HOST. And she—where is she?

FRANCOIS. See, the host takes it seriously. You notice how realistic that makes the thing.

[Noise outside—not too loud.]

JULES. What noise is that outside?

MARQUIS. Do you hear, Severine?

ROLLIN. It sounds as though troops were marching by.

FRANCOIS. Oh, no; it is our dear people of Paris. Just listen how they bawl. (Uneasiness in the cellar; it grows quiet outside.) Go on, Henri—go on.

HOST. Yes, do tell us, Henri—where is your wife? Where have you left her?

HENRI. Oh, I have no qualms about her. She will not die of it. Whether it is this man or that man, what do the women care? There are still a thousand other handsome men running about Paris—whether it is this man or that man—

BALTHASAR. May it fare thus with all who take our wives from us.

SCAEVOLA. All who take from us what belongs to us.

COMMISSAIRE (to HOST). These are seditious speeches.

ALBIN. It is dreadful ... the people mean it seriously.

SCAEVOLA. Down with the usurers of France! We would fain wager that the fellow whom he caught with his wife was another again of those accursed hounds who rob us of our bread as well.

ALBIN. I propose we go.

SEVERINE. Henri!—Henri!

MARQUIS. But, Marquise—

SEVERINE. Please, dear Marquis, ask the man how he caught his wife—or I will ask him myself.

MARQUIS (after resisting). Tell us, Henri, how did you manage to catch the pair?

HENRI (who has been for a long while sunk in reverie). Know you my wife, then? She is the fairest and vilest creature under the sun. And I loved her! We have known one another for seven years—but it is only yesterday that she became my wife. In those seven years there was not one day, nay, not one day, in which she did not lie to me, for everything about her is a lie—her eyes and her lips, her kisses and her smiles.

FRANCOIS. He rants a little.

HENRI. Every boy and every old man, every one who excited her and every one who paid her—every one, I think, who wanted her—has possessed her, and I have known it!

SEVERINE. Not every one can boast as much.

HENRI. And all the same she loved me, my friends. Can any one of you understand that? She always came back to me again—from all quarters back again to me—from the handsome and from the ugly, from the shrewd and from the foolish, from ragamuffins and from courtiers—always came back to me.

SEVERINE (to ROLLIN). Now, if only you had an inkling that it is just this coming back which is really love.

HENRI. What I suffered ... tortures, tortures!

ROLLIN. It is harrowing.

HENRI. And yesterday I married her. We had a dream—nay, I had a dream. I wanted to get away with her from here. Into solitude, into the country, into the great peace. We wished to live like other happy married couples—we dreamt also of having a child—-

ROLLIN (softly). Severine.

SEVERINE. Very good!

ALBIN. Francois, that man is speaking the truth.

FRANCOIS. Quite so; the love-story is true, but the real pith is the murder-story.

HENRI. I was just one day too late.... There was just one man whom she had forgotten, otherwise—I believe—she wouldn't have wanted any one else.... But I caught them together ... it is all over with him.

ACTORS. Who?—who? How did it happen? Where does he lie? Are you pursued? How did it happen? Where is she?

HENRI (with growing excitement). I escorted her ... to the theatre ... today was to be the last time.... I kissed her ... at the door ... and she went to her dressing-room ... and I went off like a man who has nothing to fear. But when I had gone a hundred yards, I began ... to have ... within me—do you understand? ... a terrible unrest ... and it was as though something forced me to turn round ... and I turned round and went back. But once there I felt ashamed and went away again ... and again I walked a hundred yards away from the theatre ... and then something gripped me ... again I went back. Her scene was at an end—she hasn't got much to do, she just stands awhile on the stage half naked—and then she has finished. I stood in front of her dressing-room, put my ear to the door, and heard whispers. I could not make out a word ... the whispering ceased ... I pushed open the door ... (he roars like a lion) it was the Duc de Cadignan, and I murdered him.

HOST (who now at last takes it for the truth). Madman!

[HENRI looks up, gazes fixedly at HOST.]

SEVERINE. Bravo!—bravo!

ROLLIN. What are you doing. Marquise? The moment you call out "bravo!" you make it all acting again—and the pleasant shudder is past.

MARQUIS. I do not find the shudder so pleasant. Let us applaud, my friends; that is the only way we can throw off the spell.

[A gentle bravo, growing continually louder; all applaud.]

HOST (to HENRI, during the noise). Save yourself—flee, Henri.

HENRI. What!—what!

HOST. Let this be enough, and see that you get away.

FRANCOIS. Hush!... Let us hear what the host says.

HOST (after a short reflection). I am telling him that he ought to get away before the watch at the city gates are informed. The handsome Duke was a favorite of the King—they will break you on the wheel. Far better had it been had you stabbed that scum, your wife.

FRANCOIS. What playing up to each other!... Splendid!

HENRI. Prosper, which of us is mad, you or I! (He stands there and tries to read in PROSPER'S eyes.)

ROLLIN. It is wonderful; we all know that he is acting, and yet if the Duc de Cadignan were to enter now, it would be like a ghost appearing.

[Noise outside—growing stronger and stronger. People come in; shrieks are heard. Right at their head GRASSET. Others, among them LEBRET, force their way over the steps. Cries of "Liberty! Liberty!" are heard.]

GRASSET. Here we are, my boys—in here!

ALBIN. What is that? Is that part of the performance?

FRANCOIS. No.

MARQUIS. What means it?

SEVERINE. What people are those?

GRASSET. In here! I tell you, my friend Prosper has still got a barrel of wine left, and we have earned it. (Noise from the streets.) Friend! Brother! We have them!—we have them!

SHOUTS (from outside). Liberty! Liberty!

SEVERINE. What has happened?

MARQUIS. Let us get away—let us get away; the mob approaches.

ROLLIN. How do you propose to get away?

GRASSET. It has fallen; the Bastille has fallen!

HOST. What say you? Speaks he the truth?

GRASSET. Hear you not?

[ALBIN wants to draw his sword.]

FRANCOIS. Stop that at once, or we are all lost.

GRASSET (reeling in down the stairs). And if you hasten, you will still be in time to see quite a merry sight ... the head of our dear Delaunay stuck on a very high pole.

MARQUIS. Is the fellow mad?

SHOUTS. Liberty! Liberty!

GRASSET. We have cut off a dozen heads; the Bastille belongs to us; the prisoners are free! Paris belongs to the people!

HOST. Hear you?—hear you? Paris belongs to us!

GRASSET. See you how he gains courage now. Yes, shout away, Prosper; naught more can happen to you now.

HOST (to the nobles). What say you to it, you rabble? The joke is at an end.

ALBIN. Said I not so?

HOST. The people of Paris have conquered.

COMMISSAIRE. Silence! (They laugh.) Silence! I forbid the continuance of the performance!

GRASSET. Who is that nincompoop?

COMMISSAIRE. Prosper, I regard you as responsible for all these seditious speeches.

GRASSET. Is the fellow mad?

HOST. The joke is at an end. Don't you understand? Henri, do tell them—now you can tell them. We will protect you—the people of Paris will protect you.

GRASSET. Yea, the people of Paris.

[HENRI stands there with a fixed stare.]

HOST. Henri has really murdered the Duc de Cadignan.

ALBIN, FRANCOIS, and MARQUIS. What says he?

ALBIN and others. What means all this, Henri?

FRANCOIS. Henri, pray speak.

HOST. He found him with his wife and he has killed him.

HENRI. 'Tis not true!

HOST. You need fear naught more now; now you can shout it to all the world. I could have told you an hour past that sue was the Duke's mistress. By God, I was nigh telling you—is't not true, you, Shrieking Pumice-stone?—did we not know it?

HENRI. Who has seen her? Where has she been seen?

HOST. What matters that to you now? The man's mad ... you have killed him; of a truth you cannot do more.

FRANCOIS. In heaven's name, is't really true or not?

HOST. Ay, it is true.

GRASSET. Henri, from henceforth you must be my friend. Vive la Liberte!—Vive la Liberte!

FRANCOIS. Henri, speak, man!

HENRI. She was his mistress? She was the mistress of the Duke? I knew it not ... he lives ... he lives ... (Tremendous sensation.)

SEVERINE (to the others). Well, where's the truth now?

ALBIN. My God!

[The DUKE forces his way through the crowd on the steps.]

SEVERINE (who sees him first). The Duke!

SOME VOICES. The Duke.

DUKE. Well, well, what is it?

HOST. Is it a ghost?

DUKE. Not that I know of. Let me through!

ROLLIN. What won't we wager that it is all arranged! The fellows yonder belong to Prosper's troupe. Bravo, Prosper! This is a real success.

DUKE. What is it? Is the playing still going on here, while outside ... but don't you know what manner of things are taking place outside? I have seen Delaunay's head carried past on a pole. Nay, why do you look at me like that? (Steps down.) Henri—

FRANCOIS. Guard yourself from Henri.

[Henri rushes like a madman on the Duke and plunges a dagger into his neck.]

COMMISSAIRE (stands up). This goes too far!

ALL. He bleeds.

ROLLIN. A murder has been done here.

SEVERINE. The Duke is dying.

MARQUIS. I am distracted, dear Severine, to think that today of all days I should have brought you to this place.

SEVERINE. Why not? (In a strained tone.) It is a wonderful success. One does not see a real duke really murdered every day.

ROLLIN. I cannot grasp it yet.

COMMISSAIRE. Silence! Let no one leave the place!

GRASSET. What does he want?



Permission Albert Langen, Munich From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries"

COMMISSAIRE. I arrest this man in the name of the law.

GRASSET (laughs). It is we who make the laws, you blockheads! Out with the rabble! He who kills a duke is a friend of the people. Vive la Liberte!

ALBIN (draws his sword). Make way! Follow me, my friends! [Leocadie rushes in over the steps.]

VOICES. His wife!

LEOCADIE. Let me in here. I want my husband! (She comes to the front, sees, and shrieks out.) Who has done this? Henri! [HENRI looks at her.]

LEOCADIE. Why have you done this?

HENRI. Why?

LEOCADIE. I know why. Because of me. Nay, nay, say not 'twas because of me. Never in all my life have I been worth that.

GRASSET (begins a speech). Citizens of Paris, we will celebrate our victory. Chance has led us on our way through the streets of Paris to this amiable host. It could not have fitted in more prettily. Nowhere can the cry "Vive la Liberte!" ring sweeter than over the corpse of a duke.

VOICES. Vive la Liberte! Vive la Liberte!

FRANCOIS. I think we might go. The people have gone mad. Let us go.

ALBIN. Shall we leave the corpse here?

SEVERINE. Vive la Liberte! Vive la Liberte!

MARQUIS. Are you mad?

CITIZENS and ACTORS. Vive la Liberte! Vive la Liberte!

SEVERINE (leading the nobles to the exit). Rollin, wait you tonight outside my window. I will throw the key down like t'other night. We will pass a pretty hour—I feel quite pleasurably excited.

SHOUTS. Vive la Liberte! Vive Henri! Vive Henri!

LEBRET. Look at the fellows—they are running away from us.

GRASSET. Let them for tonight—let them; they will not escape us.



LITERATURE

A COMEDY IN ONE ACT

* * * * *

CHARACTERS

MARGARET

CLEMENT

GILBERT



LITERATURE (1902)

BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER

TRANSLATED BY A. I. DU P. COLEMAN, A.M. Professor of English Literature, College of the City of New York

Scene, a decently but not richly furnished room, belonging to MARGARET. Table, small writing-desk, chairs, a cupboard, two windows up stage, doors right and left. At rise of curtain, CLEMENT is discovered leaning against mantelpiece, in a very elegant dark gray morning suit, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. MARGARET stands by window, then walks up and down, finally comes behind CLEMENT and runs her hands through his hair. She seems rather restless. CLEMENT goes on reading, then seizes her hand and kisses it.

CLEMENT. Horner is sure of his game—or rather my game. Waterloo five to one, Barometer twenty to one, Busserl seven to one, Attila sixteen to one.

MARGARET. Sixteen to one!

CLEMENT. Lord Byron six to four—that's us, darling!

MARGARET. I know.

CLEMENT. Besides, it's still six weeks to the race.

MARGARET. Apparently he thinks it's a dead certainty.

CLEMENT. The way she knows all the terms ...!

MARGARET. I've known these terms longer than I have you. And is it quite settled that you'll ride Lord Byron yourself?

CLEMENT. How can you ask? The Ladies' Plate! Whom else should I put up? If Horner didn't know I was going to ride him myself, he wouldn't be standing at six to four, you may be sure of that.

MARGARET. I believe you. You're so handsome on horseback—simply fit to take one's breath away! I shall never forget how you looked at Munich, the day I got to know you ...

CLEMENT. Don't remind me of it! I had awful luck that day. Windisch would never have won the race if he hadn't got ten lengths start. But this time—ah ...! And the next day we go away.

MARGARET. In the evening.

CLEMENT. Yes ... But why?

MARGARET. Because in the morning we shall be getting married, I suppose.

CLEMENT. Yes, yes, darling.

MARGARET. I'm so happy! (Embraces him.) And where shall we go?

CLEMENT. I thought we'd agreed about that—to my place in the country.

MARGARET. Yes, later. But can't we have a little while on the Riviera first?

CLEMENT. That'll depend on the Ladies' Plate; if I win it ...

MARGARET. Dead certainty!

CLEMENT. And anyhow, in April the Riviera really isn't the thing any more.

MARGARET. Oh, that's it, is it?

CLEMENT. Of course that's it, child. You've retained from your old life certain conceptions of what's the thing which are—you'll forgive me for saying it—just a little like those of the comic papers.

MARGARET. Really, Clement ...

CLEMENT. Oh well, we'll see. (Goes on reading.) Badegast fifteen to one ...

MARGARET. Badegast? He won't be in it.

CLEMENT. How do you know that?

MARGARET. Szigrati himself told me.

CLEMENT. How was that? Where?

MARGARET. Why, yesterday up at the Freudenau, while you were talking to Milner.

CLEMENT. To my way of thinking, Szigrati isn't the right sort of company for you.

MARGARET. Jealous?

CLEMENT. Nonsense! Anyhow, after this I shall introduce you everywhere as my fiancee. (She kisses him.) Well, what did Szigrati tell you?

MARGARET. That he wasn't going to enter Badegast for the Ladies' Plate.

CLEMENT. Oh, you mustn't believe everything Szigrati tells you. He's spreading the report that Badegast won't run just in order that the odds may be longer.

MARGARET. Why, that's just like speculation.

CLEMENT. Well, don't you suppose we've got any speculators among us? For many men the whole thing is a business. Do you suppose a man like Szigrati has the slightest feeling for sport? He might just as well be on the stock exchange. But for the matter of that, as far as Badegast is concerned, people might well lay a hundred to one against him.

MARGARET. Oh? I thought he looked splendid this morning.

CLEMENT. Oh, she's seen Badegast too!

MARGARET. To be sure—didn't Butters give him a gallop this morning after Busserl?

CLEMENT. But Butters doesn't ride for Szigrati. That must have been a stable-boy. Well, anyhow, Badegast may look as splendid as you like, it makes no difference—he's no good. Ah, Margaret, with your brains you'll soon learn to distinguish real greatness from false. It's really incredible, the quickness with which you've already—what shall I say?—initiated yourself into all these things—it surpasses my boldest expectations.

MARGARET (annoyed). Why does it surpass your expectations? You know very well that all these things are not so new to me. Some very good people used to visit my parents' house—Count Libowski and various others; and also at my husband's ...

CLEMENT. Oh, of course—I know ... At bottom I've really got nothing against the cotton business.

MARGARET. What has it to do with my personal views that my husband had a cotton factory? I always continued my education in my own fashion. But let's not talk any further about those days—they're far enough away, thank God!

CLEMENT. But there are others that are nearer.

MARGARET. To be sure. But what does that mean?

CLEMENT. Oh, I only mean that in your Munich surroundings you can't have heard much of sporting matters, as far as I am able to judge.

MARGARET. I wish you'd stop reproaching me with the surroundings in which you learned to know me.

CLEMENT. Reproaching you? There can't be any question of that. But it has always been and still is incomprehensible to me how you got in with those people.

MARGARET. You talk exactly as if they had been a gang of criminals!

CLEMENT. Child, I give you my word, there were some of them that looked exactly like highway-robbers. What I can't understand is how you, with your well-developed sense of ... Well, I won't say anything more than your taste for ... cleanliness and nice perfumes ... could bear living among those people, sitting down at the table with them.

MARGARET (smiling). Didn't you do it too?

CLEMENT. I sat down near them—not with them. And you know it was for your sake, exclusively for your sake, that I did it. I won't deny that some of them improved on closer acquaintance; there were some really interesting people among them. And you mustn't get the idea, darling, that when I'm among ill-dressed people I have a feeling of conscious superiority. It's not that—but there's something in their whole bearing, in their very nature, that makes one nervous.

MARGARET. Oh, I think that's rather a sweeping statement.

CLEMENT. Now don't get offended with me, darling. I've just said there were some very interesting people among them. But how a lady can feel at home with them for any length of time, I shall never be able to understand.

MARGARET. You forget one thing, my dear Clement—that in a certain sense I belong to their circle, or did belong to it.

CLEMENT. You—I beg your pardon!

MARGARET. They were artists.

CLEMENT. Ah good—we're back on that subject again!

MARGARET. Yes—and that's the thing that always hurts me, that you can't feel with me there.

CLEMENT. "Can't feel with you" ... I like that! I can feel with you all right—but you know what it was I always disliked about your scribbling, and you know that it's a very personal thing.

MARGARET. Well, there are women who in my situation at that time would have done worse things than write poetry.

CLEMENT. But such poetry! (He picks up a little book on the mantelpiece.) That's the whole question. I can assure you, every time I see it lying there, everytime I even think of it, I'm ashamed to think it's yours.

MARGARET. You simply don't understand it. No, you mustn't be vexed with me; if you had just that one thing more, you'd be perfect—and that probably is not to be. But what is it that disturbs you in the verses? You surely know that I haven't experienced anything like that.

CLEMENT. I hope not!

MARGARET. You know it's all imagination.

CLEMENT. But then I can't help asking myself ... how comes a lady to have such an imagination? (Reads.)

"So, drunk with bliss, I hang upon thy neck And suck thy lips' drained sweetness ..."

(Shakes his head.) How can a lady write such stuff, or allow it to be printed? Everybody who reads it must call up a picture of the authoress and the neck and ... the intoxication.

MARGARET. When I give you my word that such a neck has never existed ...

CLEMENT. No, I can't believe that it has. Lucky for me that I can't—and ... for you too, Margaret. But how did you ever come by such fancies? All these glowing emotions can't possibly be referred to your first husband—you told me yourself he never understood you.

MARGARET. Of course he didn't—that's why I got a divorce from him. You know all about that. I simply couldn't exist by the side of a man who had no ideas beyond eating and drinking and cotton.

CLEMENT. Yes, I know. But all that's three years ago—and you wrote the verses later.

MARGARET. Yes ... But just think of the position in which I found myself ...

CLEMENT. What sort of a position? You hadn't any privations to put up with, had you? From that point of view your husband, to give him his due, behaved really very well. You weren't forced to earn your own living. And even if they gave you a hundred florins for a poem—they certainly wouldn't give more—you weren't obliged to write a book like that.

MARGARET. Clement, dear, I didn't mean the word "position" in a material sense; I meant the position in which my soul was. Haven't you any conception ...? When you first met me, it was much better—to a certain extent I had found myself; but at first ...! I was so helpless and distracted. I did everything I could—I painted, I even gave English lessons in the boardinghouse where I was living. Just think what it was like, to be there as a divorced woman at twenty-two, to have no one ...

CLEMENT. Why didn't you stay quietly in Vienna?

MARGARET. Because I was not on good terms with my family. No one has really understood me. Oh, these people ...! Do you suppose any of my relations could conceive that one should want anything else from life except a husband and pretty clothes and a position in society! Oh, good heavens ...! If I had had a child, things might have been very different—and again they might not. I am a very complex creature. But after all, what have you to complain of! Wasn't my going to Munich the best thing I could have done? How else should I ever have known you!

CLEMENT. That's all right—but you didn't go there with that purpose in view.

MARGARET. I went because I wanted to be free—inwardly free. I wanted to see if I could make the thing go on my own resources. And you must admit that it looked as if I should be able to. I was on the road to becoming famous. (CLEMENT looks at her dubiously.) But I cared more for you than even for fame.

CLEMENT (good-naturedly). And I'm a bit more dependable.

MARGARET. I wasn't thinking about that. I loved you from the very first moment—that was the thing that counted. I had always dreamed of some one just like you; I had always known that no other sort of man could make me happy. Blood isn't a mere empty word; it's the only thing that counts. Do you know, that's why I always have a kind of idea ...

CLEMENT. What?

MARGARET. At least now and then the thought comes to me that there may be some noble blood in my veins too.

CLEMENT. How so?

MARGARET. Well, it would be a possibility.

CLEMENT. I don't understand.

MARGARET. I told you that there used to be aristocratic visitors at my parents' house ...

CLEMENT. Well, and if there were ...?

MARGARET. Who knows ...?

CLEMENT. Oh, I say, Margaret! How can you talk of such things!

MARGARET. Oh, when you're about one can never say what one thinks! That's the only thing the matter with you—if it weren't for that you'd be perfect. (She nestles up to him.) I do love you so tremendously. The very first evening, when you came into the cafe with Wangenheim, I knew it at once—knew that you were the man for me. You know you strode in among those people like a being from another world.

CLEMENT. I hope so. And you, thank goodness, didn't look as if you belonged to that one. No ... when I remember that crowd—the Russian girl, for example, who looked like a student with her close-cropped hair, only that she didn't wear the cap ...

MARGARET. She's a very talented artist, the Baranzewich.

CLEMENT. I know—you showed her to me in the Pinakothek, standing on a ladder, copying pictures. And then the fellow with the Polish name ...

MARGARET (begins to recall the name). Zrkd ...

CLEMENT. Oh, don't bother—you won't need to pronounce it any more. Once he delivered a lecture in the cafe, when I was there, without seeming in the least embarrassed.

MARGARET. He's a great genius—you may take my word for it.

CLEMENT. Oh, of course—they're all great geniuses at the cafe. And then there was that insufferable cub ...

MARGARET. Who?

CLEMENT. Oh, you know the fellow I mean—the one that was always making tactless remarks about the aristocracy.

MARGARET. Gilbert—you must mean Gilbert.

CLEMENT. That's the one. Of course I don't undertake to defend everybody in my station of life; there are clowns and boobies in every rank, even among poets, I've been told. But it's unmannerly of the fellow, one of us being there ...

MARGARET. Oh, that was his way.

CLEMENT. I had to take myself sharply in hand, or I should have said something rude.



Permission Albert Langen, Munich FROM OLAF GULBRANSSON'S "FAMOUS CONTEMPORARIES"

MARGARET. He was an interesting man for all that ... yes. And besides—he was fearfully jealous of you.

CLEMENT. So I thought I noticed. (Pause.)

MARGARET. Oh, they were all jealous of you. Naturally ... you were so different. And then they all paid court to me, just because they were all quite indifferent to me. You must have noticed that, too, didn't you? What are you laughing at?

CLEMENT. It's comical ... If any one had prophesied to me that I should marry one of the crowd at the Cafe Maximilian! The ones I liked best were the two young painters—they were really just as if they'd stepped out of a farce at the theatre. You know, those two that looked so much alike, and shared everything together—I fancy even the Russian girl on the step-ladder.

MARGARET. I never troubled my head about such things.

CLEMENT. Those two must have been Jews, weren't they?

MARGARET. What makes you think so?

CLEMENT. Oh ... because they were always cutting jokes—and then their pronunciation ...

MARGARET. I think you might dispense with anti-Semitic remarks.

CLEMENT. Come, child, don't be so sensitive. I know you're half-Jewish. And really, you know, I've nothing against the Jews. I even had an instructor once, who put me through my Greek for my final exam. He was a Jew, if you like—and a splendid fellow. One meets all kinds of people ... And I'm not sorry to have had a chance to see your Munich circle—it's all a bit of experience.—But, you admit, I must have appeared to you as a kind of life-saver.

MARGARET. Yes, indeed you did. Oh, Clement, Clement ...! (She embraces him.)

CLEMENT. What are you laughing at?

MARGARET. Oh, a thought struck me ...

CLEMENT. Well ...?

MARGARET. "So, drunk with bliss, I hang upon thy neck ..."

Clement (annoyed). I don't know why you always have to spoil a fellow's illusions!

MARGARET. Tell me honestly, Clement—wouldn't you be proud if your girl—if your wife—were a great, famous authoress?

CLEMENT. I've told you already what I think. You may call me narrow if you like, but I assure you that if you began writing poems again, or, even more, having them printed, in which you gushed about me or told the world all about our happiness, there'd be an end of the marriage—I should be up and off.

MARGARET. And you say that—you, a man who has had a dozen notorious affairs!

CLEMENT. Notorious or not, my dear, I never told anybody about them; I never rushed into print when a girl hung, drunk with bliss, about my neck, so that anybody could buy it for a gulden and a half. That's the thing, you see. I know that there are people who get their living that way—but I don't consider it the thing to do. I tell you it seems worse to me than for a girl to show herself off in tights as a Greek statue at the Ronacher. At least she keeps her mouth shut—but the things that one of your poets blabs out, well, they're past a joke!

MARGARET (uneasily). Dearest, you forget that a poet doesn't always tell the truth. We tell things which we haven't experienced at all, but what we've dreamed, invented.

CLEMENT. My dear Margaret, I wish you wouldn't always keep saying "we." Thank heaven, you're out of that sort of thing now!

MARGARET. Who knows?

CLEMENT. What do you mean by that?

MARGARET (tenderly). Clem, I really must tell you?

CLEMENT. Why, what's up now?

MARGARET. Well, I'm not out of it—I haven't given up writing.

CLEMENT. You mean by that ...?

MARGARET. Just what I say—that I'm still writing, or at least that I have written something. Yes, this impulse is stronger than other people can conceive. I believe I should have gone to pieces if I hadn't written.

CLEMENT. Well, what have you been writing this time?

MARGARET. A novel. I had too much in my breast that wanted to be said—I should have choked if I hadn't got it out. I haven't said anything about it before—but of course I had to tell you sooner or later. Kuenigel is delighted with it.

CLEMENT. Who is Kuenigel?

MARGARET. My publisher.

CLEMENT. Then somebody's read the thing already?

MARGARET. Yes—and many more will read it. Clement, you'll be proud—believe me!

CLEMENT. You're mistaken, my dear child. I think you have ... Well, what sort of things have you put into it?

MARGARET. That's not so easy to explain in one word. The book contains, so to say, the best of what is to be said about things.

CLEMENT. Brava!

MARGARET. And so I am able to promise you that from this time on I shan't touch a pen. There's no more need.

CLEMENT. Margaret, do you love me or not?

MARGARET. How can you ask? I love you, and you alone. Much as I have seen, much as I have observed, I have felt nothing—I waited for you.

CLEMENT. Then bring it here, your novel.

MARGARET. Bring it here? How do you mean?

CLEMENT. That you felt you had to write it—may be; but at least no one shall read it. Bring it here—we'll throw it in the fire.

MARGARET. Clement ...!

CLEMENT. I ask that much of you—I have a right to ask it.

MARGARET. Oh, it isn't possible! It's ...

CLEMENT. Not possible! When I wish it—when I explain that I make everything else dependent on it ... you understand me ... it may perhaps turn out to be possible.

MARGARET. But, Clement, it's already printed.

CLEMENT. What—printed?

MARGARET. Yes ... in a few days it'll be for sale everywhere.

CLEMENT. Margaret ...! And all this without a word to me ...

MARGARET. I couldn't help it, Clement. When you see it, you'll forgive me—more than that, you'll be proud of me.

CLEMENT. My dear girl, this is past a joke.

MARGARET. Clement ...!

CLEMENT. Good-by, Margaret.

MARGARET. Clement ...! What does this mean? You are going?

CLEMENT. As you see.

MARGARET. When will you be back?

CLEMENT. That I can't at the present moment say. Good-by.

MARGARET. Clement ...! (Tries to restrain him.)

CLEMENT. If you please ... [Exit.]

MARGARET (alone). Clement ...! What does this mean! He's leaving me? Oh, what shall I do?—Clement!—Can he mean that all is over ...? No—it's impossible! Clement! I must follow him ... (Looks about for her hat. The bell rings.) Ah ...he's coming back! He was only trying to frighten me ... Oh, my Clement! (Goes toward door. Enter GILBERT.)

GILBERT (to maid, who has opened door for him). I told you I was sure she was at home. Good morning, Margaret.

MARGARET (taken aback). You ...?

GILBERT. Yes, I—Amandus Gilbert.

MARGARET. I ... I'm so surprised ...

GILBERT. That is evident. But there's no reason why you should be. I am only passing through—I'm on my way to Italy. And really I've come to see you just for the purpose of bringing you a copy of my latest work in remembrance of our old friendship. (Hands her the book. As she does not take it at once, he lays it on the table.)

MARGARET. You're very kind ... thank you.

GILBERT. Oh, not at all. You have a certain right to this book. So this is where you live ...

MARGARET. Yes. But ...

GILBERT. Oh, it's only temporary, I know. For furnished rooms they aren't bad. To be sure, these family portraits on the walls would drive me to distraction.

MARGARET. My landlady is the widow of a general.

GILBERT. Oh, you needn't apologize.

MARGARET. Apologize ...? I wasn't thinking of it.

GILBERT. It's very queer, when one comes to think ...

MARGARET. To think of what?

GILBERT. Why shouldn't I say it? Of the little room in the Steinsdorfer Strasse, with the balcony looking out on the Isar. Do you remember it, Margaret?

MARGARET. Do you think you'd better call me Margaret ... now?

GILBERT. As you please ... (Pause. Suddenly.) You know really you behaved very badly ...

MARGARET. What?

GILBERT. Or do you prefer that I should speak in paraphrases? Unfortunately I can't find any other expression for your conduct. And it was all so unnecessary—it would have been just as well to be honest with me. There was nothing to be gained by stealing away from Munich in the dead of night.

MARGARET. It wasn't the dead of night—I left Munich by the express at 8.30 A. M., in bright sunshine.

GILBERT. Well, anyhow, you might just as well have said good-by, mightn't you? (Sits.)

MARGARET. The Baron may come in at any moment.

GILBERT. Well, what if he does? You surely haven't told him that once upon a time you lay in my arms and adored me. I am just an old acquaintance from Munich—and as such I have surely the right to call on you!

MARGARET. Any other old acquaintance—not you.

GILBERT. Why? You persist in misunderstanding me. I am really here only as an old acquaintance. Everything else is over—long ago over ... Well, you'll see there. (Points to his book.)

MARGARET. What book is that?

GILBERT. My latest novel.

MARGARET. Oh, you're writing novels?

GILBERT. To be sure.

MARGARET. Since when have you risen to that?

GILBERT. What do you mean?

MARGARET. Oh, I remember that your real field was the small sketch, the observation of trivial daily occurrences ...

GILBERT (excitedly). My field ...? My field is the world! I write what I choose to write—I don't allow any bounds to be set to my genius. I don't know what should prevent me from writing a novel.

MARGARET. Well, the standard critics used to say ...

GILBERT. What standard critic do you mean?

MARGARET. I remember, for example, a feuilleton of Neumann's in the Allgemeine ...

GILBERT (angrily). Neumann is an idiot! I've given him a blow in the face.

MARGARET. You've given him ...?

GILBERT. Oh, not literally ... Margaret, you used to be as disgusted with him as I was—we agreed entirely in the view that Neumann was an idiot. "How can that mere cipher dare ..."—those were your very words, Margaret, "How can he dare to set limits to you—to strangle your next book before its birth?" That's what you said! And now you appeal to that charlatan!

MARGARET. Please don't shout so. My landlady ...

GILBERT. I can't bother with thinking about generals' widows when ray nerves are on edge.

MARGARET, But what did I say? I really can't understand your being so sensitive.

GILBERT. Sensitive? You call it being sensitive? You, who used to quiver from head to foot if the merest scribbler in the most obscure rag ventured to say a word of criticism!

MARGARET. I don't remember that ever any disparaging words have been written about me.

GILBERT. Oh ...? Well, you may be right. People are usually gallant to a pretty woman.

MARGARET. Gallant ...? So they used to praise my poems only out of gallantry? And your own verdict ...

GILBERT. Mine ...? I needn't take back anything that I said—I may confine myself to remarking that your few really beautiful poems were written in our time.

MARGARET. And so you think the credit of them is really yours?

GILBERT. Would you have written them if I had never existed? Weren't they written to me?

MARGARET. No.

GILBERT. What? Not written to me? Oh, that's monstrous!

MARGARET. No, they were not written to you.

GILBERT. You take my breath away! Shall I remind you of the situations in which your finest verses had their origin?

MARGARET. They were addressed to an ideal ... (GILBERT points to himself.) ... whose earthly representative you happened to be.

GILBERT. Ha! That's fine! Where did you get it? Do you know what the French say in such circumstances? "That is literature!"

MARGARET (imitating his tone). "That is not literature!" That is the truth—the absolute truth. Or do you really believe that I meant you by the slender youth—that I sang hymns of praise to your locks? Even in those days you were ... well, not slender; and I shouldn't call this locks. (Passes her hand over his hair. Taking the opportunity, he seizes her hand and kisses it. In a softer voice.) What are you thinking of?

GILBERT. You thought so in those days—or at least that was your name for it. Ah, what won't poets say for the sake of a smooth verse, a sounding rhyme? Didn't I call you once, in a sonnet, "my wise maiden?" And all the time you were neither ... No, I mustn't be unjust to you—you were wise, confoundedly wise, revoltingly wise! And it has paid you. But one oughtn't to be surprised; you were always a snob at heart. Well, now you've got what you wanted. You caught your prey, your blue-blooded youth with the well-kept hands and the neglected brain, the splendid rider, fencer, shot, tennis-player, heart-breaker—Marlitt couldn't have invented anything more disgusting. What more do you want? Whether it will always content you, that knew something higher once, is of course another question. I can only say this one thing to you—in my eyes you are a renegade from love.

MARGARET. You thought that up in the train.

GILBERT. I thought it up just now—just a moment ago!

MARGARET. Write it down, then—it's good.

GILBERT. What was it that attracted you to a man of this sort? Nothing but the old instinct, the common instinct!

MARGARET. I don't think you've got any right ...

GILBERT. My dear child, in the old days I had a soul too to offer you.

MARGARET. Oh, at times, only this ...

GILBERT. Don't try now to depreciate our relation—you won't succeed. It will remain always your most splendid experience.

MARGARET. Bah ... when I think that I tolerated that rubbish for a whole year!

GILBERT. Tolerated? You were entranced with it. Don't be ungrateful— I'm not. Miserably as you behaved at the last, for me it can't poison my memories. And anyhow, that was part of the whole.

MARGARET. You don't mean it!

GILBERT. Yes ... And now listen to this one statement I owe to you: at the very time when you were beginning to turn away from me, when you felt this drawing toward the stable—la nostalgie de l'ecurie—I was realizing that at heart I was done with you.

MARGARET. No ...!

GILBERT. It's quite characteristic, Margaret, that you hadn't the least perception of it. Yes, I was done with you. I simply didn't need you any more. What you could give me, you had given me; you had fulfilled your function. You knew in the depths of your heart, you knew unconsciously ... that your day was over. Our relation had achieved its purpose; I do not regret having loved you.

MARGARET. I do!

GILBERT. That's splendid! In that one small observation lies, for the connoisseur, the whole deep distinction between the true artist and the dilettante. To you, Margaret, our relation is today nothing more than the recollection of a few mad nights, a few deep talks of an evening in the alleys of the English Garden; I have made of it a work of art.

MARGARET. So have I.

GILBERT. How so? What do you mean?

MARGARET. What you've succeeded in doing, if you please, I've succeeded in doing too. I also have written a novel in which our former relations play a part, in which our former love—or what we called by that name—is preserved to eternity.

GILBERT. If I were in your place, I wouldn't say anything about eternity until the second edition was out.

MARGARET. Well, anyhow, it means something different when I write a novel from what it does when you write one.

GILBERT. Yes ...?

MARGARET. You see, you're a free man—you haven't got to steal the hours in which you can be an artist; and you don't risk your whole future.

GILBERT. Oh ... do you?

MARGARET. I have! Half an hour ago Clement left me because I owned up to him that I had written a novel.

GILBERT. Left you? For ever?

MARGARET. I don't know. It is possible. He went away in anger. He is unaccountable—I can't tell beforehand what he will decide about me.

GILBERT. Ah ... so he forbids you to write! He won't allow the girl he loves to make any use of her brains—oh, that's splendid! That's the fine flower of the nation! Ah ... yes. And you—aren't you ashamed to experience the same sensations in the arms of such an idiot that you once ...

MARGARET. I forbid you to talk like that about him! You don't understand him.

GILBERT. Ha ...!

MARGARET. You don't know why he objects to my writing—it's only out of love. He feels that I live in a world which is closed to him; he blushes to see me exposing the innermost secrets of my soul to strangers. He wants me for himself, for himself alone. And that's why he rushed off ... no, not rushed; Clement isn't the sort of person who rushes off ...



Permission Albert Langen, Munich From Olaf Gulbransson's "Famous Contemporaries"

GILBERT. An admirable bit of observation. But at any rate he's gone. We needn't discuss the tempo of his departure. And he's gone because he won't allow you to yield to your desire to create.

MARGARET. Oh, if he could only understand that! I could be the best, the truest, the noblest wife in the world, if the right man existed!

GILBERT. You admit by that expression that he isn't the right one.

MARGARET. I didn't say that!

GILBERT. I want you to realize that he is simply enslaving you, ruining you, seeking to crush your personality out of sheer egoism. Oh, think of the Margaret you were in the old days! Think of the freedom you had to develop your ego when you loved me! Think of the choice spirits who were your associates then, of the disciples who gathered round me and were your disciples too. Don't you sometimes long to be back again? Don't you sometimes think of the little room with the balcony ... and the Isar flowing beneath the window ... (He seizes her hands and draws near to her.)

MARGARET. O God ...!

GILBERT. It can all be so again—it needn't be the Isar. I'll tell you what to do, Margaret. If he comes back, tell him that you have some important business to see to in Munich, and spend the time with me. Oh, Margaret, you're so lovely! We'll be happy once again, Margaret, as we used to be. You remember, don't you? (Very close to her.) "So, drunk with bliss, I hang upon thy neck ..."

MARGARET (retreats quickly from him). Go—go! No... no ... go, I tell you! You know I don't love you any more.

GILBERT. Oh, ... h'm ... Really? Well, then I can only beg your pardon. (Pause.) Good-by, Margaret ... good-by.

MARGARET. Good-by.

GILBERT. Good-by ... (Turns back once more.) Won't you at least, as a parting gift, let me have a copy of your novel? I gave you mine.

MARGARET. It isn't out yet—it won't be till next week.

GILBERT. If you don't mind telling me ... what sort of a story is it?

MARGARET. It is the story of my life—of course disguised, so that no one can recognize me.

GILBERT. Oh ...? How did you manage that?

MARGARET. It was quite simple. The heroine, to begin with, is not a writer but a painter ...

GILBERT. Very clever of you.

MARGARET. Her first husband was not a cotton-manufacturer but a great speculator—and she deceived him not with a tenor ...

GILBERT. Aha!

MARGARET. What are you laughing at?

GILBERT. So you deceived him with a tenor? That's something I didn't know.

MARGARET. How do you know I did?

GILBERT. Why, you've just informed me yourself.

MARGARET. I ...? How? I said the heroine of my novel betrays her husband with a baritone.

GILBERT. A basso would have been grander—a mezzo-soprano more piquant.

MARGARET. Then she goes not to Munich but to Dresden, and there has a relation with a sculptor.

GILBERT. Myself, I suppose ... disguised?

MARGARET. Oh, very much disguised. The sculptor is young, handsome, and a genius. In spite of all that, she leaves him.

GILBERT. For ...?

MARGARET. Guess!

GILBERT. Presumably a jockey.

MARGARET. Silly!

GILBERT. A count, then? A prince?

MARGARET. No—an archduke!

GILBERT (with a bow). Ah, you've spared no expense.

MARGARET. Yes—an archduke, who abandons his position at court for her sake, marries her, and goes away with her to the Canary Islands.

GILBERT. The Canary Islands! That's fine. And then ...?

MARGARET. With their landing in ...

GILBERT. ... the Canaries ...

MARGARET. ... the novel ends.

GILBERT. Oh, I see ... I'm very curious—especially about the disguise.

MARGARET. Even you would not be able to recognize me, if it were not ...

GILBERT. Well ...?

MARGARET. If it were not that in the last chapter but two I've reproduced all our correspondence!

GILBERT. What?

MARGARET. Yes—all the letters you wrote me, and all those I wrote you are included.

GILBERT. Excuse me ... but how did you get yours to me? I've got them all.

MARGARET. Ah, but I kept the rough drafts of them all.

GILBERT. Rough drafts?

MARGARET. Yes.

GILBERT. Rough drafts ...! Of those letters to me that seemed to be dashed off in quivering haste? "Just one word more, dearest, before I sleep—my eyes are closing already ..." and then, when your eyes had quite closed, you wrote me off a fair copy?

MARGARET. Well, have you anything to complain of?

GILBERT. I might have suspected it. I suppose I ought to congratulate myself that they weren't borrowed from a Lover's Manual. Oh, how everything crumbles around me ... the whole past is in ruins! She kept rough drafts of her letters!

MARGARET. You ought to be glad. Who knows whether my letters to you will not be the only thing people will remember about you?

GILBERT. But it's an extremely awkward situation for another reason ...

MARGARET. What is that?

GILBERT (points to his book). You see, they're all in there too.

MARGARET. What? Where?

GILBERT. In my novel.

MARGARET. What's in your novel?

GILBERT. Our letters ... yours and mine.

MARGARET. How did you get yours, then, since I have them? Ah, you see you wrote rough drafts too!

GILBERT. Oh no—I only made copies of them before I sent them to you. I didn't want them to be lost. There are some in the book that you never got; they were too good for you—you'd never have understood them.

MARGARET. For heaven's sake, is that true? (Quickly turns over the leaves of GILBERT'S book.) Yes, it is! Oh, it's just as if we told the whole world that we had ... Oh, good gracious ...! (Excitedly turning over the leaves.) You don't mean to tell me you put in the one I wrote you the morning after the first night ...

GILBERT. Of course I did—it was really brilliant.

MARGARET. But that's too dreadful! It'll be a European scandal. And Clement ... heavens! I'm beginning to wish that he may not come back. I'm lost—and you with me! Wherever you go, he'll know how to find you—he'll shoot you down like a mad dog!

GILBERT (puts his book in his pocket). A comparison in very poor taste.

MARGARET. How came you by that insane idea? The letters of a woman whom you professed to love ...! It's easy to see that you are no gentleman.

GILBERT. Oh, that's too amusing! Didn't you do exactly the same thing?

MARGARET. I am a woman.

GILBERT. You remember it now!

MARGARET. It is true—I have nothing to boast of over you. We are worthy of each other. Yes ... Clement was right; we are worse than the women at the Ronacher who exhibit themselves in tights. Our most hidden bliss, our sorrows, all ... given to the world ... Bah! I loathe myself! Yes, we two belong together—Clement would be quite right to drive me from him. (Suddenly.) Come, Amandus!

GILBERT. What are you going to do?

MARGARET. I accept your proposal.

GILBERT. Proposal? What proposal?

MARGARET. I'll fly with you! (Looks about for her hat and cloak.)

GILBERT. What are you thinking of?

MARGARET (very much excited, puts her hat on with decision). It may all be as it was before—so you said just now. It needn't be the Isar ... Well, I'm ready.

GILBERT. But this is perfectly crazy! Fly with me ...? What would be the use of that? Didn't you say yourself that he would know how to find me wherever I went? If you were with me, he would find you too. It would be a great deal more sensible for each of us alone ...

MARGARET. You wretch! Would you abandon me now? And a few minutes ago you were on your knees to me! Have you no shame?

GILBERT. What is there to be ashamed of? I am an ailing, nervous man ... I am subject to moods ... (MARGARET, at window, utters a loud cry.) What's the matter? What will the general's widow think of me?

MARGARET. There he is! He's coming!

GILBERT. In that case ...

MARGARET. What—you're going?

GILBERT. I didn't come hero with the intention of calling on the Baron.

MARGARET. He'll meet you on the stairs—that would be worse still! Stay where you are—I refuse to be the only victim.

GILBERT. Don't be a fool! Why are you trembling so? He can't have read both novels. Control yourself—take off your hat. Put your cloak away. (Helps her to take her things off.) If he finds you in this state, he'll be bound to suspect ...

MARGARET. It's all one to me—as well now as later. I can't endure to wait for the horror—I'll tell him everything at once.

GILBERT. Everything?

MARGARET. Yes, as long as you're here. If I come out honestly and confess everything, he may forgive me.

GILBERT. And what about me? I have better things to do in the world than to allow myself to be shot down like a mad dog by a jealous baron! (Bell rings.)

MARGARET. There he is—there he is!

GILBERT. You won't say anything!

MARGARET. Yes, I mean to speak out.

GILBERT. Oh, you will, will you? Have a care, then! I'll sell my skin dearly.

MARGARET. What will you do?

GILBERT. I'll hurl such truths into his very face as no baron ever heard before. (Enter CLEMENT; rather surprised at finding him, very cool and polite.)

CLEMENT. Oh ... Herr Gilbert, if I'm not mistaken?

GILBERT. Yes, Baron. Happening to pass this way on a journey to the south, I could not refrain from coming to pay my respects ...

CLEMENT. Ah, I see ... (Pause.) I'm afraid I have interrupted a conversation—I should be sorry to do that. Please don't let me be in the way.

GILBERT (to MARGARET). Ah ... what were we talking about?

CLEMENT. Perhaps I may be able to assist your memory. In Munich you always used to be talking about your books ...

GILBERT. Ah ... precisely. As a matter of fact, I was speaking of my new novel ...

CLEMENT. Oh ... then please go on. It's quite possible to discuss literature with me—isn't it, Margaret? What is your novel? Naturalist! Symbolist? A chapter of experience?

GILBERT. Oh, in a certain sense we all write but of things we have lived.

CLEMENT. That's very interesting.

GILBERT. Even when one writes a Nero, it's absolutely indispensable that at least in his heart he shall have set fire to Rome ...

CLEMENT. Of course.

GILBERT. Where else is one to get inspiration except from oneself? Where is one to find models except in the life around one? (MARGARET is growing more and more uneasy.)

CLEMENT. The trouble is that the model's consent is so seldom asked. I'm bound to say, if I were a woman, I shouldn't thank a man for telling the world ... (Sharply.) In decent society we call that ... compromising a woman.

GILBERT. I don't know whether I may include myself in "decent society"—but I call that doing honor to a woman.

CLEMENT. Oh!

GILBERT. The essential thing is to hit the mark. What, in the higher sense, does it matter whether a woman has been happy in one man's arms or another's?

CLEMENT. Herr Gilbert, I will call your attention to the fact that you are speaking in the presence of a lady!

GILBERT. I am speaking in the presence of an old comrade who may be supposed to share my views on these matters.

CLEMENT. Oh ...!

MARGARET (suddenly). Clement ...! (Throws herself at his feet.) Clement ...!

Clement (taken aback). Really ... really, Margaret!

MARGARET. Forgive me, Clement!

CLEMENT. But—Margaret ...! (To GILBERT.) It is extremely unpleasant for me, Herr Gilbert ... Get up, Margaret—get up! It's all right. (MARGARET looks up at him inquiringly.) Yes—get up! (She rises.) It's all right—it's all settled. You may believe me when I tell you. All you've got to do is to telephone a single word to Kuenigel. I've arranged everything with him. We'll call it in—you agree to that?

GILBERT. What are you going to call in, may I ask? Her novel?

CLEMENT. Oh, you know about it? It would seem, Herr Gilbert, that the comradeship you speak of has been brought pretty well up to date.

GILBERT. Yes ... There is really nothing for me to do but to ask your pardon. I am really in a very embarrassing position ...

CLEMENT. I regret very much, Herr Gilbert, that you have been forced to be a spectator of a scene which I may almost describe as domestic ...

GILBERT. Ah ... well, I do not wish to intrude any further—I will wish you good day. May I, as a tangible token that all misunderstanding between us has been cleared up, as a feeble evidence of my good wishes, present you, Baron, with a copy of my latest novel?

CLEMENT. You are very kind, Herr Gilbert. I must own, to be sure, that German novels are not my pet weakness. Well, this is probably the last I shall read—or the next to the last ...

MARGARET, GILBERT. The next to the last ...?

CLEMENT. Yes.

MARGARET. And the last to be ...?

CLEMENT. Yours, my dear. (Takes a book from his pocket.) You see, I begged Kuenigel for a single copy, in order to present it to you—or rather to both of us. (MARGARET and GILBERT exchange distracted glances.)

MARGARET. How good you are! (Takes the book from him.) Yes ... that's it!

CLEMENT. We'll read it together.

MARGARET. No, Clement ... no ... I can't let you be so good! There ...! (Throws the book into the fire.) I don't want to hear any more of all that.

GILBERT (delighted). Oh, but ...!

CLEMENT (goes toward the chimney). Margaret ...! What are you doing?

MARGARET (stands in front of fire, throws her arms round CLEMENT). Now will you believe that I love you?

GILBERT (much relieved). I think I am rather in the way ... Good-by ... good day, Baron ... (Aside.) To think that I should have to miss a climax like that ...! [Exit.]



FRANK WEDEKIND

* * * * * *

THE COURT SINGER

A Play in One Act

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

GERARDO, Imperial and Royal Court Singer

MRS. HELEN MAROWA

PROFESSOR DUeHRING

MISS ISABEL COEURNE

MULLER, hotel proprietor

A valet

An elevator boy

A piano teacher



THE COURT SINGER (1900)

TRANSLATED BY ALBERT WILHELM BOESCHE, PH.D. Assistant Professor of German, Cornell University

SCENERY

Pretentiously furnished room in a hotel. Entrance from the corridor in the centre; also side doors. In front to the right a window with heavy closed curtains. To the left a grand piano. Behind the piano a Japanese screen covering the fireplace. Big open trunks are standing around. Enormous laurel wreaths on several upholstered armchairs. A mass of bouquets are distributed about the room, some of them being piled up on the piano.



SCENE I

Valet de chambre. Immediately afterward an elevator boy.

VALET (enters with an armful of clothes from the adjoining room, puts them into one of the big trunks. Knocks on the door; he straightens up). Well?—Come in!

Enter an elevator boy.

BOY. There's a woman downstairs wants to know if Mr. Gerardo is in.

VALET. No, he isn't in. (Exit elevator boy. Valet goes into the adjoining room, returns with another armful of clothes. Knock on the door. He lays the clothes aside and walks to the door.) Well, who's this now? (Opens the door, receives three or four large bouquets, comes forward with them and lays them carefully on the piano, then resumes packing. Another knock, he goes to the door, opens it, receives a batch of letters in all varieties of colors, comes forward and examines the addresses.) "Mr. Gerardo."—"Courtsinger Gerardo."—"Monsieur Gerardo."—"Gerardo Esq."—"To the Most Honorable Courtsinger Gerardo"—that's from the chambermaid, sure!—"Mr. Gerardo, Imperial and royal Courtsinger." (Puts the letters on a tray, then continues packing.)



Scene II

GERARDO, valet, later the elevator Boy.

GERARDO. What, aren't you through with packing yet?—How long does it take you to pack?

VALET. I'll be through in a minute, Sir.

GERARDO. Be quick about it. I have some work left to do before I go. Come, let me have a look at things. (He reaches into one of the trunks.) Great Heavens, man! Don't you know how to fold a pair of trousers? (Takes out the garment in question.) Do you call that packing? Well I do believe, I might teach you a thing or two, though, surely, you ought to be better at this than I! Look here, that's the way to take hold of a pair of trousers. Then hook them here. Next, turn to these two buttons. Watch closely now, it all depends on these two buttons; and then—pull—the trousers straight. There you are! Now finish up by folding them once—like this. That's the way. They won't lose their shape now in a hundred years!

VALET (quite reverent, with eyes cast down). Perhaps Mr. Gerardo used to be a tailor once.

GERARDO. What? A tailor, I? Not quite. Simpleton! (Handing the trousers to him.) There, put them back, but be quick about it.

VALET (bending down over the trunk). There's another batch of letters for you, Sir.

GERARDO (walking over to the left). Yes, I've seen them.

VALET. And flowers!

GERARDO. Yes, yes. (Takes the letters from the tray and throws himself into an armchair in front of the piano.) Now, for pity's sake, hurry up and get through. (Valet disappears in adjoining room. Gerardo opens the letters, glances through them with a radiant smile, crumples them up and throws them under his chair. From one of them he reads as follows:) "... To belong to you who to me are a god! To make me infinitely happy for the rest of my life, how little that would cost you! Consider, please, ..." (To himself.) Great Heavens! Here I am to sing Tristan in Brussels tomorrow night and don't remember a single note!—Not a single note! (Looking at his watch.) Half-past three.—Forty-five minutes left. (A knock.) Come i—n!

BOY (lugging in a basket of champagne). I was told to put this in Mr....

GERARDO. Who told you?—Who is downstairs?

BOY. I was told to put this in Mr. Gerardo's room.

GERARDO (rising). What is it? (Relieves him of the basket.) Thank you. (Exit elevator boy. GERARDO lugs basket forward.) For mercy's sake! Now what am I to do with this! (Reads the name on the giver's card and calls out.) George!

VALET (enters from the adjoining room with another armful of clothes). It's the last lot. Sir. (Distributes them among the various trunks which he then closes.)

GERARDO. Very well.—I am at home to no one!

VALET. I know. Sir.

GERARDO. To no one, I say!

VALET. You may depend on me, Sir. (Handing him the trunk keys.) Here are the keys, Mr. Gerardo.

GERARDO (putting the keys in his pocket). To no one!

VALET. The trunks will be taken down at once. (Starts to leave the room.)

GERARDO. Wait a moment ...

VALET (returning). Yes, Sir?

GERARDO (gives him a tip). What I said was: to no one!

VALET. Thank you very much indeed. Sir. [Exit.]



SCENE III

GERARDO (alone, looking at his watch). Half an hour left. (Picks out the piano arrangement of "Tristan and Isolde" from under the flowers on the piano and, walking up and down, sings mezza voce:)

"Isolde! Beloved! Art thou mine? Once more my own? May I embrace thee?"

(Clears his throat, strikes two thirds on the piano and begins anew:)

"Isolde! Beloved! Art thou mine? Once more my own? ..."

(Clears his throat.) The air is simply infernal in here! (Sings:)

"Isolde! Beloved! ..."

I feel as if there were a leaden weight on me! I must have a breath of fresh air, quick! (Goes to the window and tries to find the cord by which to draw the curtain aside.) Where can that thing be?—On the other side. There! (Draws the curtain aside quickly and seeing MISS COEURNE before him, throws back his head in a sort of mild despair.) Goodness gracious!



Scene IV

MISS COEURNE. GERARDO

MISS COEURNE (sixteen years old, short skirts, loose-hanging light hair. Has a bouquet of red roses in her hand, speaks with an English accent, looks at GERARDO with a full and frank expression). Please, do not send me away.

GERARDO. What else am I to do with you? Heaven knows I did not ask you to come here. It would be wrong of you to take it amiss but, you see, I have to sing tomorrow night. I must tell you frankly. I thought I should have this half hour to myself. Only just now I've given special and strictest orders not to admit anybody, no matter who it might be.

MISS COEURNE (stepping forward). Do not send me away. I heard you as Tannhaeuser last night and came here merely to offer you these roses.

GERARDO. Yes?—Well?—And—?

MISS COEURNE. And myself!—I hope I am saying it right.

GERARDO (grasps the back of a chair; after a short struggle with himself he shakes his head). Who are you?

MISS COEURNE. Miss Coeurne.

GERARDO. I see.

MISS COEURNE. I am still quite a simple girl.

GERARDO. I know. But come here, Miss Coeurne. (Sits down in an armchair and draws her up in front of him.) Let me have a serious talk with you, such as you have never heard before in your young life but seem to need very much at the present time. Do you think because I am an artist—now don't misunderstand me, please. You are—how old are you?

MISS COEURNE. Twenty-two.

GERARDO. You are sixteen, at most seventeen. You make yourself several years older in order to appear more attractive to me. Well now? You are still quite simple, to be sure. But, as I was going to say, my being an artist certainly does not impose upon me the duty to help you to get over being simple! Don't take it amiss. Well? Why are you looking away now?

MISS COEURNE. I told you I was still very simple because that's the way they like to have young girls here in Germany.

GERARDO. I am not a German, my child, but at the same time ...

MISS COEURNE. Well?—I am not so simple, after all.

GERARDO. I am no children's nurse either! That's not the right word, I feel it, for—you are no longer a child, unfortunately?

MISS COEURNE. No!—Unfortunately!—Not now.

GERARDO. But you see, my dear young woman—you have your games of tennis, you have your skating club, you may go bicycling or take mountain trips with your lady friends. You may enjoy yourself swimming or riding on horseback or dancing whichever you like. I am sure you have everything a young girl could wish for. Then why do you come to me?

MISS COEURNE. Because I hate all of that and because it's such a bore!

GERARDO. You are right; I won't dispute what you say. Indeed, you embarrass me. I myself, I must frankly confess, see something else in life. But, my child, I am a man and I am thirty-six years old. The time will come when you may likewise lay claim to a deeper and fuller life. Get two years older and, I am sure, the right one will turn up for you. Then it will not be necessary for you to come unasked to me, that is to say to one whom you do not know any more intimately than—all Europe knows him—and to conceal yourself behind the window curtains in order to get a taste of the higher life. (Pause. MISS COEURNE breathes heavily.) Well?—Let me thank you cordially and sincerely for your roses! (Presses her hand.) Will you be satisfied with that for today?

MISS COEURNE. As old as I am, I never yet gave a thought to a man until I saw you on the stage yesterday as Tannhaeuser.—And I will promise you ...

GERARDO. Oh please, child, don't promise me anything. How can a promise you might make at the present time be of any value to me? The disadvantage of it would be entirely yours. You see, my child, the most loving father could not speak more lovingly to you than I. Thank a kind providence for not having been delivered into some other artist's hands by your indiscretion. (Presses her hand.) Let it be a lesson to you for the rest of your life and be satisfied with that.

MISS COEURNE (covering her face with her handkerchief, in an undertone, without tears). Am I so ugly?

GERARDO. Ugly?—How does that make you ugly?—You are young and indiscreet! (Rises nervously, walks over to the left, returns, puts his arm around her and takes her hand.) Listen to me, my child! If I have to sing, if I am an artist by profession, how does that make you ugly? What an unreasonable inference: I am ugly, I am ugly. And yet it is the same wherever I go. Think of it! When I've only a few minutes left to catch the train, and tomorrow night it's Tristan ...! Do not misunderstand me, but surely, my being a singer does not make it incumbent upon me to affirm the charm of your youthfulness and beauty. Does that make you ugly, my child? Make your appeal to other people who are not as hard-pressed as I am. Do you really think it would ever occur to me to, say such a thing to you?

MISS COEURNE. To say it? No. But to think it.

GERARDO. Now, Miss Coeurne, let us be reasonable! Do not inquire into my thoughts about you. Really, at this moment they do not concern us in the least. I assure you, and please take my word for it as an artist, for I could not be more honest to you: I am unfortunately so constituted that I simply cannot bear to see any creature whatsoever suffer, not even the meanest. (Looking at her critically, but with dignity.) And for you, my child, I am sincerely sorry; I may say that much, after you have so far fought down your maidenly pride as to wait for me here. But please, Miss Coeurne, do take into account the life I have to lead. Just think of the mere question of time! At least two hundred, may be as many as three hundred charmingly attractive young girls of your age saw me on the stage yesterday in the part of Tannhaeuser. Suppose now every one of these young girls expected as much of me as you do. What in the world would become of my singing? What would become of my voice? Just how could I keep up my profession? (She sinks into a chair, covers her face and weeps; he sits down on the armrest beside her, bends over her, sympathetically.) It's really sinful of you, my child, to shed tears over being so young. Your whole life is still before you. Be patient. The thought of your youth should make you happy. How glad the rest of us would be—even if one lives the life of an artist like myself—to start over again from the very beginning. Please be not ungrateful for hearing me yesterday. Spare me this disconcerting sequel. Am I to blame for your falling in love with me? You are only one of many. My manager insists on my assuming this august manner on the stage. You see there's more to it than mere singing. I simply have to play the part of Tannhaeuser that way. Now be good, my child. I have only a few moments left. Let me use them in preparing for tomorrow.

MISS COEURNE (rises, dries her tears), I cannot imagine another girl acting like me.

GERARDO (man[oe]uvering her to the door). Quite right, my child ...

MISS COEURNE (gently resisting him, sobbing). At least not—if ...

GERARDO. If my valet were not guarding the door downstairs.

MISS COEURNE (as above). —if—

GERARDO. If she is as pretty and charmingly young as you.

MISS COEURNE (as above). —if—

GERARDO. If she has heard me just once as Tannhaeuser.

MISS COEURNE (sobbing again violently). If she is as respectable as I!

GERARDO (pointing to the grand piano). Now, before you leave, take a look at those flowers. Let it be a warning to you, if you should ever feel tempted again to fall in love with a singer. Do you see, how fresh they are, all of them! I just let them fade and go to waste or give them to the porter. Then look at these letters. (Takes a handful from the tray.) I know none of the ladies who have written them; don't you worry. I leave them to their fate. What else can I do? But, you may believe me, every one of your charming young friends is among them.

MISS COEURNE (pleadingly). Well, I won't hide myself a second time.—I won't do it again ...

GERARDO. Really, my child, I haven't any more time. It's too bad, but I am about to leave town. I told you, did I not, that I am sorry for you? I really am, but my train is scheduled to leave in twenty-five minutes. So what more do you want?

MISS COEURNE. A kiss.

GERARDO (standing up stiff and straight). From me?

MISS COEURNE. Yes.

GERARDO (putting his arm around her, dignified, but sympathetic). You are desecrating art, my child. Do you really think it's for this that they are willing to pay my weight in gold? Get older first and learn to respect more highly the chaste goddess to whom I devote my life and labor.—You don't know whom I mean?

MISS COEURNE. No.

GERARDO. That's what I thought. Now, in order not to be inhuman, I will present you with my picture. Will you give me your word that after that you will leave me?

MISS COEURNE. Yes.

GERARDO. Very well, then. (Walks back of the table to sign one of his photographs.) Why don't you try to interest yourself in the operas themselves rather than in the men on the stage? You may find it to be a higher enjoyment, after all.

MISS COEURNE (in an undertone). I am too young.

GERARDO. Sacrifice yourself to music! (Comes forward and hands her the photograph.) You are too young, but—may be you'll succeed in spite of that. Do not see in me the famous singer, but the unworthy tool in the hands of a master. Look around among the married women you know; all of them Wagnerians! Study his librettos, learn to feel each leitmotiv. That will keep you from committing indiscretions.

MISS COEURNE. I thank you.

GERARDO (escorts her out into the hall, rings for the valet in passing through the door. Returns and picks up again the piano arrangement of "Tristan and Isolde;" walks to the right). Come in!



Scene V

GERARDO. VALET.

VALET (panting and breathless). Yes, Sir? Your orders?

GERARDO. Are you standing at the door downstairs?

VALET. Not at present. Sir.

GERARDO. I can see as much—simpleton! But you won't let anybody come up here, will you?

VALET. There were three ladies inquiring about you.

GERARDO. Don't you dare admit anybody, whatever they tell you.

VALET. Then there's another batch of letters.

GERARDO. Yes, never mind. (Valet puts letter on tray.) Don't you dare admit anybody!

VALET (at the door). Very well. Sir.

GERARDO. Not even, if they should offer you an annuity for life.

VALET. Very well, Sir. [Exit.]



Scene VI

GERARDO.

GERARDO (alone, tries to sing). "Isolde! Beloved! Art thou ..." I should think these women might get tired of me some time! But, then, the world holds so many of them! And I am only one. Well, everybody bears his yoke and has to bear it! (Walks to the piano and strikes two thirds.)



FROM OLAF GULBRANSSON'S "FAMOUS CONTEMPORARIES" Permission Albert Langen, Munich



SCENE VII

GERARDO. PROFESSOR DUeHRING. Later a piano teacher.

Professor Duehring, seventy years old, dressed in black, long, white beard, his aquiline nose tinged with red, suggesting fondness for wine, gold ringed spectacles, frock coat and silk hat, carries the score of an opera under his arm, enters without knocking.

GERARDO (turning around). What do you want?

DUeHRING. Mr. Gerardo, I—I have ...

GERARDO. How did you get in here?

DUeHRING. I've been watching my chance for two hours down on the sidewalk, Mr. Gerardo.

GERARDO (recollecting). Let me see, you are ...

DUeHRING. For fully two hours I've been standing down on the sidewalk. What else was I to do?

GERARDO. But, my dear sir, I haven't the time.

DUeHRING. I don't mean to play the whole opera to you now.

GERARDO. I haven't the time left ...

DUeHRING. You haven't the time left! How about me! You are thirty. You have attained success in your art. You can continue following your bent through the whole long life that still is before you. I will ask you to listen only to your own part in my opera. You promised to do so when you came to town.

GERARDO. It's to no purpose, Sir. I am not my own master ...

DUeHRING. Please, Mr. Gerardo! Please, please! Look at me, here's an old man lying before you on his knees who has known only one thing in life: his art. I know what you would reply to me, you, a young man who has been carried aloft on the wings of angels, one might say. "If you would have the goddess of Fortune find you, don't hunt for her." Do you imagine, when one has cherished but a single hope for fifty years, one could possibly have overlooked any means whatsoever within human reach, to attain that hope? First one turns cynical and then serious again. One tries to get there by scheming, one is once more a light hearted child, and again an earnest seeker after one's artistic ideals—not for ambition's sake, not for conviction's sake, cannot help it, because it's a curse which has been laid on one by a cruel omnipotence to which the life-long agony of its creature is a pleasing offering! A pleasing offering, I say, for we whom art enthralls rebel against our lot as little as does the slave of a woman against his seductress, as little as does the dog against his master who whips him.

GERARDO (in despair). I am powerless ...

DUeHRING. Let me tell you, my dear Sir, the tyrants of antiquity who, as you know, would have their slaves tortured to death just for a pleasant pastime, they were mere children, they were harmless innocent little angels as compared with that divine providence which thought it was creating those tyrants in its own image.

GERARDO. While I quite comprehend you ...

DUeHRING (while GERARDO vainly tries several times to interrupt him; he follows GERARDO through the room and repeatedly blocks his attempt to reach the door). You do not comprehend me. You cannot comprehend me. How could you have had the time to comprehend me! Fifty years of fruitless labor, Sir, that is more than you can comprehend, if one has been a favorite child of fortune like you. But I'll try to make you realize it approximately, at least. You see, I am too old to take my own life. The proper time to do that is at twenty-five, and I have missed my opportunity. I must live out my life now, my hand has grown too unsteady. But would you know what an old man like me will do! You ask me how I got in here. You have put your valet on guard at the hotel entrance. I did not try to slip by him, I've known for fifty years what he will tell me: the gentleman is not in. But with my score here I stood at the corner of the building for two hours in the rain until he went up for a moment. Then I followed him, and while you were speaking to him in here, I concealed myself on the staircase—I need not tell you where. And then, when he had gone down again, I entered here. That's what a man of my years will do to reach one who might be his grandson. Please, Sir, please, let not this moment be without result for me even though it cost you a day, even though it cost you a whole week. It will be to your advantage as well as mine. A week ago, when you came to town on your starring tour, you promised me to let me play my opera to you; and since that time I've called every day. You either were rehearsing or had lady visitors. And now you are about to depart, which would mean that an old man like me in vain spent a whole week standing around in the street! And all it would cost you is a single word: "I will sing your Hermann." Then my opera will be performed. Then you will thank God for my intrusiveness, for—you sing "Siegfried," you sing "Florestan"—but you haven't in your repertory a more grateful part, one more adapted to a singer of your resources than that of "Hermann." Then with loud acclaim they will draw me out of my obscurity, and perhaps I'll have the opportunity of giving to the world at least a part of what I might have given, if it had not cast me out like a leper. But the great material gain resulting from my long struggle will not be mine, you alone will ...

GERARDO (having given up the attempt to stop his visitor, leans on the mantle piece of the fireplace. While drumming on the marble slab with his right hand, something behind the screen seems to excite his curiosity. He investigates, then suddenly reaches out and draws a piano teacher forward, dressed in gray. Holding her by the collar, with outstretched arm, he thus leads her forward in front of the piano and out through the centre door. Having locked the door, to DUeHRING). Please, don't let this interrupt you!

DUeHRING. You see, there are performed ten new operas every year which become impossible after the second night, and every ten years a good one which lives. Now this opera of mine is a good one, it is well adapted for the stage, it is sure to be a financial success. If you let me, I'll show you letters from Liszt, from Wagner, from Rubinstein, in which these men look up to me as to a superior being. And why has it remained unperformed to the present day? Because I don't stand in the public market-place. I tell you, it's like what will happen to a young girl who for three years has been the reigning beauty at all dancing parties, but has forgotten to become engaged. One has to give way to another generation. Besides you know our court theatres. They are fortresses, I can assure you, compared with which the armor-plate of Metz and Rastadt is the merest tin. They would rather dig out ten corpses than admit a single living composer. And it's in getting over these ramparts that I ask you to lend me a hand. You are inside at thirty, I am outside at seventy. It would cost you just a word to let me in, while I am vainly battering my head against stone and steel. That's why I have come to you (very passionately) and if you are not absolutely inhuman, if your success has not killed off in you the very last trace of sympathy with striving fellow-artists, you cannot refuse my request.

GERARDO. I will let you know a week from now. I will play your opera through. Let me take it along.

DUeHRING. I am too old for that, Mr. Gerardo. Long before a week, as measured by your chronology, has elapsed, I shall lie beneath the sod. I've been put off that way too often. (Bringing down his fist on the piano.) Hie Rhodus! Hie salta! It's five years ago now that I called on the manager of the Royal Theatre, Count Zedlitz: "What have you got for me, my dearest professor?" "An opera, your Excellency." "Indeed, you have written a new opera? Splendid!" "Your Excellency, I have not written a new opera. It's an old opera. I wrote it thirteen years ago."—It wasn't this one here, it was my Maria de Medicis.—"But why don't you let us have it then? Why, we are just hunting for new works. We simply cannot shuffle through any longer, turning the old ones over and over. My secretary is traveling from one theatre to another, without finding anything, and you, who live right here, withhold your production from us in proud disdain of the common crowd!" "Your Excellency," I replied, "I am not withholding anything from anybody. Heaven is my witness. I submitted this opera to your predecessor, Count Tornow, thirteen years ago and had to go to his office myself three years later to get it back. Nobody had as much as looked at it." "Now just leave it here, my dear professor. A week from now at the latest you'll have our answer." And in saying this he pulls the score from under my arm and claps it into the lowest drawer and that's where it is lying today! That's where it is lying today, Sir! But what would I do, child that I am in spite of my white hair, but go home and tell my Gretchen: they need a new opera here at our theatre. Mine is practically accepted now! A year later death took her away from me,—and she was the one friend left who had been with me when I began to work on it. (Sobs and dries his tears.)

GERARDO. Sir, I cannot but feel the deepest sympathy for you ...

DUeHRING. That's where it is lying today.

GERARDO. May be you actually are a child in spite of your white hair. I must confess I doubt if I can help you.

DUeHRING (in violent rage). So you can endure the sight of an old man dragging himself along beside you on the same path on which your victorious flight carries you to the sun! Who knows but tomorrow you will lie on your knees before me and boast of knowing me, and today you see in the agonized groan of a creative artist nothing but a sad mistake and you cannot wring from your greed of gold the half hour it would take to rid me of the chains that are crushing me.

GERARDO. Sit down and play, sir! Come!

DUeHRING (sits down at the piano, opens his score, and strikes two chords). No, that's not the way it reads. I have to get back into it first. (Strikes three chords, then turns several leaves.) That is the overture; I won't detain you with it.—Now here comes the first scene ... (Strikes two chords.) Here you stand at the deathbed of your father. Just a moment until I get my bearings ...

GERARDO. Perhaps all you say is quite true. But at any rate you misjudge my position.

DUeHRING (plays a confused orchestration and sings in a deep grating voice).

Alas, now death has come to the castle As it is raging in our huts. It moweth down both great and small ...

(Interrupting himself.) No, that's the chorus. I had thought of playing it to you because it's very good. Now comes your turn. (Resumes the accompaniment and sings hoarsely:)

My life unto this fateful hour Was dim and gray like the breaking morn. Tortured by demons, I roamed about. My eye is tearless! Oh let me kiss once more thy hoary hair!

(Interrupting himself.) Well? (Since GERARDO does not answer, with violent irritation.) These anaemic, threadbare, plodding, would-be geniuses who are puffing themselves up today! Whose technique is so sublime, it makes them sterile, impotent at twenty! Meistersingers, philistines, that's what they are, whether they are starving or basking in the public favor. Fellows that go to the cookbook rather than to nature to satisfy their hunger. They think, indeed, they've learned her secret—naivete! Ha—ha!—Tastes like plated brass!—They make art their starting-point rather than life! Write music for musicians rather than for yearning mankind! Blind, benighted ephemerons! Senile youths whom the sun of Wagner has dried and shriveled up! (Seizing GERARDO'S arm violently.) To judge a man's creative genius, do you know where I take hold of him first?

GERARDO (stepping back). Well?

DUeHRING (putting his right hand around his own left wrist and feeling his pulse). This is where I take hold of him first of all. Do you see, right here! And if he hasn't anything here—please, let me go on playing. (Turning more leaves.) I won't go through the whole monologue. We shouldn't have the time anyway. Now here, scene three, end of the first act. That's where the farm laborer's child, who had grown up with you in the castle, suddenly enters. Now listen—after you have taken leave of your highly revered mother. (Rapidly reading the text:) Demon, who art thou? May one enter? (To GERARDO.) Those words are hers, you understand. (Continues reading.) Barbette! Yes, it is I. Is your father dead? There he lies! (Plays and sings in the highest falsetto.)

Full often did he stroke my curls. Wherever he met me he was kind to me. Alas, this is death. His eyes are closed ...

(Interrupting himself, looking at GERARDO with self-assurance.) Now isn't that music?

GERARDO. Possibly.

DUeHRING (striking two chords). Isn't that something more than the Trumpeter of Saekkingen?

GERARDO, Your confidence compels me to be candid. I cannot imagine how I could use my influence with any benefit to you.

DUeHRING. In other words you mean to tell me that it is antiquated music.

GERARDO. I would much rather call it modern music.

DUeHRING. Or modern music. Pardon my slip of the tongue, Mr. Gerardo. It's what will happen when one gets old. You see, one manager will write me: We cannot use your opera, it is antiquated music—and another writes: We cannot use it because it is modern music. In plain language both mean the same: We don't want any opera of yours, because as a composer you don't count.

GERARDO. I am a Wagner singer, Sir, I am no critic. If you want to see your opera performed, you had better apply to those who are paid for knowing what is good and what is bad. My judgment in such matters, don't doubt that for a moment, Sir, counts the less, the more I am recognized and esteemed as a singer.

DUeHRING. My dear Mr. Gerardo, you may rest assured, I don't believe in your judgment either. What do I care for your judgment! I think I know what to expect of a tenor. I am playing this opera to you to make you say: I'll sing your Hermann! I'll sing your Hermann!

GERARDO. It won't avail you anything. I must do what I am asked to do; I am bound by my contracts. You can afford to stand down in the street for a week. A day more or less makes no difference to you. But if I do not leave here by the next train, my prospects in this world are ruined. May be, in another world they will engage singers who break their contracts! My chains are drawn more tightly than the harness of a carriage horse. If anybody, even an absolute stranger, asks me for material assistance lie will find I have an open hand, although the sacrifice of happiness my calling exacts of me is not paid for with five hundred thousand francs a year. But if you ask of me the slightest assertion of personal liberty, you are expecting too much of a slave such as I am. I can not sing your Hermann as long as you don't count as a composer.

DUeHRING. Please, Sir, let me continue. It will give you a desire for the part.

GERARDO. If you but knew, Sir, how often I have a desire for things which I must deny myself and how often I must assume burdens for which I have not the least desire! I have absolutely no choice in the matter. You have been a free man all your life. How can you complain of not being in the market? Why don't you go and put yourself in the market?

DUeHRING. Oh, the haggling—the shouting—the meanness you meet with! I have tried it a hundred times.

GERARDO. One must do what one is capable of doing and not what one is incapable of doing.

DUeHRING. Everything has to be learned first.

GERARDO. One must learn that which one is capable of learning. How am I to know if the case is not very much the same with your work as a composer.

DUeHRING. I am a composer, Mr. Gerardo.

GERARDO. You mean by that, you have devoted your whole strength to the writing of operas.

DUeHRING. Quite so.

GERARDO. And you hadn't any left to bring about a performance.

DUeHRING. Quite so.

GERARDO. The composers whom I know go about it just the other way. They slap their operas on paper the best way they know and keep their strength for bringing about a performance.

DUeHRING. They are a type of composer I don't envy.

GERARDO. They would reciprocate that feeling, Sir. These people do count. One must be something. Name me a single famous man who did not count! If one is not a composer, one is something else, that's all, and there's no need of being unhappy about it, either. I was something else myself before I became a Wagner singer—something, my efficiency at which nobody could doubt, and with which I was entirely satisfied. It is not for us to say what we are intended for in this world. If it were, any Tom, Dick, or Harry might come along! Do you know what I was before they discovered me? I was a paperhanger's apprentice. Do you know what that is like! (Indicating by gesture.) I put paper on walls—with paste. I don't conceal my humble origin from anybody. Now just imagine, that as a paperhanger I should have taken it into my head to become a Wagner singer! Do you know what they would have done to me?

DUeHRING. They would have sent you to the madhouse.



Permission Albert Langen, Munich FROM OLAF GULBRANSSON'S "FAMOUS CONTEMPORARIES"

GERARDO. Exactly, and rightly so. Whoever is dissatisfied with what he is will not get anywhere as long as he lives. A healthy man does that at which he is successful; if he fails, he chooses another calling. You spoke of the judgment of your friends. It does not take much to obtain expressions of approbation and admiration which do not cost those anything who utter them. Since my fifteenth year I have been paid for every labor I've performed and should have considered it a disgrace to be compelled to do something for nothing. Fifty years of fruitless struggling! Can anybody be so stubborn as not to have that convince him of the impossibility of his dreams! What did you get out of your life? You have sinfully wasted it! I have never striven for anything out of the ordinary; but, Sir, I can assure you of one thing: that since my earliest childhood days I have never had enough time left to stand out in the street for a whole week. And if I were to think that in my old days I might be compelled to do that very thing—Sir, I am speaking only for myself now—but I cannot imagine how I could still muster the courage to look people in the face.

DUeHRING. What? With such an opera in your hands! Remember, I am not doing it for my own sake; I am doing it for art's sake.

GERARDO. You overestimate art. Let me tell you that art is something quite different from what people make themselves believe about it.

DUeHRING. I know nothing higher on earth!

GERARDO. That's a view shared only by people like yourself to whose interest it is to make this view prevail generally. We artists are merely one of bourgeoisie's luxuries in paying for which they will outbid each other. If you were right, how would an opera like Walkuere be possible which deals with things the exposure of which is absolutely abhorrent to the public. Yet when I sing the part of Siegmund, the most solicitous mothers will not hesitate to bring in their thirteen or fourteen year old daughters. And indeed, as I am standing on the stage, I know for certain that not one person in the audience any longer pays the slightest attention to the action itself. If they did they would get up and out. That's what they actually did when the opera was still new. Now they have accustomed themselves to ignoring it. They notice it as little as they notice the air separating them from the stage. That, you see, is the meaning of what you call art! To this you have sacrificed fifty years of your life! Our real duty as artists is to produce ourselves to the paying public night after night under one pretense or another. Nor is its interest limited to such exhibitions; it fastens itself as tenaciously upon our private life. One belongs to the public with every breath one draws; and because we submit to this for money, people never know which they had better do most, idolize us or despise us. Go and find out how many went to the theatre yesterday to hear me sing and how many came to gape at me as they would gape at the emperor of China if he were to come to town tomorrow. Do you know what the public is after in its pursuit of art? To shout bravos, to throw flowers and wreaths upon the stage, to have something to talk about, to be seen by others, to say Ah and Oh, once in a while to take a hand in unhitching a performer's horses—these are the public's real wants, and I satisfy them. If they pay me half a million, I in return furnish a living to a legion of cabmen, writers, milliners, florists, tavernkeepers. The money is made to circulate. People's blood is made to circulate. Young girls become engaged, old maids get married, wives fall victims to their husbands' friends, and grandmothers get no end of topics for gossip. Accidents and crimes are made to happen. At the ticket office a child is trampled to death, a lady is robbed of her pocketbook, a gentleman in the audience becomes insane during a performance. That creates business for physicians, lawyers ... (he is seized by a fit of coughing.) And to think in this condition I am to sing Tristan tomorrow!—I am not telling you these things out of vanity but to cure you of your delusion. The standard by which to judge a man's importance in this world is the world itself and not some fixed conviction one may have acquired through years of brooding meditation. I did not put myself in the market either; they discovered me. There are no unappreciated, neglected geniuses. We are not the makers and masters of our own fate; man is born a slave!

DUeHRING (who has been turning the leaves of his manuscript). Please, before I go, let me play to you the first scene of the second act. It's laid in a park, you know, just like the famous picture: Embarquement pour Cythere ...

GERARDO. But I told you I haven't the time! Besides what am I to gather from a few detached scenes'?