, laughing too, as I brought my
eyes again to bear on the stage. "The seats are too near toge--"
Further words were upon my lips, but they were never uttered. In roving
across the orchestra to the foot-lights my eyes were arrested. In the
well of the orchestra immediately before my eyes was one empty chair,
that by right belonging to the leader of the first violins. Friedhelm
Helfen sat in the one next below it. All the rest of the musicians were
assembled. The conductor was in his place, and looked a little
impatiently toward that empty chair. Through a door to the left of the
orchestra there came a man, carrying a violin, and made his way, with
a nod here, a half smile there, a tap on the shoulder in another
direction. Arrived at the empty chair, he laid his hand upon Helfen's
shoulder, and bending over him, spoke to him as he seated himself. He
kept his hand on that shoulder, as if he liked it to be there. Helfen's
eyes said as plainly as possibly that he liked it. Fast friends, on the
face of it, were these two men. In this moment, though I sat still,
motionless, and quiet, I certainly realized as nearly as possible that
impossible sensation, the turning upside down of the world. I did not
breathe. I waited, spell-bound, in the vague idea that my eyes might
open and I find that I had been dreaming. After an earnest speech to
Helfen the new-comer raised his head. As he shouldered his violin his
eyes traveled carelessly along the first row of the parquet--our row. I
did not awake; things did not melt away in a mist before my eyes. He
was Eugen Courvoisier, and he looked braver, handsomer, gallanter, and
more apart from the crowd of men now, in this moment, than even my
sentimental dreams had pictured him. I felt it all: I also know now
that it was partly the very strength of the feeling that I had--the very
intensity of the admiration which took from me the reflection and reason
for the moment. I felt as if every one must see how I felt. I remembered
that no one knew what had happened; I dreaded lest they should. I did
the most cowardly and treacherous thing that circumstances permitted to
me--displayed to what an extent my power of folly and stupidity could
carry me. I saw these strange bright eyes, whose power I felt, coming
toward me. In one second they would be upon me. I felt myself white with
anxiety. His eyes were coming--coming--slowly, surely. They had fallen
upon Vincent, and he nodded to him. They fell upon me. It was for the
tenth of a second only. I saw a look of recognition flash into his
eyes--upon his face. I saw that he was going to bow to me. With (as it
seemed to me) all the blood in my veins rushing to my face, my head
swimming, my heart beating, I dropped my eyes to the play-bill upon my
lap, and stared at the crabbed German characters--the names of the
players, the characters they took. "Elsa--Lohengrin." I read them again
and again, while my ears were singing, my heart beating so, and I
thought every one in the theater knew and was looking at me.
"Mind you listen to the overture, Miss Wedderburn," said Vincent,
hastily, in my ear, as the first liquid, yearning, long-drawn notes
sounded from the violins.
"Yes," said I, raising my face at last, looking or rather feeling a
look compelled from me, to the place where he sat. This time our eyes
met fully. I do not know what I felt when I saw him look at me as
unrecognizingly as if I had been a wooden doll in a shop window. Was he
looking past me? No. His eyes met mine direct--glance for glance; not a
sign, not a quiver of the mouth, not a waver of the eyelids. I heard no
more of the overture. When he was playing, and so occupied with his
music, I surveyed him surreptitiously; when he was not playing, I kept
my eyes fixed firmly upon my play-bill. I did not know whether to be
most distressed at my own disloyalty to a kind friend, or most appalled
to find that the man with whom I had spent a whole afternoon in the firm
conviction that he was outwardly, as well as inwardly, my equal and a
gentleman--(how the tears, half of shame, half of joy, rise to my eyes
now as I think of my poor, pedantic little scruples then!) the man of
whom I had assuredly thought and dreamed many and many a time and oft
was--a professional musician, a man in a band, a German band, playing in
the public orchestra of a provincial town. Well! well!
In our village at home, where the population consisted of clergymen's
widows, daughters of deceased naval officers, and old women in general,
and those old women ladies of the genteelest description--the Army and
the Church (for which I had been brought up to have the deepest
veneration and esteem, as the two head powers in our land--for we did
not take Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool into account at
Skernford)--the Army and the Church, I say, look down a little upon
Medicine and the Law, as being perhaps more necessary, but less select
factors in that great sum--the Nation, Medicine and the Law looked down
very decidedly upon commercial wealth, and Commerce in her turn turned
up her nose at retail establishments, while one and all--Church and
Army, Law and Medicine, Commerce in the gross and Commerce in the
little--united in pointing the finger at artists, musicians, literati,
_et id omne genus_, considering them, with some few well-known and
orthodox exceptions, as bohemians, and calling them "persons." They were
a class with whom we had and could have nothing in common; so utterly
outside our life that we scarcely ever gave a thought to their
existence. We read of pictures, and wished to see them; heard of musical
wonders, and desired to hear them--as pictures, as compositions. I do
not think it ever entered our heads to remember that a man with a quick
life throbbing in his veins, with feelings, hopes, and fears and
thoughts, painted the picture, and that in seeing it we also saw
him--that a consciousness, if possible, yet more keen and vivid produced
the combinations of sound which brought tears to our eyes when we heard
"the band"--beautiful abstraction--play them! Certainly we never
considered the performers as anything more than people who could
play--one who blew his breath into a brass tube; another into a wooden
pipe; one who scraped a small fiddle with fine strings, another who
scraped a big one with coarse strings.
I was seventeen, and not having an original mind, had up to now judged
things from earlier teachings and impressions. I do not ask to be
excused. I only say that I was ignorant as ever even a girl of seventeen
was. I did not know the amount of art and culture which lay among those
rather shabby-looking members of the Elberthal _städtische Kapelle_--did
not know that that little cherubic-faced man, who drew his bow
so lovingly across his violin, had played under Mendelssohn's
conductorship, and could tell tales about how the master had drilled his
band, and what he had said about the first performance of the
"Lobgesang." The young man to whom I had seen Courvoisier speaking
was--I learned it later--a performer to ravish the senses, a conductor
in the true sense--not a mere man who waves the stick up and down, but
one who can put some of the meaning of the music into his gestures and
dominate his players. I did not know that the musicians before me were
nearly all true artists, and some of them undoubted gentlemen to boot,
even if their income averaged something under that of a skilled
Lancashire operative. But even if I had known it as well as possible,
and had been aware that there could be nothing derogatory in my knowing
or being known by one of them, I could not have been more wretched than
I was in having been, as it were, false to a friend. The dreadful thing
was, or ought to be--I could not quite decide which--that such a person
should have been my friend.
"How he must despise me!" I thought, my cheeks burning, my eyes fastened
upon the play-bill. "I owe him ten shillings. If he likes he can
point me out to them all and say, 'That is an English girl--lady I
can not call her. I found her quite alone and lost at Köln, and I did
all I could to help her. I saved her a great deal of anxiety and
inconvenience. She was not above accepting my assistance; she confided
her story very freely to me; she is nothing very particular--has nothing
to boast of--no money, no knowledge, nothing superior; in fact, she is
simple and ignorant to quite a surprising extent; but she has just cut
me dead. What do you think of her?'"
Until the curtain went up, I sat in torture. When the play began,
however, even my discomfort vanished in my wonder at the spectacle. It
was the first I had seen. Try to picture it, oh, worn-out and _blasé_
frequenter of play and opera! Try to realize the feelings of an
impressionable young person of seventeen when "Lohengrin" was revealed
to her for the first time--Lohengrin, the mystic knight, with the
glamour of eld upon him--Lohengrin, sailing in blue and silver like a
dream, in his swan-drawn boat, stepping majestic forth, and speaking in
a voice of purest melody, as he thanks the bird and dismisses it:
"Dahin, woher mich trug dein Kahn
Kehr wieder mir zu unserm Glück!
Drum sei getreu dein Dienst gethan,
Leb wohl, leb wohl, mein lieber Schwan."
Elsa, with the wonder, the gratitude, the love, and alas! the weakness
in her eyes! The astonished Brabantine men and women. They could not
have been more astonished than I was. It was all perfectly real to me.
What did I know about the stage? To me, yonder figure in blue mantle and
glittering armor was Lohengrin, the son of Percivale, not Herr Siegel,
the first tenor of the company, who acted stiffly, and did not know what
to do with his legs. The lady in black velvet and spangles, who
gesticulated in a corner, was an "Edelfrau" to me, as the programme
called her, not the chorus leader, with two front teeth missing, an
inartistically made-up countenance, and large feet. I sat through the
first act with my eyes riveted upon the stage. What a thrill shot
through me as the tenor embraced the soprano, and warbled melodiously,
"_Elsa, ich liebe Dich!_" My mouth and eyes were wide open, I have no
doubt, till at last the curtain fell. With a long sigh I slowly brought
my eyes down and "Lohengrin" vanished like a dream. There was Eugen
Courvoisier standing up--he had resumed the old attitude--was twirling
his mustache and surveying the company. Some of the other performers
were leaving the orchestra by two little doors. If only he would go too!
As I nervously contemplated a graceful indifferent remark to Herr
Brinks, who sat next to me, I saw Courvoisier step forward. Was he,
could he be going to speak to me? I should have deserved it, I knew, but
I felt as if I should die under the ordeal. I sat preternaturally still,
and watched, as if mesmerized, the approach of the musician. He spoke
again to the young man whom I had seen before, and they both laughed.
Perhaps he had confided the whole story to him, and was telling him to
observe what he was going to do. Then Herr Courvoisier tapped the young
man on the shoulder and laughed again, and then he came on. He was not
looking at me; he came up to the boarding, leaned his elbow upon it, and
said to Eustace Vincent:
"Good-evening: _wie geht's Ihnen?_"
Vincent held out his hand. "Very well, thanks. And you? I haven't seen
you lately."
"Then you haven't been at the theater lately," he laughed. He never
testified to me by word or look that he had ever seen me before. At last
I got to understand as his eyes repeatedly fell upon me without the
slightest sign of recognition, that he did not intend to claim my
acquaintance. I do not know whether I was most wretched or most relieved
at the discovery. It spared me a great deal of embarrassment; it filled
me, too, with inward shame beyond all description. And then, too, I
was dismayed to find how totally I had mistaken the position of the
musician. Vincent was talking eagerly to him. They had moved a little
nearer the other end of the orchestra. The young man, Helfen, had come
up, others had joined them. I, meanwhile, sat still--heard every tone of
his voice, and took in every gesture of his head or his hand, and I felt
as I trust never to feel again--and yet I lived in some such feeling as
that for what at least seemed to me a long time. What was the feeling
that clutched me--held me fast--seemed to burn me? And what was that I
heard? Vincent speaking:
"Last Thursday week, Courvoisier--why didn't you come? We were waiting
for you?"
"I missed the train."
Until now he had been speaking German, but he said this distinctly in
English and I heard every word.
"Missed the train?" cried Vincent in his cracked voice.
"Nonsense, man! Helfen, here, and Alekotte were in time and they had
been at the probe as much as you."
"I was detained in Köln and couldn't get back till evening," said he.
"Come along, Friedel; there's the call-bell."
I raised my eyes--met his. I do not know what expression was in mine.
His never wavered, though he looked at me long and steadily--no glance
of recognition--no sign still. I would have risked the astonishment of
every one of them now, for a sign that he remembered me. None was given.
"Lohengrin" had no more attraction for me. I felt in pain that was
almost physical, and weak with excitement as at last the curtain fell
and we left our places.
"You were very quiet," said Vincent, as we walked home. "Did you not
enjoy it?"
"Very much, thank you. It was very beautiful," said I, faintly.
"So Herr Courvoisier was not at the _soirée_," said the loud, rough
voice of Anna Sartorius.
"No," was all Vincent said.
"Did you have anything new? Was Herr von Francius there too?"
"Yes; he was there too."
I pondered. Brinks whistled loudly the air of Elsa's "Brautzug," as we
paced across the Lindenallée. We had not many paces to go. The lamps
were lighted, the people were thronging thick as in the daytime. The air
was full of laughter, talk, whistling and humming of the airs from the
opera. My ear strained eagerly through the confusion. I could have
caught the faintest sound of Courvoisier's voice had it been there,
but it was not. And we came home; Vincent opened the door with his
latch-key, said, "It has not been very brilliant, has it? That tenor is
a stick," and we all went to our different rooms. It was in such wise
that I met Eugen Courvoisier for the second time.