Part 29

In moments like this the only relation to his beloved art of which he was conscious was that he was able to understand it with deeper appreciation than any other human being. And he felt that Heinrich had spoken the truth when they had ridden together through a forest damp with the morning dew: it was not creative work--it was simply the atmosphere of his art which was necessary to his existence. He was not one of the damned, like Heinrich, who always felt driven to catch hold of things, to mould them, to preserve them, and who found his world fall to pieces whenever it tried to escape from his creative hand.

Isolde in Brangäne's arms had dropped dead over Tristan's body, the last notes were dying away, the curtain fell. George cast a glance up to the box in the first tier. Else stood by the ledge with her look turned towards him, while James put her dark-red cloak over her shoulders, and it was only now, that after a nod of the head as quick as though she had meant no one to notice it, she turned towards the exit. Remarkable, thought George from a distance: there is a certain ... melancholy romantic something about the way she carries herself, about many of her movements. It is then that she reminds me most of the gipsy girl of Nice, or the strange young person with whom I stood in front of the Titian Venus in Florence.... Did she ever love me? No. And she doesn't love her James either. Who is it then?... Perhaps ... it was really that mad drawing-master in Florence. Or no one at all. Or Heinrich, of all people?...

He met Skelton in the _foyer_. "Back again?" queried the latter.

"Only for a few days," replied George.

It transpired that Skelton had not really known what George was doing and had thought that he was on a kind of musical tour through the German towns for the purposes of study. He was now more or less surprised to hear that George was here on leave and had been practically commissioned by the manager to inspect the new production of _Tristan_. "Will this suit you?" said Skelton. "I've got an appointment with Breitner; at the '_Imperial_,' the white room."

"Excellent," replied George. "I'm staying there."

Doctor von Breitner was already smoking one of his celebrated big cigars when the two men appeared at his table. "What a surprise!" he exclaimed, when George greeted him. He had heard that George was engaged as conductor in Düsseldorf.

"Detmold," said George, and he thought: "The people here don't bother about me particularly.... But what does it matter?"

Skelton described the _Tristan_ performance and George mentioned that he had spoken to the Ehrenbergs.

"Do you know that Oskar Ehrenberg is on his way to India or Ceylon?" asked Doctor von Breitner.

"Really!"

"And whom do you think with?"

"Some woman, I suppose?"

"Oh, of course. I've even heard they've got five or seven women with them."

"Who?--'they.'"

"Oskar Ehrenberg ... and ... have a guess.... Well, the Prince of Guastalla!"

"Impossible!"

"Funny, eh? They became very thick this year at Ostend or at Spa.... _Cherchez_ ... et cetera. It seems that just as there are women, you know, for whom people fight duels there's also another class across whom, as it were, you shake hands. Now they've left Europe together. Perhaps they'll found a kingdom on some island or other and Oskar Ehrenberg will be prime minister."

Willy Eissler appeared. His complexion was sallow, his voice hoarse and he looked as if he had been keeping late hours. "Hullo, Baron! Forgive me not being thunderstruck but I have already heard that you are here. Some one or other saw you in the Kärtnerstrasse."

George requested Willy to remember Count Malnitz to his father. He himself, he was sorry to say, had no time on this occasion to look up the old gentleman, to whom, as he observed with a pretty mock-modesty, he owed his position in Detmold.

"So far as your future is concerned, Baron," said Willy, "I never had any anxiety about it, particularly since I heard Bellini sing your songs last year--or was it further back? But it is quite a good idea of yours, deciding to leave Vienna. You'd have been bound to have been taken for a dilettante here for a cool twenty or thirty years. That's always the way in Vienna. I know it. When people know that a man comes of a good family, has a taste too for pretty ties, good cigarettes and various other amenities of life, they don't believe that he has real artistic capacity. You wouldn't be taken seriously here without proof from outside.... So hurry up and furnish us with a brilliant one, Baron."

"I'll make an effort to," said George.

"By the way, have you heard the latest, gentlemen?" began Willy again. "Leo Golowski, the one-year-volunteer who shot First-Lieutenant Sefranek, is free."

"Let out on bail?" asked George.

"No, he's quite free. His advocate addressed a petition to the Emperor to quash the proceedings, and it turned out successful to-day."

"Incredible!" exclaimed Breitner.

"Why are you so surprised, Breitner?" said Willy. "It is possible, you know, for something sensible to happen in Austria once in a blue moon."

"A duel is never sensible," said Skelton, "and therefore a pardon for a duel can't be sensible either."

"A duel, my dear Skelton, is either something very much worse or something very much better than sensible," replied Willy. "It is either a ghastly folly or a relentless necessity, either a crime or an act of deliverance. It is not sensible and doesn't need to be so. In exceptional cases, one can't make any headway at all with common-sense, and I am sure you too will concede, Skelton, that in a case like the one of which we have just been speaking a duel was inevitable."

"Absolutely," said Breitner.

"I can imagine a polity," observed Skelton, "in which differences of that kind were settled by a court."

"Differences of that kind settled by a court! Oh, I say!... Do you really think, Skelton, that in a case where there is no question of right or of possession at issue, but where men confront each other with a stupendous hate, do you really think that a proper settlement could be arrived at by means of a fine or imprisonment? The fact, gentlemen, that refusal to fight a duel in such cases is regarded as a piece of cowardice by all people who possess temperament, honour and honesty has a fairly deep significance. In the case of Jews at any rate," he added. "So far as the Catholics are concerned it is well known that it is only their orthodoxy which keeps them from fighting."

"That's certainly the case," said Breitner simply.

George wanted to know details of the affair between Leo Golowski and the First-Lieutenant.

"Quite so," said Willy. "Of course you've only just arrived. Well, the First-Lieutenant gave him a fine ragging for the whole year, and as a matter of fact----"

"I know the prelude," interrupted George. "Part of it from first-hand information."

"Really! Well, the prelude, to stick to that expression, was over on the first of October. I mean Leo Golowski had finished his year of service. And on the second he placed himself in front of the barracks early in the morning and quietly waited till the First-Lieutenant came out of the door. As soon as he did he stepped up to him; the First-Lieutenant reached for his sword, but Leo Golowski grabs hold of his hand, doesn't let it go, puts his other fist in front of his forehead. There is a story, too, that Leo is supposed to have flung the following words at the First-Lieutenant.... I don't know if it's true."

"What words?" asked George curiously.

"'You were worth more than I was yesterday, Herr First-Lieutenant; now we are on an equality for the time being--but one of us will be worth more than the other again by this time to-morrow.'"

"Somewhat Talmudic," remarked Breitner.

"You, of course, must be the best judge of that, Breitner," replied Willy, and went on with his story. "Well, the duel took place next morning in the fields by the Danube--three exchanges of ball at twenty paces without advancing. If that proved abortive the sword till one or other was _hors de combat_.... The first shots missed on both sides, and after the second ... after the second, I say, Golowski was really worth more than the First-Lieutenant, for the latter was worth nothing, less than nothing--a dead man."

"Poor devil," said Breitner.

Willy shrugged his shoulders. "He just happened to have caught a tartar. I'm sorry, too, but one must admit that Austria would be a different place in many respects if all Jews would behave like Leo Golowski in similar cases. Unfortunately...."

Skelton smiled. "You know, Willy, I don't like any one to say anything against the Jews when I am there. I like them, and I should be sorry if people wanted to solve the Jewish question by a series of duels, for when it was all over there wouldn't be a single male specimen left of that excellent race."

At the end of the conversation Skelton had to admit that the duel could not be abolished in Austria for the present. But he reserved the right of putting the question whether that fact was really an argument in favour of the duel, and not rather an argument against Austria, since many other countries--he refrained from mentioning any out of a sense of modesty--had discarded the duel for centuries. And did he go too far if he ventured to designate Austria--the country, too, in which he had felt really at home for the last six years--as the country of social shams? In that country more than anywhere else there existed wild disputes without a touch of hate and a kind of tender love without the need of fidelity. Quite humorous personal likings existed or came into existence between political opponents; party colleagues, on the other hand, reviled, libelled and betrayed each other. You would only find a few people who would vouchsafe specific views on men and things, and anyway even these few would be only too ready to make reservations and admit exceptions. The political conflict there gave one quite the impression as though the apparently most bitter enemies, while exchanging their most virulent abuse, winked to each other: "It's not meant so seriously."

"What do you think, Skelton?" asked Willy. "Would you wink, too, if the bullets were flying on both sides?"

"You certainly would, Willy, unless death were staring you in the face. But that circumstance, I think, doesn't affect one's mood but only one's demeanour."

They went on sitting together for a long time and continued gossiping. George heard all kinds of news. He learned among other things that Demeter Stanzides had concluded the purchase of the estate on the Hungarian-Croatian frontier, and that the Rattenmamsell was looking forward to a happy event. Willy Eissler was much excited at the result of this crossing of the races, and amused himself in the meanwhile by inventing names for the expected child, such as Israel Pius or Rebecca Portiuncula.

Subsequently the whole party betook itself to the neighbouring café. George played a game of billiards with Breitner and then went up to his room. He made out in bed a time-table for the next day and finally sank into a deliciously deep sleep.

The paper he had ordered the day before was brought in with the tea in the morning, together with a telegram. The manager requested him to report on a singer. To George's delight it was the one he had heard yesterday in Kurwenal. He was also allowed to stay three days beyond his specified leave, "in order to put his affairs in order at his convenience," since an alteration of the programme happened to allow it. Excellent, really, thought George. It struck him that he had completely forgotten his original intention of wiring for a prolongation of his leave. I have got even more time for Anna now than I thought, he reflected. We might perhaps go into the mountains. The autumn days are fine and mild, and at this time one would be pretty well alone and undisturbed anywhere. But supposing there is an accident again--an--accident--again!... Those were the very words in which the thought had flown through his mind. He bit his lips. Was that how he had suddenly come to regard the matter? An accident.... Where was the time when he had thought of himself almost with pride as a link in an endless chain which went from the first ancestors to the last descendants? And for a few moments he seemed to himself like a failure in the sphere of love, somewhat dubious and pitiable.

He ran his eye over the paper. The proceedings against Leo Golowski had been quashed by an Imperial pardon. He had been discharged from prison last evening. George was very glad and decided to visit Leo this very day. He then sent a telegram to the Count, and made out a report with due formality and detail on yesterday's performance. When he got out into the street it was nearly eleven. The air had the cool clearness of autumn. George felt thoroughly rested, refreshed and in a good temper. The day lay before him rich with hopes and promised all kinds of excitement. Only something troubled him without his immediately knowing what it was.... Oh yes, the visit in the Paulanergasse, the depressing rooms, the ailing father, the aggrieved mother. I'll simply fetch Anna, he thought, take her for a walk and then go and have supper somewhere with her. He passed a flower shop, bought some wonderful dark-red roses and had them sent to Anna with a card on which he wrote: "A thousand wishes. Goodbye till the evening." When he had done this he felt easier in his mind. He then went through the streets in the centre of the town to the old house in which Nürnberger lived. He climbed up the five storeys. A slatternly old servant with a dark cloth over her head opened the door and ushered him into her master's room. Nürnberger was standing by the window with his head slightly bent, in the brown high-cut lounge-suit which he liked to wear at home. He was not alone. Heinrich, of all people, got up from the old arm-chair in front of the secretary with a manuscript in his hand. George was heartily welcomed.

"Has your being in Vienna anything to do with the crisis in the management of the opera?" asked Nürnberger. He refused to allow this observation to be simply passed over as a joke. "Look here," he said, "if little boys who a short time ago were only in a position to give formal proof of their connection with German literature on the strength of the regularity of their visits to a literary café, are invited to take appointments as readers on the Berlin stage, well, in an age like this I see no occasion for astonishment if Baron Wergenthin is fetched in triumph to the Vienna opera after his no doubt strenuous six weeks' career as the conductor of a German Court theatre."

George paid a tribute to truth by explaining that he had only obtained a short leave to put his Vienna affairs in order, and did not forget to mention that he had seen the new production of _Tristan_ yesterday as a kind of agent for his manager, but he smiled ironically at himself all the time. Then he gave a short and fairly humorous description of his experiences up to the present in the little capital. He even touched jestingly on the Court concerts as though he were far from taking his position, his present successes, the theatre, or indeed life in general with any particular seriousness.

Conversation then turned on Leo Golowski's release from prison. Nürnberger rejoiced at this unhoped-for issue, but yet firmly refused to be surprised at it, for the most highly improbable things always happened in life, and particularly in Austria, as they all knew very well. But when George mentioned the rumour of Oskar Ehrenberg's yachting trip with the Prince as a new proof of the soundness of Nürnberger's theory, he was at first inclined nevertheless to be slightly sceptical. Yet he finished by admitting its possibility, since his imagination, as he had known for a long time, was invariably surpassed by reality.

Heinrich looked at the time. It was time for him to say goodbye.

"Haven't I disturbed you, gentlemen?" asked George. "I think you were reading something, Heinrich, when I came in?"

"I had already finished," replied Heinrich.

"You'll read me the last act to-morrow, Heinrich?" said Nürnberger.

"I have no intention of doing so," replied Heinrich with a laugh. "If the first two acts are as great a frost in the theatre as they were with you, my dear Nürnberger, it will be positively impossible to play the thing through to the end. We'll assume, Nürnberger, that you rush indignantly out of the stalls into the open air. I'll let you off the cat-calls and the rotten eggs."

"Hang it all!" exclaimed George.

"You're exaggerating again, Heinrich," said Nürnberger. "I only ventured to make a few objections," he said, turning to George, "that's all. But he's an author, you know."

"It all depends on what you mean by 'objection,'" said Heinrich. "After all, it is only an objection to the life of a fellow human being if you cut his head open with a hatchet; only it's a fairly effective one." He pointed to his manuscript and turned to George. "You know what that is? My political tragi-comedy. No wreaths, by request."

Nürnberger laughed. "I assure you, Heinrich, you could still make something really splendid out of your subject. You can even keep the whole scenario and a number of the characters. All you need to do is to make up your mind to be less fair when you revise your draft."

"But surely his fairness is a fine thing," said George.

Nürnberger shook his head. "One may be anywhere else, only not in the drama," and turning to Heinrich again, "In a piece like that, which deals with a question of the day, or indeed several questions, as you really intended, you'll never do any good with a purely objective treatment. The theatre public demands that the subjects tackled by the author should be definitely settled, or that at any rate some illusion of that kind should be created. For of course there never is any real solution, and an apparent solution can only be made by a man who has the courage or the simplicity or the temperament to take sides. You'll soon appreciate the fact, my dear Heinrich, that fairness is no good in the drama."

"Do you know, Nürnberger," said Heinrich, "one perhaps might do some good even with fairness. I think I simply haven't got the right kind. As a matter of fact, you know, I've no desire at all to be fair. I imagine it must be so wonderfully nice to be unfair. I think it would be the most healthy gymnastic exercise for one's soul that one could possibly practise. It must do one such a lot of good to be able really to hate the man whose views you are combating. It saves one, I'm sure, a great deal of inner strength which you can expend far better yourself in the actual fight. Yes, if one still preserves fairness of heart.... But my fairness is here," and he pointed to his forehead. "I do not stand above parties either, but I belong to them all in a kind of way, or am against them all. I have not got the divine but the dialectical fairness. And that's why"--he held his manuscript high up--"it has resulted in such a boring and fruitless lot of twaddle."

"Woe to the man," said Nürnberger, "who is rash enough to write anything like that about you."

"Well, you see," replied Heinrich with a smile, "if some one else were to say it, one couldn't suppress the slight suspicion that he might be right. But now I must really go. Good-bye, George. I'm very sorry that you missed me yesterday. When are you leaving again?"

"To-morrow."

"Anyway, I shall see you before you leave. I'm home to-day the whole afternoon and evening. You will find a man who has resolutely turned away from the questions of the day and devoted himself again to the eternal problems, death and love.... Do you believe in death, by-the-bye, Nürnberger? I am not asking you about love."

"That somewhat cheap joke from a man in your position," said Nürnberger, "makes me suspect that in spite of your very dignified demeanour my criticism has...."

"No, Nürnberger, I swear to you that I am not wounded. I have rather a comfortable sensation of the whole thing being finished with."

"Finished with, why so? It is still quite possible that I've made a mistake, and that this very piece, which I didn't think quite a success, will have a success on the stage which will make you into a millionaire. I should be deeply grieved if on account of my criticism, which may be very far from being authoritative...."

"Quite so, quite so, Nürnberger. We must all of us always admit the possibility that we may be mistaken. And the next time I'll write another piece, and one with the following title too: '_Nobody's going to take me in_,' and you shall be the hero of it, Nürnberger."

Nürnberger smiled. "... I? That means you'll take a man whom you imagine you know, that you'll try to describe those sides of his character which suit your game--that you'll suppress others which are no use to you, and the result...."

"The result," interrupted Heinrich, "will be a portrait taken by a mad photographer with a spoilt camera during an earthquake and an eclipse of the sun. Is that right, or is there anything missing?"

"The psychology ought to be exhaustive," said Nürnberger.

Heinrich took his leave in boisterous spirits and went away with his rolled-up manuscript. When he had gone George remarked: "His good temper strikes me as a bit of a pose, you know."

"Do you think so? I have always found him in remarkably good form lately."

"In really good form? Do you seriously think so? After what he has gone through?"

"Why not? Men who are so almost exclusively self-centred as he is get over emotional troubles with surprising quickness. Characters of that type, and as a matter of fact other kinds of men as well, feel the slightest physical discomfort far more acutely than any kind of sentimental pain, even the faithlessness and death of the persons they happen to love. It comes no doubt from the fact that every emotional pain flatters our vanity somehow or other, and that you can't say the same thing about an attack of typhoid or a catarrh in the stomach. Then there is this additional point about artistic people, for while catarrh of the stomach provides positively no copy at all (at any rate that used to be reasonably certain a short time ago) you can get anything you jolly well like out of your emotional pains, from lyric poems down to works on philosophy."

"Emotional pains are of very different kinds, of course," replied George. "And being deceived or deserted by a mistress ... or even her dying a natural death ... is still rather a different thing to her killing herself on our account."

"Do you know for a certainty," replied Nürnberger, "that Heinrich's mistress really killed herself on his account?"

"Didn't Heinrich tell you, then?..."

"Of course, but that doesn't prove much. Even the shrewdest amongst us are always fools about the things which concern ourselves."

Such remarks as these on the part of Nürnberger produced a strangely disconcerting effect on George. They belonged to the class of which Nürnberger was rather fond, and which, as Heinrich had once observed, quite destroyed all the point of all human intercourse, and in fact of all human relations.

Nürnberger went on speaking. "We only know two facts. One is that our friend once had a _liaison_ with a girl and the other that the girl in question threw herself into the water. We both of us know practically nothing about all the intervening facts, and Heinrich probably doesn't know anything more about them either. None of us can know why she killed herself, and perhaps the poor girl herself didn't know either."