Part 9

I gazed at the sumptuous decorations of that loge, the frame to which the picture was as yet lacking, but which would hold in a few moments the so longed-for figure of the young sovereign. It would be our first glimpse of him, of that being who inspired in us such a profound sympathy, of him who radiated the glory of having been able to correct an error of destiny, and diminish the shame that humanity would endure for having failed to recognise Genius.

The blue velvet draperies with their rich folds held back by cords of gold, the crown and coat of arms, lozenged in blue and silver, and borne by the rampant lions, which signified in the language of heraldry "up and ready," these only caught the light, and the royal box itself was like a grotto of darkness.

All of a sudden the King was there, sparkling in the obscurity like a star emerged from the mist. His youthful visage gave us a delightful surprise. We had not imagined him like that, at once feminine and headstrong, ingenuous and arrogant. In contrast to the very black locks of his hair, which, standing up from his forehead, seemed to guard him like a wave of flame, his skin was of a warm, almost, dusky pallor, and a singular expression of energy contrasted strongly with the delicate modelling of his features; but one was instantly fascinated by the extraordinary splendour of those eyes, blue-green as the sea, fringed with long black lashes, eyes profound, ecstatic.... "Nothing is able to give any idea of the magic of that glance," said the Master.

The king advanced to the front of the box. His tall form dominated the house for an instant: then he seated himself. Very soon the lights were turned down and the vision vanished. But Hans Richter did not yet give the signal to the orchestra. The footlights were lighted, but before the curtain was drawn a man slipped out before it from a corner of the stage.

Perfall, the manager! What could he wish to say?

After many bowings and scrapings, with his hand on his heart he spoke, he implored "the indulgence of the select public before whom he had the honour.... In spite of the best will in the world, of long conscientious efforts ... insurmountable difficulties of scenery ... effects impossible to realise.... It had been necessary to give up the idea of attaining perfection, and to be content with what could be done, regret, chagrin ... but there is no flying without wings....

The presence of the king kept back all marked demonstration: yet even that could not stifle the indignant murmur that followed Perfall, when, after fresh cringings, he disappeared behind the curtain.

Richter struck angrily upon his desk, as if he were hitting the back of the traitor. The low note began its muffled vibration, the prelude commenced: but we no longer listened in the religious absorption of the other day, we were afraid to see the curtain drawn aside ... and at that moment it was drawn.

One was disappointed at the very first glance; no sign of the green shadows, of the humid and troubled depths which we had expected to see, only very dry rocks of moulded paper, resting without mystery, upon the boards of the stage. A frightful oil lamp, suspended from the highest moulding was supposed to represent "the gold of the Rhine." It only recalled the lantern which is placed, by night, at the top of a street obstruction.... The crystalline voice unrolled its clear melody, but at this point, a mannikin with dangling arms and hair hanging before its face, intended for an undine, was precipitated, head first, from above and, half way down, remained suspended, balancing from the end of a string. At the moment when the other voices were heard, other images of the same nature fell from above and oscillated in the deplorable attitudes of the drowned. Soon after, the mannikins were drawn back, and the true singers, standing upon supports, half concealed by the jutting out of the paper rocks, appeared and agitated their arms to represent swimming. Then they went away, and the puppet Rhine maidens returned and capered desperately about the smoking lamp.

What absurdity! They would not dare to present anything so bad at the Punch and Judy show of the Champs-Elysées.

After the scene-shifting, of an unbelievable awkwardness, a very little Walhalla, like a castle of cards, was to be seen upon a miniature mountain. Wotan had the appearance of a wayfarer who sleeps in the open air. As soon as he began to sing however, the magnificent voice of Betz made one willing to forget all else, one no longer saw the ridiculous landscape, and as the mechanical difficulties were over for the time, one could listen to the scenes that followed up to the moment of the descent to the Nibelheim.

At that point the management took its revenge.

A frightful and continuous hissing suddenly drowned both the voices and the orchestra. What in the world could it be? At first one was terrified, but heavy clouds of white vapour soon enveloped the scene and all was explained: the famous machines! A red Bengal fire, lighted too late, coloured those clouds, which were supposed to escape from the subterranean kingdom of the Nibelungen forgers.

When, a little later, Alberich should have donned the magic helmet in order to take the form of the dragon, he very simply walked off at the wings and the dragon entered by the same path, then the dragon went back, and the man returned.

The steam engine was not employed in the last scene; at the moment when Donner assembled the clouds and let loose the storm, the hissing might have helped to represent the whistlings of the tempest. At that time, however, what seemed to be blocks of granite descended from the freize and moved to the right and the left without knowing where to stop. The Gods climbed painfully up after the storm, and beheld, added to the scenery of before, a large bridge in white linen, which crossed the valley and reached to the other side, erasing and overwhelming the tiny Walhalla.

Toward this whiteness the Gods direct their steps. Then that must be the rainbow over which they are to pass. Yes, of course it is, for now a prismatic light, thrown from a lantern, runs distractedly over the lower end of the linen, onto Wotan's nose, everywhere it ought not to be, and never reaches the bridge, massive and white, for which it is intended.

At length the curtain falls, the orchestra is silent. Richter, red with wrath, throws down his baton; the usually amiable Richter looks positively fierce.

"I will not direct such a _Rheingold_" cried he, "it is war between you and me, Herr Manager!" And to us he said, "Wait for me at the Café Maximilian, we must join together in forewarning the Master."

XVII

The first presentation of the _Rheingold_ was billed for Sunday, the 29th August, two days later. Under the circumstances, it must be prevented from taking place.

If the stage settings had been simply mediocre, it might have been possible to resign oneself and count upon the splendour of the work to make one forget the inadequacy of its plastic realisation: but here there was too much of the grotesque, too many things that made one laugh, the bad faith and malevolence were too evident: there must be a protest so violent as to prevent the accomplishment of the sacrilege.

After we were all reunited in our usual place at the Café Maximilian, the conference was not a long one. Richter had had a stormy interview with Perfall.

"Postpone the representation," said Richter.

"The representation will take place on Sunday," replied Perfall.

"We shall see!"

"We shall see!"

"And he _will see_," added Richter. "My resolution is taken, but I did not wish to announce it before asking Wagner's advice. Quick. Let us get to business!"

He wrote a dispatch in German, and we wrote the following in French:

"Master, the orchestra, under the direction of Hans Richter, was admirable. The singers deserve the highest praise. The scenery and the stage mechanism are absurd, ridiculous, impossible." And, while someone hurried off with the telegrams, I wrote a long letter to Wagner, giving him a detailed account of the spectacle at which we had just been present and concerning which we were still trembling with indignation.

Betz also wrote to the Master, who would receive the dispatches the same evening and the letters the following morning.

We awaited the replies in the greatest impatience.

The first telegram which arrived the next day was for Richter:

"Will they really offer me such an insult as to give my work to-morrow?"

At the theatre the _Rheingold_ was still announced. Richter showed Wagner's dispatch to Perfall, but he paid no attention to it, and persisted in his determination to give the work upon the date for which it was billed.

I received a letter from Tribschen in which Wagner said that he thanked me for the vivid description I had sent him of this disaster, that he had telegraphed to the King asking him to suspend the representations, that he had telegraphed to Betz begging him to refuse to sing under such conditions.

On Sunday morning Richter went for a last time to see the Director, and said to him:

"The representation of the _Rheingold_ will not take place this evening, because I will not conduct the work against the wish of its author."

"You will not conduct it this evening, nor any other evening," cried Perfall--"as you are no longer Capellmeister to the Royal Theatre."

And pale with rage, he signed the dismissal of Hans Richter.

But at least they could not play the _Rheingold_ that evening. Better that the sea should swallow one man than the whole ship.

A strip was pasted across the bills, postponing the performance to the following Thursday. The management sought for a new leader of orchestra, there was a mad rush about Munich, where many Capellmeisters had come to hear the _Rheingold_.

All those whom they solicited, stole away, leaving the city precipitately; not one of them cared to incur the disapproval of the composer by conducting the work against his will.

On Monday another letter brought the news that Wagner had written at length to the King, explaining to him in all its details, the affair of the _Rheingold_ and begging him to postpone again the performance announced for Thursday to the following Sunday. If it were in accordance with the King's wishes, Wagner would himself go to Munich to re-instal Richter at the desk and to reorganize the scenes as much as possible.

The Master had submitted the same conditions to the management of the theatre the day before, and had received a telegram, come out of the Counsellor's hump, to the effect that the conditions were granted and that they only prayed him to allow them to give the representation on Thursday.

Wagner telegraphed in answer to that:--

"I await a response from the King to a letter sent off to-day."

But on this same evening of Monday, the 30th August, Richter received a dispatch from Wagner which announced his own arrival for the following day. He had not the patience to wait for the King's answer. He would come in the strictest secrecy, no one was to know where he would stay, and, we must understand, it was necessary to guard the secret most carefully.

XVIII

"Alte Pferdestrasse, Wagner, who has just arrived in Munich, is there, come to-night, after dark."

We had all gathered at Franz Servais' house to await the news, when this note was brought to me and put into "the right hands" with much mystery. It was not signed, but Richter had written it.

"Richard Wagner here!" We expected him, yet now we were surprised and troubled that he had come, even though in answer to our call.... What if some misfortune should grow out of this incident!... On the contrary, all would come right now that the Master was here, his presence would work miracles.

"Alte Pferdestrasse," said Servais, "Wagner has gone to Scheffer's home: what an honour!"

"Who is this Scheffer, then?" asked Villiers, "always so silent and buried in his beard? One cannot make him out at all."

"He is correspondent of some small German papers, according to his own account, but, I believe also an office-holder. Certainly he is a good Wagnerian, and that ought to suffice for us."

"His dog is also that," replied Villiers, "for he only comes when one whistles the serenade of Beckmesser."

"Where is the Alte Pferdestrasse?" I asked.

"In a very quiet part of the city, but it is not easy to find--" said Servais. "We will take you there and wait for you, since you only are invited to see the Master...."

It was still daylight when we left Servais' house and sauntered slowly along, in order not to have the air of conspirators. We asked ourselves if Wagner really ran any risks, in coming to Munich. He was not really exiled, only morally so, by his own resolution not to go there. What had he to fear? The public was eager for his works: the price of seats in the theatre doubled when they were played, and the house was always full. Were his enemies still so implacable, and what could they do?

We stopped before the theatre to read the posters and wonder what Perfall was plotting. The _Rheingold_ was announced for Thursday, two days later. The management was stubborn: nevertheless it would have to concede one point; who would conduct the orchestra, if not Richter?

We went on, and were nearly lost in a labyrinth of small deserted streets with grass growing between the pavingstones, with little, low houses and small gardens.

"Alte Pferdestrasse." At last we found it; my companions stopped at the corner of the street and Franz Servais pointed out the house of the greatly envied Scheffer. The entrance door was closed and I knew that porters were not usual in the Munich houses. I could see the shining brass of three little bells, but it had grown very dark, and I could not succeed in making out the name of the resident or the number of the floor engraved under each. Leaving it to chance, I rang the middle one! Chance served me this time, for Scheffer himself came to let me in. We mounted a narrow dimly-lighted staircase to the first floor.

As soon as we passed the threshold, I saw Wagner, at the end of the second room, seated on an old sofa.

Then I suddenly remembered Tribschen, the superb frame which seemed so fitting a place for the Master. I thought how at this hour, between the high mountains, deep shadows brooded over the dear home, which no longer held his presence, and anxiety possessed the heart of her, who in spirit followed the absent one.

How strange it was to find Wagner in this narrow and shabby setting! Yet, because it held him, one was no longer conscious of the restrictions: he transformed all that surrounded him.

"Well, dear friend," he said to me, "here are the Misérabilités in full force! I do not regret that you should have been a witness of the occurrence that has brought me here, for there are some things that one could never believe, unless one had seen them."

"But the King, what does the King say?"

"Ah, I imagine that he feigns to ignore the fiasco, and does not wish to be drawn into it. They have probably persuaded him that it is impossible to do better, or to make the stage effects realistic: he wishes to enjoy again the pleasure he had in hearing the music and probably said to his subordinates:

"'Arrange as well as you can, but give me another representation of the _Rheingold_ as soon as possible.'"

"How could he understand, after having put at the disposition of the Director the enormous sum of sixty thousand florins, and commanding him not to spare time in obtaining a perfect result, how could he imagine such bad will and malevolence in those whom he employs?"

"But now that you are here, Master, all will be different."

"No, alas! The first representation is still billed for Thursday. The King wishes it and I am not willing to oppose him. You know that all my new works belong to him, in exchange for the yearly indemnity which he grants me. As soon as any score is completed, I send it to him and he has the right to dispose of it as he pleases. This time, I am protesting inwardly, but mutely, against the fragmentary representations of the Tetralogy. But how can I feel any ill-will toward the King for his impatience? Toward him who has endeavoured in every way to put through the theatre project which would have permitted the bringing out of my work as a whole? He cannot resign himself to waiting, as I should have liked to have him wait, for the better times, and he wishes to see, at least, the representations of parts of my work. I can only submit myself. And all this creates rather a delicate situation. He is vexed that I do not accept the situation as he has done, and that I refuse to direct the studies of the _Rheingold_, and I am grieved that he exercises his right to have them represented. But, like my mute protestation, so his blame is unspoken. Nothing greater than that could come to trouble a friendship such as ours; it is only a squall, which dulls for a moment the surface of a beautiful lake."

"Then Master, what will you be able to do here before Thursday?"

"First and above all, I wish to re-instal Richter at the desk and I have asked for a rehearsal to-morrow, for myself alone, when I shall endeavour to improve whatever I can, to correct the greatest faults, if it is possible to do it. I owe this effort to my honour as an artist, to the devotion of our matchless Richter and of my interpreters; I owe it to my friends; this conviction has made me break the promise that I made to myself, not to come here, or mix in any way in the affair."

Richter, in Wagner's presence, preserved the ecstatic expression of a priest before a holy apparition. Standing at a little distance he listened to the Master thoughtfully, his steady eyes shining behind his glasses, in the midst of the abundant gold of his beard and his hair. He seemed to have lost the power of speech. As for Scheffer, seated in a corner, he pulled softly at the ears of the dog crouched between his knees, and watched his glorious guest with a devout air.

Wagner endured, or seemed to endure, these fresh trials with an admirable serenity; he had, as it were, an armour of happiness which the blows of fate would henceforth hit without piercing, and this group of disciples zealous for the faith, seemed to form a rampart about his heart.

Very cheerfully he gave me the news of Tribschen and of the vexations that the Munich events had caused there. The day after the dress rehearsal chanced to be a day of many visitors. "One of his sisters with her husband and daughter; an eminent student of Sanscrit, professor at the University of Leipzig; a philologist of Basle "--that was Nietzsche--so they had a number of people with them at two o'clock dinner. This dinner was interrupted ten times by the arrival of telegrams; the Master left the table in order to write a reply; no sooner had he returned and taken his place, than another message was brought to him and he was forced to absent himself again. All those good people were amazed and could not believe that, ordinarily, in that dear retreat of Tribschen, one saw and heard nothing of the outside world.

By the questions that Wagner asked of Richter concerning certain passages from the score of the _Rheingold_, the effect that they produced, and the sound of new combinations, I comprehended that hardest of all for the composer, in the sacrifice upon which he had determined, was to deny himself from hearing his orchestra: and that without admitting it to himself, perhaps, he believed he should find a balm for this intense desire, in the rehearsal which he had solicited for the following day. Truly, there would be very little opportunity in such a short time, of materially improving the deplorable scenic arrangements. It was evident that the Master had, above all, two things most at heart: to hear his work once, as if by stealth--and to restore Richter, who was without means, to his high position of Capellmeister to the Royal Theatre.

We should see what to-morrow would bring! Wagner ought to make the attempt, if not to sleep, at least to rest; Richter and I took leave of him, and left him to the care of the glorified Reinhard Scheffer.

XIX

A brougham drawn by two horses stood before the house in Alte Pferdestrasse, when I went to learn the news the next day.

Feeling that it was sure to be some one from the Court who was in conference with the Master, I did not enter at once, but sauntered away for some little distance, waiting till the interview should be over.

It lasted a long time. Finally I saw Düfflipp, the Court Counsellor, come out, followed by the Director, Perfall. The swarthy and saccharine face of the king's secretary was all shining with perspiration. He wore a suit of chestnut-coloured cloth. His big awkward shoulders disappeared into the carriage, and Perfall, very red and very much given to obsequious bowings, closed the door. The horses reared, stamping noisily on the pavingstones, then pranced off at a great pace, while the Director walked rapidly away.

They both had the aspect of rogues. I hurried up the stairs to Scheffer's floor, urged by anxiety and the desire to know what had happened.

I found Wagner in a peculiar state of mind, ironically gay, satirical, full of jokes, but calm, without any trace of anger.

"Do you recall that sentence of _King Lear_," he asked me, "'The worst is not yet,' when they had said: 'this is the worst'? To-day surpasses yesterday. Tartufflipp is just gone and the measure is full. Not only do they refuse me the only rehearsal I asked for, and reject Richter (who has failed in the obedience and respect which he owed to such a director as Perfall) forever, but again they drive me away from Munich. I am, it appears, a public menace and my life is in danger. It is terrible! The poor counsellor was quite distracted about it, his hump shivered with disquietude.... Truly, if he worries so about me, his health will be affected and, in order to prevent such a misfortune, I must go away at once."

"Oh! without seeing even one rehearsal of your work?"

"But the theatre would be quite likely to collapse upon me if I passed its threshold! Do you not understand? Tartufflipp comprehends it all very well; with the greatest solicitude and tenderness he incited me to a prompt flight! To all that I attempted to say to him, he made the same reply--'But that is not the question, do not remain here, you must not stay, how terrible if anything were to happen to you!'"

"Did he speak in the name of his Master?"

"Not at all! The King is undoubtedly ignorant of the fact that I am here. I tried to see him, this morning, at his Castle of Berg; but they told me he had gone on an excursion. There is a guard all about him in order to prevent my approaching him. But I foresee in all this a cause for recriminations which might do harm to the royal person, and in the endeavour to spare him all annoyance I take myself off, without protest. You may be sure that the enormous sum the King has put at the disposal of the theatre has given rise to wrath among the ministers. The fact that this sum has been misused, squandered without profit, through the incapacity and the knavery of those to whom it was confided, does not lessen the complaint against the King. Then let us accept the situation. We will let people imagine if they can that the stage arrangements of the _Rheingold_ are superb; if mincemeat must be made of my work, I submit to it, if only they will not incriminate the King, and will leave me alone."

At that moment Richter arrived.

"Master," said he, "I have said my good-byes to the musicians of the orchestra; they replied by a very touching ovation to me, and they begged me to assure you of their most enthusiastic loyalty."

"My poor friend," said Wagner, "you are the real victim of this deplorable fiasco."

But Richter, his eyes sparkling with joy, replied: "I am happy!"