Part 11

Macbeth must not appear at the beginning as a criminal. He is first a courageous and truthful man. But he is a dreamer. "_Look, how our partner's rapt_," says Banquo. He is a dreamer who struggles against the image of his phantasy. Nearly all he says is aside. His reserve, his taciturnity are awful. Whatever he speaks, must be uttered as though against his own will. Berlioz, once, to obtain a very tragic effect, had a drum covered with a cloth. Macbeth must be spoken with a voice resembling the sound of such a drum. Nor must he talk aloud in the banquet scene with the ghost, where on the contrary he ought to become entirely benumbed. He is not without feelings, he speaks warmly of King Duncan, and he loves his wife, knowing how much he needs her.

That performance of _Lady Macbeth_ was for me and, I think, for some of the spectators, a foreshadowing of new times in the operatic art. It was a unique, incessant horror for the audience as long as the fearful score lasted--and it became the most attractive scandal for all the people who search in art nothing but the baseness they find in every day life.

My opera is but a short one, taking two hours to perform. Therefore no necessity arose anywhere for pressing the movement. Bischoff, who had staged it, had obtained most wonderful effects. The singers seemed to be going through the nightmare in which they had a part. Scene after scene seemed to shake with dread and terror. Bischoff knew how to produce the biggest effects with small means. Thus I will never forget that there was a sort of small lamp burning during the scene of the murder. The trembling flame, now more reddish, now more bluish, was flaring all the time. At the precise moment when the murder was supposed to occur in the wings a sudden squall nearly extinguished the light, and for a couple of seconds all became dark; but in the next instant the flame seemed bigger, redder than ever and sooty. It was frightful.

The prologue, namely, the scene of the witches and that where Macbeth wins the title of Thane of Cawdor, went well. After this, while the scenery was being built for the first act, Macbeth's castle at Inverness, the orchestra played my paraphrase of the "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu," the only vigorous and energetic part of my score. Then the real thing began, for only then Lady Macbeth appeared.

Whatever I may say of her, will not render justice to her incomparable performance. Nobody could have resisted this Lady Macbeth. Even when she had to deliver a reproach, she did it trembling with love. And as Bischoff and I had taught her, she seemed to shudder at her hard, fearful words.

She never seemed to sing, but to whisper, to inspire with the means of the sweetest seduction. She turned round her Macbeth, embraced him, clung to him so that sometimes they seemed to be but one being with two souls. How she sang all the hideousness and atrocity of her part--how she perfumed the blood of her words with sweetest promises! She was what we had asked her to be--more a spoiled child, who foolishly craves for evil, than a heartless criminal.

There was some applause after that act, but the public seemed awed, so intense was the impression. As I was hurrying to the stage, I met dad.

"Oh, my boy!" said he and pressed both my hands so hard that I thought he would break them. His eyes were shining and I could swear that there were tears in them. That "Oh, my boy!" is the one beautiful memory I have of that evening.

The next minute saw me at the door of Mitzi's dressing room. I knocked.

"Who is it?" asked a voice, not Mitzi's, but that of a woman I did not know.

I gave my name. There was some whispering inside which I could indistinctly perceive through the door, and then a woman came out, opening the door so little that I could not even have a peep at the inside.

"_Fräulein_ regrets," said the woman, as if I had been a mere stranger, "she cannot see you now."

One is above all the son of one's country. I daresay no Englishman would have acted otherwise than I did. I bowed to that dressing woman as if she had been a noble lady and went on to the stage.

There I found the manager of the theatre chatting with his Graz colleague. They both congratulated me, and the manager of the Graz theatre complained about the coldness of the public.

"You will find no such frosty people in the south, in Graz," he told me, "for if you are willing to let me have your opera at the same terms as the ones you have here, I will play it within two months. I should be pleased if I could secure Miss Dobanelli for the part of the Lady."

Yon may conceive how pleased I was and how warmly I thanked him for such encouragement. But the entre-acte being nearly over we had to leave the stage.

My way back to the audience led me past Mitzi's dressing room. Just as I was going by, the door opened and.... Franz von Heidenbrunn came out. I thought that my heart was going to stop. So Mitzi had received him, while her door had remained closed for me. I went on as in a dream.

Before the door of his box I found dad and the mater.

"What has happened?" asked my old Daniel Cooper & Co. "Why are you so pale?"

I was not going to spoil his pleasure.

"I am probably a little excited," I answered. "And the manager of the Graz theatre has just accepted the opera."

"That is splendid!" cried dad.

"Does he pay well?" asked the mater.

"That's the boy's affair," grumbled Daniel Cooper, turning to her. "You mind your own business."

A bell rang, and dad and my mother went into their box, while I hurried back to my seat.

During the whole act of the banquet I could not find my senses. What was I to do with Mitzi? I could not possibly ignore the incident. I asked myself whether she was not too much an artist to be a wife. What, if frivolity were unavoidable in the dramatic art, the most corporal and difficult of all, but the only one in which woman could grow up to the highest genius?

These doubts spoiled the second act for me. Yet I saw how lovingly she was stroking Macbeth's forehead, like a nurse who would cool the burning brow of a sick man. I saw, too, how she smiled at the ghost, how she mocked him, and I heard how she sang the words: "_What, quite unmanned in folly?_" and afterwards: "_Fie, for shame!_" exactly as I had taught her, slowly, softly, and more like a warning than a reproach.

There was even less applause after the second act than the first. However, Doctor Bernheim, whom you know as a sensible, judicious man, came and heartily congratulated me.

"In this particular case," he said, "the success cannot be measured from the applause. The public is much too moved to applaud loudly. Instinctively they fear to destroy the atmosphere."

I did not go on the stage after this act. I was afraid lest I should meet Mitzi and say one word too many.

The last act began, and soon the famous sleep-walking scene arrived. Never before had the ruin of a poor, over-burdened heart been acted thus.

She came.

At once I noticed that she was not dressed as she had been the day before at the dress rehearsal, when she had worn a long night-gown. She came like a child, with bare feet and bare legs--there was just then the craze of dancers who appeared like that--tripping full of anguish ... not in a night-gown, but in a chemise ... looking tortured, deceived, broken, a child vanquished in a fight which was too much for her.

And with a voice more gentle, soft, and lovely than anything which I ever heard, she began. Sweet as the singing of a breeze her voice vibrated through the soundless, trembling audience.

"_Yet here's a spot._"

How she wept after the words: "_Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?_"

And later: "_All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!_" How she whined these three oh's! The audience pitied her. And how helpless she looked, with her poor, naked legs, in her poor chemise....

Then ... then, when she had said the words: "_To bed--to bed_," there came a musical afterpiece in which I once more repeated all the motives of the opera, including the lullaby. Mitzi was slowly to turn round and to remain there with her taper--showing her back to the audience and advancing only one step from time to time.

She had been rehearsing it with a long, flowing night-gown; and now she was standing there in that short chemise. She had dared that! And to my horror I saw that it was transparent, very transparent even, and tight, and that it outlined the contours of....

There! I am once more in difficulty. You, chaste reader, who have accompanied me through these pages, have surely noticed my struggles at different times to find the right expression for ... you know what I mean. And this time I feel truly awkward because I have reached an important point. I must find a name for that lovely _it_, which had seduced me from the very first moment I had seen her, for _it_ was pretty, so pretty, quite bewitching.

Ah, Barrie! Thou who has invented that charming name "Little Mary" for something which was as difficult to baptize, help me ... help me to find a name for it ... for that darling ... for that double darling!

Double Darling?

Barrie! Did this idea come from thee?

I'll name it Double Darling, but being shy, I'll write only D. D.

Well, I have explained that I was horror-stricken. This, I must confess, is a lie. I felt no horror at all, on the contrary. The truth is that the attractive sight made me forget my anger, my dejection. She did look fascinating, and the wicked thing knew it. She knew that she was bewitching and was sure that she risked nothing by showing her D. D.

Nor did she fail in her bold venture. When a minute or so later she disappeared in the background, and at the same time the curtain was slowly closed, a storm of applause broke forth as I never had imagined.

Again and again Mitzi had to bow before the public, although she disappointed it somewhat by appearing hidden in a light dressing-gown. But the wanton people had had their sensation, they applauded and shouted, and it reached a degree of real paroxysm when dad's immense basket of flowers was carried on the stage.

But the louder the noise was, the more did I understand that nothing of it was meant for me, for my work. It was not _Lady Macbeth_ over which the public rejoiced, it was Mitzi's D. D.

I heard the people talk. There was not one word for the misery of Lady Macbeth, her sighs and her struggles and her wretchedness. The crowd will never recognize the nobility of suffering. No, they spoke of La Dobanelli.... La Dobanelli in her little chemise. The D. D. had been an event.

And the same thing occurred at the next performances. Only that on the first night the audience had been shaking with terror, and that the following times it was shaking with sensation ... or with deception, for many people left the theatre with words of regret:

"Oh--it was not so wicked as all that!"

The snobs of the town fell in love with La Dobanelli by the dozen. One out of each dozen was struck by the sweetness of her voice, by her sublime acting, by her power of remaining lovable even in crime--the other eleven were in love with the D. D.

Anyhow, when we all met half an hour after the end of the performance at the Grand Hotel there was much joy in the air. Dad was offering to my friends a superb supper in honour of my first night--and they were all present, you bet.

I asked mater how she had enjoyed my opera.

"Oh, it's very pretty," she said. "I like the lullaby very much."

And that was all.

Father, on the other hand, was overflowing with enthusiasm. These two were always the same, never had they the same opinion on anything. Yet, there was one point on which they seemed to agree ... perhaps because not one word was pronounced on it. But their eyes seemed to implore me silently:

"You will not marry that woman, Pat!"

I felt very uneasy. But I am a sport. I bore it all in a decent way. Yet I thanked God when the moment came for the parents to leave. Business had allowed dad to take only a very few days vacation, and they were returning the same night via Dresden and Cologne to England.

It was a happy necessity, for thus they escaped the criticisms of the next morning.

I will divulge you the mildest:

"The two Shakespearian birds of prey were served us yesterday as a dish which was neither fish nor flesh, concocted by our great actor Mr. Bischoff, and accompanied by a _sauce anglaise_ prepared at a Worcestershire (or is it a Yorkshire?) manufacture by a certain Patrick Cooper, who has--unfortunately--nothing in common with Fennimore. But he has a wealthy father, a London shopkeeper in the City, and a mother who advertised yesterday her descent from a jeweller's family.

"There is not much to say about the insignificant Cooperian music, except perhaps that no other living composer would have conceived and written such a score. As for the libretto, it is the mistake of an intelligent man who has treated the subject not from the immortal poet's dramatic point of view, but shortsightedly from that of the actor. Mr. Bischoff only forgot that Shakespeare, too, was somebody, after all.

"Mr. Hetmann was a pale, voiceless Macbeth, and had it not been for the débutante of the evening, Miss Amizia Dobanelli, the performance would have been a total fiasco. She played and sang the Lady with charm as well as with energy. But we think that a part as _La Belle Hélène_ would suit her particular talent better than the ambitious Lady."

Is it not a blessing that dad is an Englishman educated on such thoroughly English lines that he knows no foreign language? Blessed are the poor in education, for theirs is the kingdom of ignorance.

XI.

Surprising as it may seem to you, I had the courage, the next day, to take the bull by the horns and to ask Mitzi about Franz von Heidenbrunn. She merely laughed.

"My dear," she said, "firstly I am your fiancée, and as such must be very careful with you. Secondly, Franz is my cousin, and we have known each other for so many years that we are like brother and sister. Lastly, you knocked on my door at an awkward moment, when I was changing my dress. You did not want me to show myself to you in my underwear, did you? While Franz came three minutes later when I was dressed again."

You go and argue with a woman if you can. I could not. I just felt silly. And I suppose I looked it. For she came near me and stroked my cheek gently.

"Don't make a face, dear," she said. "I quite understand your feeling miserable after having read the papers; but, never mind, it will wear off...."

"I know, Mitzi," I answered meekly, "I cannot have it both ways, and write an opera that pleases us both, and the critics too."

And there was no more discussion about Franz von Heidenbrunn. Our talk shifted, and I was informed, too late, alas! that the Austrian critic, as well as the German, is always prepared to write favourably for a consideration, being hardly paid at all by the newspapers themselves, and regards as his legitimate victims such people who have not made backsheesh arrangements in advance.

On the third day _Lady Macbeth_ was repeated. This time the house was packed full, even the hundred and fifty bad seats were sold out. The question whether La Dobanelli was wearing tights or not under her chemise had been discussed in the whole town, and had proved such an irresistible attraction that at her first appearance she was greeted with warm applause.

Franz von Heidenbrunn was again in the audience. Whether he visited Mitzi in the entre-acte I cannot say--I did not, having no desire to be turned away again.

I also went to see the third performance, which was exactly like the second one. The same kind of audience, thirsting for a sensation, and for the third time Franz von Heidenbrunn among the spectators.

As we travelled back to Vienna, Mitzi and I, we had a few words about her chemise in the last scene.

"Was this the same chemise you had the two first times?" I asked her.

"No," she replied laughing, "you do expect a lady to put fresh linen on from time to time, don't you?"

"That chemise was shorter than the other," I remarked, more sternly than I had intended to.

"Oh! An inch or two perhaps."

"An inch is much in those latitudes," I jested.

"Look here, Patrick," she answered sullenly. "Let me alone with your remonstrances. You ought to know by now that I do my best for your opera, which would have been a complete failure without me."

She said it coldly, heartlessly. It made me suffer. But, swallowing my torment, I answered nothing, and we continued our journey in silence. I felt that we were not getting on at all nicely and wondered how I was to educate her to be less of an artist,--and more my wife.

* * * * *

There is in drama a certain system of construction, as you ought to know. Probably you don't, still there is. First comes the exposition, then the opening of the action, then the growth during which it grows (of course) to the climax; then the fall or, as it must sometimes be called, the return which precedes the close. In life the return which follows all climaces is always nasty, and you wake up after every excitement with a bit of a moral headache. Hoping is an ungrateful business. Look, for instance, at our friend Cotton, our good Guncotton. He has finished his chemistry treatise--think what it means to have written all these formulas in the trenches--and he has this very morning received the news that his manuscript has arrived safely in London. Now he walks about, his eyes full of rosy dreams, of fears, and of hopes. And I can so well understand his feelings, his thoughts. Patrick Cooper went through all these emotions. And afterwards, dear me! Only my case was a worse one, for the devil had amused himself in mixing the poison of love into my adventure of artistic hopes and ambitions.

And by the way, as I am talking of the devil, it occurs to me that the little man with the tuft of black beard on his chin, who appeared to me four times, must have been ... HE. He laughed, the evil fellow, when he came for the fourth time and saw that his matchmaking work was seemingly accomplished.

Yet lately I had not seen him again. He must have been busy somewhere else. Perhaps will you see a connexion between his disappearance and the following events.

The fourth performance of _Lady Macbeth_ coincided with the _première_ of Doblana's _Aladdin_ at the Viennese Opera. I thought it was my duty to be present at the day of honour of my master, a small sacrifice indeed, as there was not much joy for me in attending my own opera before an injudicious public, which really came only to see Amizia Dobanelli in her chemise. Besides, as the opera was making money, there was every prospect of more performances taking place.

When I expressed my intention to Doblana and to Mitzi the horn-player at once objected. I could very well go and see the dress rehearsal of _Aladdin_ instead of the first night.

I asked why I should be deprived of attending the performance.

"I do not like the idea," said Doblana, "of Mitzi being alone in Brünn. I cannot accompany her on that particular evening, but I think that you, her fiancée, ought not to neglect her."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Mitzi, "Am I not old enough to remain alone for one evening? If I am such a child, then surely you will not consider Patrick grown up either. He is but one year older than I."

"How will you manage?" asked her father.

"I think I will stay the night at the hotel."

"I do not think that it befits a young lady to stay a night alone at an hotel."

"All right, then I will go and stay with Augusta."

Doblana acquiesced. But this time I made an objection.

"Augusta," I said, "will be in Vienna on that particular evening; she will want to see _Aladdin_."

Mitzi glanced at me with an angry look.

"Anyhow," she protested, "Franz will have no leave. He will be in Brünn."

"That is just what I object to," I declared. "The best thing would be for you to return to Vienna. I will be at the Northern Station to bring you home."

This was finally decided upon, and Mitzi left us in the afternoon for Brünn. At six o'clock there came a wire from her addressed to Doblana, just as he and I were about to leave for the theatre.

It ran:

"_Safely arrived. House full. Best luck to Papa. Mitzi._"

An hour and a half later _Aladdin_ began.

When you write your reminiscences, as I am doing now, you will be supposed to talk of other people. You will see how difficult it is. I always want to talk about myself. I remember things only inasmuch they concern me. Other people's feelings are not half as important to me as my own. Thus, that evening, at the beginning they were so intensely bitter, that I think I must record them, although Doblana was the hero of the day. I was, naturally enough, reminded of my own first night ten days before. But while _Lady Macbeth_ had been played before an unsatisfactorily filled house, the one to-day was packed. All the imaginable beautiful and jewelled ladies were present, while at Brünn the provincial simplicity of the feminine public (the male part is about everywhere the same) was so exaggerated, that my poor mater's diamonds were, as you have seen, thought worthy of a newspaper notice. Whoever was of importance in Vienna, political and military people, financiers, diplomatists, and artists, was to be found on that first night. One hardly noticed that the great Court Box was empty, and that no Royalty was present; for all the other noted members of Society had come. I will confess that I felt jealous. And this jealousy increased as the orchestra started playing Doblana's music.

Oh, what an orchestra! We have a few fine orchestras in London, but how much superior are the Vienna Philharmonics. Neither Munich, nor Dresden, can boast of such artists. To hear one's music performed by them must be heaven.

Such then were my feelings as _Aladdin_ began. Who would have thought that a couple of hours later my sentiments would be reversed and that instead of envying Doblana, I would pity the poor fellow?

I had seen the ballet at different rehearsals. _Joseph Dorff's_ book was clever, Doblana's music pretty, tuneful and well scored, although in no way remarkable, and the staging simply marvellous. There is no Parisian nor Russian ballet which can compete with those of the Vienna Opera. Not only are the dancers and mimics incomparable, but fortunes are spent on the scenery and the costumes, which are proofs of the most perfect theatrical taste.

The first act was placed before and inside the famous cavern where Aladdin finds the lamp. In the original tale this cavern is uninhabited, but in the ballet there were populations of pretty spirits and servants of the lamp. These gave a pretext for all sorts of charming dances. And there was one dance which had a real success, namely, that of the precious stones. It was performed by small girls dressed as rubies, emeralds, sapphires and so on, who formed lovely groups representing the different jewels. The whole had a kaleïdoscopic effect, changing from one second to the next, and was uncommonly pleasant.