As Andreas's carriage drew up before the embassy, his ears were
greeted with the strains of Chopin's music pouring down to him
through the open window, and while he waited in the marble vestibule
his whole being seemed to be bathed in the sounds. Could it be that
these minor cadences, simultaneously so bitter and so sweet, gave him
a foretaste of the reception he might expect? He was ushered into a
darkened room, fitfully lighted by tiny rays of the southern sun
penetrating through the Venetian blinds. The alternation of heat and
cold, of dazzling radiance and veiled obscurity, plunged his senses
into uncertain depths. He felt uneasy as he watched the gold-clad
kavass noiselessly retreating into the shadows with his card. At
once elated and oppressed, he was conscious of his heart-beats.
"Fate seems to brood over this palace," he mused. "Am I to be drawn
into its labyrinthine ways? That oriental moves noiselessly up the
stair. I can hear him knock at the door, can see the statesman
looking at the message which is to introduce a stranger into his
house. My name is unknown to him; nor do I know him. But in a
neighbouring room is a woman playing, sending forth to a stranger
sounds that convey a warning, and seem to tell him that he is more
akin to the music than to the statesman's papers..."
He took a few steps towards the side whence the music came, hoping to
hear better. He recognized the piece. It was the _Ballade in G
minor_, and as he listened to the constantly recurring lilt which
brought to his mind the leaping and subsiding movement of a fountain,
he thought:
"The countess plays like a man. I play it more delicately."
The door was thrown open, and the silent domestic signed to him to
follow. They mounted the stairs, and he was led to the room whence
the music came. At that moment the final note was played, the
servant opened the door, and Andreas moved forward into a twilit
chamber. A tall, slender man in a light summer suit rose from the
music-stool to welcome him.
"You have just come from Vienna," said the count, so quickly that
Andreas scarcely had time to recover from his surprise. "I am very
grateful to my old friend for sending you to me. What is he doing
now? Rarely do I get a chance of seeing, or hearing about, old
acquaintances. Ah, how one longs for the freedom of youth! Then one
could travel, one had no responsibilities... I gather from my
friend's letter that you are here to look around a bit, to take your
bearings... If only the later gains could make up for our lost
youth! ... Do you smoke? A cigarette?"
Andreas, from the depths of a huge arm-chair, took a cigarette from
the box his host was offering with the quick, jerky movements of a
restless boy. Then the count went over to the window, and, with an
impatient gesture of the foot, pushed the shutters open. His figure
was silhouetted against a dazzling background of scintillating water,
the broad span of water above which the palace had been built.
Andreas came to his side, and gazed over the landscape. From no
other spot could so magnificent a view of the town and surrounding
country be obtained. Yet it was his host and not the panorama that
held Andreas's attention. The count's right arm was outstretched as
he pointed to certain details, while with his left hand he shaded his
eyes from the midday glare.
Gregor, Count of Münsterberg, was not the man whose talented Don-Juan
type Andreas had seen in portraits taken long ago. Indeed, the count
had not allowed any pictures of himself to be published for many a
year, and he would certainly not have placed himself in this pitiless
light if he had known Andreas of old. For Gregor's hair was
grey--those golden locks which had bewitched so many women ten or
twenty years back as he sat drawing sweet music from the piano, or
casting a look behind as he rode by. The face whose laughter had
once beguiled, was now furrowed; the cheeks were sunken, the blue,
seductive eyes gazed forth from deep hollows, the mocking lips,
slightly open and moist as with much kissing, lay clean shaven over a
chin that still had something of its former sauciness but which was
no longer round.
As soon as the ambassador felt himself observed, he withdrew from the
window, closed the shutters, and motioned his guest to an easy-chair.
He himself made for the music-stool once more, puffing at his
cigarette as he went. His hands moved to and fro above the keys as
if they itched to be playing.
"Am I disturbing you, Your Excellency?" asked Andreas.
"Not in the least, Doctor."
"Oh, please, I never use the title."
"Good. And I will beg you, in return, not to call me 'Your
Excellency.' Now, tell me in what way may I be of service to you?"
"In nothing specific, Count. I have come here to get in touch with
persons and things, so that ultimately--perhaps--I might be attached
to some provincial consulate--or--"
"Have you studied law?"
"No. I am a poet."
Andreas made the statement with such childlike simplicity that he
left no margin for astonishment. The count, whose passionate nature
made him delight in the unusual, swung himself round on the
music-stool as he laughingly declared:
"So you want to make Plato's ideas of the State a reality, eh?"
The name of the great philosopher gave Andreas back his
self-confidence, which the abrupt movement of the count had somewhat
shaken. He therefore replied vivaciously:
"Action! said Demosthenes."
"Action, yes. I said that too when I felt my talent and inclination
drawing me to take up music as my profession, while other feelings
were impelling me to devote my life to other issues. Do you imagine
there are no regrets?..."
"Who has never had things to regret?"
Andreas spoke very softly. The count became attentive. Such words
coming from so young a man left him wondering. He looked more keenly
at his visitor, while he thought:
"Should he be pitied or envied because experience has touched him so
early in life?"
Slowly he left the piano and walked over to where Andreas sat. His
words fell upon the poet's ears like dark drops from a deep, quiet
spring.
"If only reality corresponded to our formulas! Action? I would
answer your rhetoric with: 'First of all, patience!' Thirty years of
patient work during which your black locks will slowly turn to grey,
as mine have turned which once were golden. Then, when you have got
to the top of the ladder--are you free at last to do what you have
always yearned to be doing? Are you then a master, and can you, with
the freedom of an artist, put your sign manual upon the clay of a
world that now bewitches you? It would have been so splendid to
compose a whole series of operas--to have evolved a new form of
undying melody, far outstripping the wonders Wagner achieved, a huge
symbolical trilogy in three spheres--working undisturbed--in one's
chosen medium--undisturbed... Do you really mean to give up writing
poetry, to crush the dreams that are now surging in your brain, to
renounce the drama now shaping itself within you, in order that you
may become consul in, let us say, Kilimanjaro?"
Andreas, who had been much with artists and very little with
realists, was not as surprised at such a speech coming from an
ambassador within the walls of an embassy as he might otherwise have
been. He answered composedly:
"A step up the ladder of patience, Count!"
The elder man roused himself from his gloomy recollections, resumed
his alert manner, and said briskly:
"Very well, let us suppose that at some future date you enter as
master into the house of my colleague over the way. Who are you
then?"
"I don't know exactly... If you mean to imply that here, in this
house, you yourself, Count... Great schemes have matured under this
roof, far-reaching treaties have been signed at that table, maybe the
most amazing alliances have been conceived in this very room. And do
you mean to say that all these things have brought no satisfaction to
the man responsible for their creation, that they are not sufficient
compensation for the sacrifice of a musical career? Forgive me, a
stranger, speaking so freely..."
He had risen as if to master his emotion, for he felt the rhapsodic
spirit rising within him, and did not wish to be carried away by his
own words, especially in this house. But to the master of the house
the young man at this moment was particularly attractive, as they
walked up and down together and Andreas looked at him, his eyes aglow.
"Go on, go on! You bring youth back into this room."
He blew the smoke from between his lips, flicked the ash from the
cigarette, strolled over to a map that was hanging from the wall, and
said, speaking indistinctly and with assumed indifference:
"Satisfaction? An excellent word! Occasionally it
is--even--quite--interesting."
He stuck his hands deep into his pockets, balanced himself on the
toes of his brown leather shoes, gazed absently at the map, and
hummed quietly to himself as if he felt he had achieved some
mysterious and subtle victory. Then he was silent for a while, bit
his lips, and looked with concentrated attention at one particular
spot on the map as if he wanted to wrench a town or a province away
from the glazed surface of the print. A minute passed. Suddenly he
turned to his visitor and asked in cold, formal tones:
"Can I help you in any way? Give you an introduction?"
"Many thanks. Our own..."
"I hope to see you again before you leave, Dr. Seeland."
"With pleasure, Your Excellency."
An hour later, the ambassador sat at table with his wife and his
eight-year-old son. While they lunched he told them of his interview
with a young poet who was set on taking up a diplomatic career.
"Otherwise he seems a most interesting young fellow. The pity of it!
There'll be one poet the less, and if he does not shake off his
present enthusiasms, there will not be one statesman the more!"
"Who is he?"
"Let me see... Ah, here's his card."
He read the name.
"Andreas Seeland has written some delightful sonnets. I should like
to know him."
"Invite him to lunch."
"Lunch is not a good meal at which to make a poet's acquaintance,"
laughed the countess.
"Well, ask him to tea."
She turned to the butler, gave him Andreas's card, and said:
"Get some one to telephone to the Grand Hotel as soon as possible to
ask this gentleman if he can come to tea with me this afternoon at
five."
"Today?" queried the ambassador, looking at her dubiously, as if
perplexed by his wife's strange caprice.
"Why not?" she counter-queried coldly.
"May I come too, Mamma?" pleaded the child.
"Why do you want to come, I'd like to know?"
"There are always such lovely sandwiches at your tea-parties!"
Andreas had heard various reports concerning the Countess of
Münsterberg. It was rumoured that she was a Dalmatian princess,
emancipated, but not amorous; that she wantonly defied the fashions
in dress; that she disseminated scandalous stories about her own life
in order to revenge herself for her husband's dalliance with the fair
sex. All these stereotyped items of society gossip had left Andreas
cold. Nor had his curiosity been sufficiently aroused to make him
seek an early interview with the lady. Besides, he had been
influenced by the almost universal detraction, and fancied her no
more than a society dame wishing to make herself conspicuous by
eccentricities. The unfavourable impression was redoubled when he
received her sudden and informal invitation. With a nameless dread
and misgiving in his heart, he climbed the stairs and was shown into
her boudoir. He stood bowing on the threshold as the kavass
noiselessly closed the door.
The room was wide and lofty, illuminated with the mellow light of the
afternoon sun. Blue was the prevailing colour, but the furnishings
were in no particular style. Over against one of the windows he saw
a massive table and some cumbersome easy chairs. Away in the farther
corner, as it might be on the opposite bank of a wide river, he
guessed there must be a commodious divan, for he saw the outline of a
reclining feminine form. A vast expanse of blue carpet, thrown
rug-fashion on the floor, separated him from this woman, a huge sea
through whose waters he must swim if he wished to reach her shore.
Slowly, stepping cautiously, he ventured forward. His eyes were
riveted on to that far-off strand where--was it a shoal?--the half
reclining, voluminous shape of the woman awaited him. The rock on
which she lay shone like gold; her flowing raiment was blue; and,
like a golden wave, her hair was massed upon her head, shimmering
amid the encompassing ocean of blue which lapped around her resting
place. He paused for a moment on reaching the middle of the carpet.
The whole thing must be a dream-canvas by Veronese. But those were
two living eyes which gazed so fixedly at him, patiently awaiting his
approach. As if swimming against a strong current, he advanced step
by step towards the distant shore. She raised herself on her arm,
and he saw that she held a book in her hand, a book of verses,
judging by the wide margin. Her eyes were intent upon him,
unfathomable in their earnestness. So immobile was she that he could
study the details of her face as he drew near, could see the
passionate curve of the lips.
These lips now fell softly apart, and a clear contralto voice
exclaimed:
"Poeta!"
He tried to smile his thanks, but when he opened his mouth to speak,
his expression remained serious and he could utter one word only:
"Principessa!"