Part 12

Yet this was nothing in comparison to what was to come in the second and third act. In the former there was the magnificent arrival of Aladdin at the Sultan's court. He came on a splendid white charger and was accompanied by forty white and forty black slaves, who afterwards showed all the skill taught by the Viennese dancing masters. In the last act there came the _pièce de résistance_, namely, the building before the eyes of the public, not in one night, but in ten minutes, of Aladdin's unique palace. Things of such kind are very easy to be done in fairy tales and not much more difficult on a stage when the manager disposes of unlimited wealth. All the wonders of the Arabian Nights were to be presented to the audience on that evening.

The first act had gone well, better even than anybody had expected. There are usually but short entre-acts in the Vienna Opera. But first nights, especially of Grand Ballets, are such social events that they do not admit this rule in all its rigour. Therefore nobody was surprised when the entre-acte instead of the usual ten minutes had lasted twenty. Groups had been chatting and laughing and showing their toilettes and jewels. But in the end everybody had left the _foyer_ and returned to the seats. Yet nothing happened. The musicians were at their places, but no conductor was present. Ten more minutes passed. The public gave signs of impatience, a thing unheard of in this _sanctissimum_. But these signs of impatience lasted one instant only. Then the house became painfully silent.

I should have liked to go and see behind the curtain what had happened. But this was not a provincial theatre where such visits from the public to the stage could be permitted. In this Imperial and Royal Court theatre there were strict rules; and I could only wait with the other people.

The wildest rumours began to spread. The amount of improbabilities human brains can invent in a few minutes is incredible. And here two and a half thousand were busy finding the extraordinary reason of this long pause.

Yet as inventive as their brains were, they proved no match for the reality. For after three-quarters of an hour, which seemed an interminably long time, a bell was heard, and a gentleman in evening dress appeared before the curtain. He was sickly pale.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, "I have much regret in announcing that the further performance of the ballet _Aladdin_ has been forbidden by all-highest order. The money for purchased seats will be refunded to-morrow in exchange of the coupons of the tickets."

The announcement had the effect of a thunderstorm, putting an end to the suspense of the last minutes. I could not say what was greater, consternation, regret for the composer, disorder among the discontented spectators, or curiosity to know the secret reason of this catastrophe.

For my part I left the theatre as quickly as possible and went to the little side door in the Opera Street, at the rear of the premises, where Doblana was wont to leave. There was already a terrific crowd. But although I had (I have no more) the soft fingers and delicate hands of a pianist, I possess also the strong elbows of an English sportsman, and I succeeded in reaching the door. Just at that moment a man came out of the house. He looked pale, haggard, with the expression of a drunkard. It was Doblana.

He scarcely recognised me, but I pushed my arm under his and led him away.

It was cold and foggy.

I shivered as I asked him what had happened.

"It is the Archduke," he stammered, "who has forbidden the performance."

There was something like a sob in his voice.

"The Archduke? His own work? Why?"

"I don't know myself."

After a few steps made in a painful silence, he added:

"We had a little difference yesterday, at the dress rehearsal, but nothing of importance."

"What was it?"

"He wanted to cancel the dance of the precious stones, saying that it was like a _kindergarten_ that had gone mad."

"And?"

"Well, I objected to such a cut and said: 'Nonsense, _Herr Graf_.' Thereupon he sat down, pronouncing not another word more."

"And what did he do to-day?"

"He did nothing. He did not even come. During the first act a letter from the First Master of Ceremonies was delivered, saying that he forbade the performance to go on."

"But how is it possible to treat the public in this way?"

"Oh, the public!"

He shrugged his shoulders and went on explaining:

"They are not supposed to be regular spectators as in an ordinary theatre. They are the guests of the Emperor, and they, as it were, buy an invitation to assist at the performance, which is in reality supposed to be given not for the general public, but for the private pleasure of His Majesty."

"And was there nothing to be done?"

"We have tried, that is why we had to keep the audience waiting so long. The conductor hurried to the First Master of Ceremonies, and the Manager to His Majesty himself, while I drove to the palace of the Archduke. I was not received at all, nor did the manager see the Emperor, and as for the conductor, he was told by the First Master of Ceremonies that he regretted, but had to obey orders."

Instinctively, we had taken the direction of the Karlsgasse. I had a very nasty feeling, as if poor, innocent Doblana had suddenly become a criminal, and I his accomplice. I was dazed as if I had had a smack in the face.

We were passing a large café near the Elisabeth Bridge, where Doblana and I sometimes used to meet some friends.

"Let us go in," I said, "and show your self publicly. Make the best out of a bad case. After all you are innocent of the disaster that has befallen you. Go in, there are surely a few journalists inside. Let yourself be interviewed and protest against the manner you have been treated."

You ought to have seen the terror in the poor man's face. He opened his eyes, his nostrils, his mouth and drew backwards his lower jaw as if he had wanted to swallow it. (As a matter of fact, he must have been starving, for he had had no food the whole day.)

"Protest!" he cried at last. "I?--Mr. Cooper, you desire my death. As if my situation was not sufficiently bad! This is not a free country like yours, where you can talk as you like. No! I have but one thing to do, to go home and hide myself. I am done for."

And so we went to the Karlsgasse. The house seemed desolate to me. The servant, Fanny's unworthy successor, believing that we would sup outside and come home late, had gone to bed. So I proceeded into the dreary kitchen (a kitchen without a cook is always dreary, and without fire it can drive you to desperation) and made some tea on the gas-stove, while Doblana who had lit a cigar was walking up and down in the _salon_.

"It is terrible," said he at last, after he had swallowed a little tea, "how Austria is changing. What happens to me is but an instance of the new spirit that reigns here. Or should I not call it otherwise? This spirit, which comes from Berlin, this Pangermanic spirit is not a new spirit, but a reactionary spirit, a dark, mediæval spirit, a spirit that recognizes no right, but only might. What this Archduke has done to me to-day, in our time of enlightenment, is nothing else than an act of mediæval brutality.

"All evil comes us from Berlin. It spoils our art, it spoils our music. What they call the higher form is simply amorphous. What they call deep ideas is empty commonplace. The motives which are behind it all are vicious, sensual, degenerate, disgusting depravity. What we see in their painting, figures now too long, now too short, with swollen abdomens, with grinning faces, we find in their music, in the grossness of their motives, in the brutality of their orchestrations. This music is a breath from a stinking morass.

"And this is not all. Berlin is so mediæval in its views that they want war, universal war. War which will give the death blow to Austrian music, for music does not live in times of war. Fifty years ago they said: Germany for the Germans! Now they are crying: the world for the Prussians! And as though Austria were a German state, as though there were no Slavs and no Italians in Austria, Berlin wants to drag us into her war schemes. And they will succeed. From our cruel paintings you can see it, from our coarse, frightful music you can hear it: they will succeed!"

Thus spoke Doblana, not a great prophet, no, only a humble musician. Do not believe, incredulous reader, that I make him utter a prophesy after the event. Nay! These words were actually spoken, a long time before anybody, before even he who spoke them, thought of the war, that war in which I am fighting, that war which, as in irony, Austria, gentle, joyous, dancing Austria began.

I looked at my watch, and suddenly I remembered that I was to meet Mitzi at the Northern Station. It was very late, perhaps too late. Still by making haste I might arrive in time. So I speedily went away. But as it is always when you are in a hurry, the taxi took a long, circuitous route, what they call a short cut, and I arrived too late. The train had arrived nearly ten minutes ago, and I could find no trace of Mitzi at the station.

Heaven knows what gave me the idea that something was wrong. When I came back to the Karlsgasse, I saw the light in the windows of the _salon_ as they had been when I had left. I ascended the stairs and rang the bell. Nearly at once I heard Doblana's dragging step, who came to open the door.

"Alone?" he cried, in a state of utmost anxiety.

Mitzi had not arrived.

The nervousness of the poor man was terrible. Exhausted as he was I did not dare to leave him, and I passed with him the worst night of my life. I have only to think of it to find any night in the trenches, amidst the roaring of the shells, restful by comparison.

At the earliest hour in the morning we went to a telephone office where we asked for communication with the Grand Hotel in Brünn. After a long half-hour we got through, only to learn that _Fräulein_ had not been seen on the previous day at the hotel.

We tried the theatre. The one thing we heard was that she had been very successful as always and had left immediately after the performance.

We returned to the Karlsgasse. Mitzi had not arrived. Only the postman had called and brought several letters. None of them being from her, Doblana threw them carelessly into his pocket and asked me whether I was coming with him to Brünn. Of course, I acquiesced. But I will confess that I, so to say, made a condition of our having some breakfast before. It may be that youth is more hungry, but I could not go on without food.

At last we sat in the train. We had more than an hour before us.

Mechanically Doblana looked through his letters, passing them silently to me. The first was an invoice for flowers he had offered the evening before to several dancers.

The second was one of good Hammer, written immediately after the interrupted performance in very warm words, taking part in the sorrow that had befallen his friend.

The third was from the publisher. But I could not read it to the end, for Doblana, who was perusing the fourth one, suddenly uttered a stifled cry.

The letter was from the Archduke.

"My dear collaborator, my worthy Mr. Doblana," (it ran about--I do not recollect the exact words--), "I have taken my revenge. You have treated my dear wife like the basest of women, only because the chief of my family had prohibited my marrying her. Your behaviour was an unforgettable insult to the best, the most deserving and amiable woman, in whom you have seen nothing but a despicable, venal dancer. You have continued your disdain, your hatred beyond the tomb. What I have done is my retaliation.

"It is I who have taken away from your house and destroyed your _Griseldis_. It is I who have prohibited the performance of your _Aladdin_, knowing that I would hit you in your weakest spot, your ambition. And I may as well tell you that, while you may keep your position as a horn-player at the Opera, its doors are henceforth closed to the composer Doblana.

"You need not worry about the cost of the production at the Opera. I have made good the damage my vengeance has occasioned.

"As for you, I do not wish that it should cause you any pecuniary loss. The idea of having harmed my former collaborator in this paltry way would be unpleasant to me. I put the value of _Griseldis_ and _Aladdin_ at 25.000 crowns each and enclose therefore a cheque for 50.000 crowns to indemnify you.

"ALPHONS HECTOR."

I cannot describe the wrath of my poor friend. And I had to struggle with him to prevent him from tearing the cheque to pieces. And this may give you the measure of his indignation. For you know how great was his love of money.

I should like to state that the Archduke had moreover shown himself wrong in two points. Ambition was not Doblana's weakest spot, it was precisely money. Nor was Alphons Hector's prediction right, for two years later an opera of Doblana's composition was successfully produced at the Viennese Opera.

As for the Archduke, or the _Herr Graf_, or _Joseph Dorff_, however you may call him, he completely disappeared a few days after the memorable _Aladdin_ night. Some say that he undertook a journey on his yacht, and that it was lost with all hands. Other people think that he has settled down to a private life somewhere in South America. In any case he was nevermore heard of.

But to resume my story. All researches in Brünn as afterwards in Vienna did not succeed in finding Mitzi. The only clue we obtained (it was from Augusta von Heidenbrunn that we got it) was the fact that her brother Franz had disappeared together with my fiancée. He had, for her sake, become a deserter.

A few weeks went by, which I passed nearly without interruption on Doblana's side. He slowly recovered from the awful shock this whole affair had caused him. Then I proceeded to Graz to assist at the performance of _Lady Macbeth_ in this town. Without Mitzi, without her overwhelming talent, without her charm it was bound to be a failure. And I came back to Vienna more discouraged, more disheartened than ever. Again I saw much of Doblana, and I can assure you that we were a pretty pair of dejected composers. On this subject I could write pages, but out of pity for you I won't.

One day, as we sat there smoking, and pondering silently over our shattered hopes, the bell rang. We heard the maid opening the door, and in the next minute Mitzi entered. She was dressed exactly as I had last seen her, but her features were drawn, she was pale and seemed to have suffered. In this moment I swore that I would avenge her, if ever I could, of the scoundrel who had brought her to this.

She had stopped at the door. We had both, Doblana and I, risen in a violent surprise. During an unterminable minute no word was spoken. Then, at last, she whispered piteously:

"Father!"

And as no answer came she said:

"Patrick, I have come back."

Again there was that gloomy, cruel silence. And suddenly we saw her fall down crying, sobbing, shaking. Then her father approached her and lifted her up. He did it with infinite gentleness, but he said no word.

My dear reader, you are perhaps a sentimental person and you will, may be, condemn your old friend Patrick for not having made the movement which her father made. But you see....

A few days before I had read William J. Locke's novel _The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne_, one of the most brilliant and delightful this wonderful writer has achieved. There was a certain analogy in Mitzi's return and in that of Carlotta. Like her she came back empty handed, having also probably pawned everything. It was heart-breaking, and like Marcus I felt faint. Perhaps, if I had spoken one single word at that moment everything would have happened otherwise. However, my morals are not the morals of Marcus Ordeyne--and that one word, I spoke it not.

Slowly her father led her into her room. I used the moment to slip out of the house. I went to my lodgings, nearly mad, and packed my things. The same evening saw me on my way to England, never to go back.

XII.

It is a very funny feeling I experience in returning to these pages. I had left them since the first of May, when I wrote the last words of Chapter XI., and you will have noticed that several points remained unsolved. In this state my MS. had rested during six weeks, mostly because I did not know how to fill the gaps. But since yesterday things having changed, Fate with a capital F has added another chapter to my story.

You must know that we are getting ready for a great attack. As far as we can ascertain we are going in a few days to leave the trenches where we have been living cosily for so many months. Of course, you wonder; feeling snug in the trenches is somewhat unexpected. Yet it is true. And now the unceasing bombardment tells us: "We shall have to be going." Can you believe that it fills us with a sort of regret?

Yesterday at noon Charlie calls Cotton, Pringle, and me.

"My boys," he says, "the colonel has just had a bit of a chat with me. He wants four volunteers--three men and me--to go to-night and reconnoitre a certain place. I have thought of you three, but I had better tell you: it's not without danger, far from it."

"We're here," says I, "to do our duty."

"We'll have some fun, anyhow," declares Pringle.

And Guncotton adds:

"My manuscript is safely in London. I don't care."

I record this conventicle lest you should think that such resolutions are taken as in opera, where the four men would advance to each other and, uniting their four right handy in one single grip, sing a quartette.

"All right," says Charlie, "so long!"

He is about to go, but I recall him.

"Can I have a minute with you, Sergeant?"

"Ten. What's the matter?"

"There is a chance of our not coming back to-night?"

"Are you funky?"

"Charlie, I haven't deserved this. You know that I won't shirk."

"Well, what is it then?"

"It is ... it is simply that for some time you are changed towards me, you've been sulky, and I should not like to go off on the long journey without having made friends with you again."

He says nothing and stares into my face. Then after a while he asks:

"Have you written any more of that stuff?"

"What stuff?"

"That story of yours."

"Oh, I see. Yes. I have."

"Let's see."

I show him my story. He reads quickly, very quickly, skipping half-pages; in short, he reads as I should not like you, for instance, to read it. In less than half-an-hour he has run through all the pages. When he has finished he takes a long breath as though he felt relieved.

"Look here, P. C.," he says, "when you began that story I thought it was all stuff and nonsense. It amused me, and sometimes I thought that you knew how to strike a note of sincerity."

(I earnestly wish to point out that this kind of criticism is not my own; I guarantee that it is by Sergeant Young.)

He goes on:

"Very slowly it began to dawn upon me that there might be more truth in your narrative than I had first suspected. And then you let me see that photo."

He stops and looks at me as if at a loss how to go on.

"I had misunderstood what your story was driving at," he continues, "I thought that, as stories written in a light tone generally do, it was to finish with a marriage ... and, when I found out that it was a story which had really happened, I believed that you had married the lady of the photograph."

My dear reader, I promise you that I will repeat it no more after this time, but I must ask your leave to inform you once more that I felt silly. And I continued so when Charlie declared:

"I have known that woman."

"You have known her?"

"Oh!" he cries, "do not suspect anything wrong, do not jump to conclusions. Do you want to know how it all happened? By a lucky deal on the Paris _Bourse_ I had realized a sum of about 200.000 francs. I never told you, that I used to live in Paris, after the Boer war, years ago. Never mind. Well, with my money I did a very foolish thing: I bought a little hotel. It was called 'The Grand-duke's hotel,' and was a smart place. Unfortunately, to keep a smart custom, you must advertize, and for this I had no money. Perhaps also to make a good innkeeper a certain talent is necessary, in which I was lacking. By and by my business declined, not in elegance, but in turnover. Still, there were always a few refined and well-paying guests who encouraged me to hope against hope. But one day--you know the date as well as I, P. C.--there came a couple who gave the concern its death stroke.

"They travelled under the name _Count and Countess Dorff_, but from the photograph alone I could tell you, that the lady was your Mitzi. However, there is another thing which coincides with your account. Not that they called themselves _Dorff_ from the Archduke's _nom de plume_, I do not mean that, I mean another thing.

"On the ninth or tenth day after their arrival they came home rather early and at once retired to their apartment. Shortly afterwards George, my head waiter, came hurriedly into my private room, where I was working, and informed me that they were quarrelling--but so violently that I had better come. I am sorry, P. C., to have to show you an ugly side of an otherwise honourable trade, but eaves-dropping is sometimes necessary to an innkeeper. So I went and listened. At first I could hardly understand what they were saying, for although I speak German as perfectly as six other languages, I could not immediately make out their peculiar Viennese accent. Soon, however, I grew accustomed to it. The quarrel was apparently about money matters. Quarrels between couples in hotels generally are. But after a while the object of the dispute seemed to shift, they grew louder and then fainter again. Through the door of the next room, where I was listening, I could hear one of the two people excitedly opening a trunk and searching for something. Then I heard the woman say distinctly in an irritated voice:

'So your father took the papers?'

And the man answered:

'He did.'

'He stole the score of _Griseldis_? How did he do it?'

'He had only to step into your apartment, which a locksmith had opened for him. He knew the room, he knew the very drawer where the manuscript was kept, and he took it.'

"There came several questions from the woman which I don't remember, evidently asking how the Archduke had prepared the whole affair.

'He had obtained an engagement for your father,' explained the man, 'to play a concerto in Prague. He knew that this would cause him to be absent for three days. You had told Augusta that in such cases your maid used to ask you for a holiday, and my father had learned this detail by chance from Augusta. There was but one more difficulty: to remove you.'

"For a minute or so they both kept silent; then suddenly the woman cried fiercely:

'You sent me that wire!'

'I obeyed my father's orders,' answered the man.

'And for a full year you let me be suspected of being a thief ... protesting all the while that you loved me?'

'I do love you ... and I regret....'

'Ah! you regret, you scoundrel! And to show your regret you spoiled my life as your father had spoiled my father's work? Scoundrel, scoundrel, scoundrel!'

"I heard the man laugh, a cold, cruel laugh.

'No!' she went on, 'you do not regret, but I will teach you to repent!...'

"The next second I heard a report. George and I broke in the door. She had shot him through the left arm. I am afraid, P. C., that you have never seen her look as beautiful as I have.

"What more can I say? The next day the affair was in the papers. I hoped it would be an advertisement for the 'Grand-duke's hotel.' It would perhaps have been one for a bigger place or one that had been better known. As it was, it finished my business. Three months later I was ruined. You may believe me, P. C., that my wish to be revenged on that scoundrel is as strong as yours."