IX

The opera company made its rounds through the small cities that lie

between the Danube and the Main, the Saale and the Neckar--and there are

many of them,--its stay in any one place depending naturally on the

interest shown by the public.

"The province is the enchanted Sleeping Beauty," said the impresario

Doermaul to Wurzelmann and Daniel, "the province is still asleep, and you

must rouse it from its slumbers by pressing the kiss of the Muse on its

forehead."

But the impresario was unwilling to open his pockets. The princes who

were to release Sleeping Beauty did not have sufficient means to make a

presentable appearance, while their retinue was seedy-looking indeed.

The tenor had long since passed the zenith of his career. His massive

paunch placed deadening strictures on his credentials as the

impersonator of heroes. The buffo was an inveterate toper who had often

been placed behind bars by the police for his nocturnal excesses. The

barytone had a big lawsuit on his hands about an estate; his lawyers

were two stars of obscurity from a small village; and at times he became

so vexed at the cuts of his opponents that he lost his voice. The

soprano was incessantly quarrelling with her colleagues, and the alto

was an intriguing vixen quite without talent. In addition to these there

were a dozen or so super-numeraries and under-studies, who were bored, who

played practical jokes on each other, drew starvation wages, and had

never learned anything.

The musicians were also a sorry lot. It was not rare that one or the

other of them had pawned his instrument. Once a performance had to be

postponed because the violinists had stayed over their time at a village

dance where they were playing in order to add to their paltry income.

The inspector, who was scene-shifter, promoter, ticket seller, and

publicity agent all in one, and who was not equal to any of these

positions, took French leave in the second year and ran off with one of

the chorus girls, taking the box-office receipts for the evening with

him.

One time the costumes were sent to the wrong address, with the result

that Boieldieu's "La Dame Blanche" had to be played in woollen frocks,

patched velvet skirts, filthy cotton blouses, and French wadding.

Another time the mob in "Martha" consisted of a distempered woman, a

waiter brought in at the last minute from a herring restaurant, and the

door-keeper of an orphanage: the chorus had gone on a strike because

their salaries had been held up.

In Karlstadt the final act of the "Merry Wives of Windsor" could not be

played, because during the intermission Falstaff and Mrs. Quickly had

got into a fight, and the lady had scratched a huge piece of skin from

the singer's nose.

If these musical strollers, as acting-director Wurzelmann called the

company, nevertheless made some money, it was due to the superhuman

efforts of Daniel. Wurzelmann was always mixed up in some kind of love

affair, introduced in time a ruinous system of favouritism, and became

lazier and lazier as the weeks passed by.

Daniel had to pull the singers out of their beds to get them to go to

rehearsals; Daniel had to help out with the singing when the chorus was

too weak; Daniel had to distribute the roles, tame down refractory

women, and make brainless dilettants subordinate their noisy opinions to

the demands of a work which he himself generally detested. He had to

drill beginners, abbreviate scores, transpose voices, and produce

effects with lamentably inadequate material. And from morning to night

he had to wage war eternal against libellous action, inattention, and

inability.

Nobody loved him for this; they merely feared him. They swore they would

take vengeance on him, but they knuckled under whenever they seemed to

have a chance. He had a habit of treating them with crushing coldness,

he could make them look like criminals. He had a look of icy contempt

that made them clench their fists when his eye fell on them. But they

bowed before a power which seemed uncanny to them, though it consisted

in nothing more than the fact that he did his duty while they did not.

At the close of each quarter, the impresario Doermaul appeared on the

scene to take invoice in person. His presence was invariably celebrated

by a gala performance of "Fra Diavolo," or "The Daughter of the

Regiment," or "Frou Frou." On these occasions the buffo did not get

drunk, the barytone rested from the torments of his lawsuit, the alto

had a charming smile for the sympathetic house, the soprano was as

peaceful as a mine immediately after an explosion. Not one of the chorus

stayed too long in the cafe; and since Wurzelmann directed, and the

orchestra did not have to feel the burning, basilisk eye of

Kapellmeister Nothafft resting on it and floating over it, it played

with more precision and produced a more pleasing feast for the ears than

ordinarily.

Doermaul was not stingy with his praise. "Bravo Wurzelmann," he cried,

"one more short year of hard work, and I'll get you a position in the

Royal Opera House."

"Nothafft will likewise rise to fame and office," he said, "although I

was so stupid as to publish his music, and now all this waste paper is

lying in my shop like a pound of brick cheese in a sick stomach."

The impresario Doermaul wore black and white striped trousers of

imported cut, a vest that looked like a bit of tapestry made of pressed

leather, a massive gold watch-chain from which dangled countless fobs, a

blood red tie with a diamond as big as the Koh-i-noor and as false as an

April sun, and a grey silk tile hat which he lifted only when in the

presence of privy councillors, generals, and police presidents.

To a man of this kind Daniel had the boldness to remark: "Had you eaten

cheese you would at least have digested it. Your crowded shops are after

all more desirable in my estimation than many a head which would remain

empty even if some one stuffed the whole of the 'Passion of St. Matthew'

into it."

Doermaul decided to laugh. "Oho, my good fellow," he said, and pushed his

tile hat on to the back of his head, "you are getting all puffed up.

Look out that you don't burst. You remember the story of Haenschen: He

was awfully proud of his porridge while sitting behind the stove; but

when he went out on to the street, he fell into the puddle."

The little slave tittered. Daniel had known for a long time that

Wurzelmann was working against him. Quite innocently, to be sure, for

half souls can admire and betray at the same time.

"Envy is my only virtue," said Wurzelmann quite openly, "I am a genius

at envying."

Daniel was not equal to such cynicism. He was stupefied by Wurzelmann's

remark, but he did not break with the little slave; he continued to use

him. He was the only individual with whom he could speak of himself and

his work. And though he was overburdened, owing to his present position,

he nevertheless managed to steal a few hours every day for his own work.

And the pressure from all sides fanned the flame within him.

It was then that he staked out his field in order to be master in his

own realm; he turned to the song; he chose the clear, restrained forms

of chamber music; he studied with unwavering industry the old masters;

he deduced from their works the right rules of composition; and he set

these up before him like a dam against arbitrariness and aesthetic

demoralisation.

He was not unmindful of the fact that by so doing he was cutting himself

off from association with men, and renouncing, probably forever, the

satisfaction that comes from monetary reward and outward success. He

knew, too, that he was not making his life easier by adopting this

course, nor was he gaining the popular favour of the emotionalists.

When he would sit in a cafe late at night and show Wurzelmann one score

after another, sing a few bars in order to bring out the quality of a

song, improvise an accompaniment, praise a melody, or explain the

peculiarity of a certain rhythm, he surprised the little slave, and

drove him into an attitude of self-defence. All this was fundamentally

new to Wurzelmann. If Daniel proved that the new was not new after all,

that the trouble lay in the fact that the deranged and shattered souls

of the present century had lost the power to assimilate unbroken lines

in their complete purity, Wurzelmann at once became an advocate of

modern freedom, insisting that each individual should be allowed to do

all that his innate talent enabled him to vindicate.

Daniel remained unconvinced. Was not the whole of life, the rich

contents of human existence, to be found in the beautiful vessel that

had been proved long ago? Could any one say that he was displaying a

spirit of greediness in his love for the classical? And were joy and

sorrow, however intense, less perceptible when expressed through a

concise, well ordered medium? "What a distorted view a man takes when he

becomes so narrow-minded," thought Daniel. "His ambition makes it

impossible for him to feel; his very wit militates against clear

thinking."

Thus they went from town to town, month after month, year after year.

The company had in time its traditions, its _chronique scandaleuse_, its

oft-tested drawing cards, its regular patrons, its favourite stands, and

its stands that it avoided if humanly possible.

The local paper greeted them editorially; the children stood on the

sidewalks to gape their fill at the ladies from the theatre; the retired

major bought a reserved seat for the first performance; the barber

offered his services; and the faculty of the Latin School held a special

meeting to decide whether they should permit their pupils to go to the

opera or not. The Young Men's Christian Association voiced its protest

against the nude shoulders of the _artistes_; the members of the Casino

turned up their noses at the achievements of the company; the police

insisted that the booth or hotel lobby in which they performed should be

fireproof; the wife of the mining engineer fell in love with the

barytone, and her husband hired a number of hoodlums to take their

places in the gallery and hoot and hiss when the time came. And those

who nag under any circumstances requested more cheerfulness. They found

the "Czar and Zimmermann" too dull, the "Muette de Portici" too

hackneyed. They insisted on "Madame Angot" and "Orpheus in the Under

World."

There was always something wrong.

Daniel shuddered at the mere presence of these people; he was repelled

by their occupations, their amusements, and the cadavers of their

ideals. He did not like the way they laughed; nor could he stand their

dismal feelings. He despised the houses out of which they crept, the

detectives at their windows, their butcher shops and hotels, their

newspapers, their Sundays and their work days. The world was pressing

hard upon him. He had to look these people straight in the face, and

they compelled him to haggle with them for money, words, feelings, and

ideas.

He learned in time, however, to see other things: the forests on the

banks of the Main; the great meadows in the hills of Franconia; the

melancholy plains of Central Germany; the richly variegated slopes of

the Jura Mountains; the old cities with their walls and cathedrals,

their gloomy alleys and deserted castles. In time he came to see people

in a different and easier light. He saw the young and the old, the fair

and the homely, the cheerful and the sad, the poor--and the rich so far

away and peaceful. They gave him, without discrimination, of their

wealth and their poverty. They laid their youth and their old age, their

beauty and their ugliness, their joys and their sorrows, at his feet.

And the country gave him the forests and the fields, the brooks and the

rivers, the clouds and the birds, and everything that is under the

earth.

X

It was winter. The company came to Ansbach, where they were to play in

the former Margrave Theatre. "Freischuetz" was to be given, and Daniel

had held a number of special rehearsals.

But a violent snow storm broke out on the day of the performance;

scarcely two dozen people attended.

How differently the violins sounded in this auditorium! The voices were,

as it seemed, automatically well balanced; there was in them an element

of calm and assurance. The orchestra? Daniel had so charmed it that it

obeyed him as if it were a single instrument. At the close of the last

act, an old, grey-haired man stepped up to Daniel, smiled, took him by

the hand, and thanked him. It was Spindler.

Daniel went home with him; they talked about the past, the future, men

and music. They could not stop talking; nor could the snow stop falling.

This did not disturb them. They met again on the following day; but at

the end of the week Spindler was taken ill, and had to go to bed.

As Daniel entered the residence of his old friend one morning, he

learned that he had died suddenly the night before. It had been a

peaceful death.

On the third day, Daniel followed the funeral procession to the

cemetery. When he left the cemetery--there were but few people at the

funeral--he went out into the snow-covered fields, and spent the

remainder of the day walking around.

That same night he sat down in his wretched quarters, and began his

composition of Goethe's "Harzreise im Winter." It was one of the

profoundest and rarest of works ever created by a musician, but it was

destined, like the most of Daniel's compositions, not to be preserved to

posterity. This was due to a tragic circumstance.