The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume Vi Part 72

ISAAC (_as though waking from sleep_).

But first I'll seek my gold!

ESTHER. Think'st still of that In sight of all this misery and woe!

Then I unsay the curse which I have spoke, Then thou art guilty, too, and I--and she!

We stand like them within the sinners' row; Pardon we, then, that G.o.d may pardon us!

[_With arms outstretched toward the side door._]

CURTAIN

THE POOR MUSICIAN (1848) BY FRANZ GRILLPARZER

TRANSLATED BY ALFRED REMY, A.M.

Professor of Modern Languages, Brooklyn Commercial High School

In Vienna the Sunday after the full moon in the month of July of every year is, together with the following day, a real festival of the people, if ever a festival deserved the name. The people themselves attend and arrange it; and if representatives of the upper cla.s.ses appear on this occasion, they may do so only in their capacity as members of the populace. There is no possibility of cla.s.s discrimination; at least there was none some years ago.

On this day the Brigittenau,[62] which with the Augarten, the Leopoldstadt and the Prater, forms one uninterrupted popular pleasure-ground, celebrates its kermis. The working people reckon their good times from one St. Bridget's kermis to the next. Antic.i.p.ated with eager expectation, the Saturnalian festival at last arrives. Then there is great excitement in the good-natured, quiet town. A surging crowd fills the streets. There is the clatter of footsteps and the buzz of conversation, above which rises now and then some loud exclamation. All cla.s.s distinctions have disappeared; civilian and soldier share in the commotion. At the gates of the city the crowd increases. Gained, lost, and regained, the exit is forced at last. But the bridge across the Danube presents new difficulties. Victorious here also, two streams finally roll along: the old river Danube and the swollen tide of people crossing each other, one below, the other above, the former following its old bed, the latter, freed from the narrow confines of the bridge, resembling a wide, turbulent lake, overflowing and inundating everything. A stranger might consider the symptoms alarming. But it is a riot of joy, a revelry of pleasure.

Even in the s.p.a.ce between the city and the bridge wicker-carriages are lined up for the real celebrants of this festival, the children of servitude and toil. Although overloaded, these carriages race at a gallop through the ma.s.s of humanity, which in the nick of time opens a pa.s.sage for them and immediately closes in again behind them. No one is alarmed, no one is injured, for in Vienna a silent agreement exists between vehicles and people, the former promising not to run anybody over, even when going at full speed; the latter resolving not to be run over, even though neglecting all precaution.

Every second the distance between the carriages diminishes. Occasionally more fashionable equipages mingle in the oft-interrupted procession. The carriages no longer dash along. Finally, about five or six hours before dark, the individual horses and carriages condense into a compact line, which, arresting itself and arrested by new vehicles from every side street, obviously belies the truth of the old proverb: "It is better to ride in a poor carriage than to go on foot." Stared at, pitied, mocked, the richly dressed ladies sit in their carriages, which are apparently standing still. Unaccustomed to constant stopping, the black Holstein steed rears, as if intending to jump straight up over the wicker-carriage blocking its way, a thing the screaming women and children in the plebeian vehicle evidently seem to fear. The cabby, so accustomed to rapid driving and now balked for the first time, angrily counts up the loss he suffers in being obliged to spend three hours traversing a distance which under ordinary conditions he could cover in five minutes. Quarreling and shouting are heard, insults pa.s.s back and forth between the drivers, and now and then blows with the whip are exchanged.

Finally, since in this world all standing still, however persistent, is after all merely an imperceptible advancing, a ray of hope appears even in this _status quo_. The first trees of the Augarten and the Brigittenau come into view. The country! The country! All troubles are forgotten. Those who have come in vehicles alight and mingle with the pedestrians; strains of distant dance-music are wafted across the intervening s.p.a.ce and are answered by the joyous shouts of the new arrivals. And thus it goes on and on, until at last the broad haven of pleasure opens up and grove and meadow, music and dancing, drinking and eating, magic lantern shows and tight-rope dancing, illumination and fireworks, combine to produce a _pays de cocagne_, an El Dorado, a veritable paradise, which fortunately or unfortunately--take it as you will--lasts only this day and the next, to vanish like the dream of a summer night, remaining only as a memory, or, possibly, as a hope.

I never miss this festival if I can help it. To me, as a pa.s.sionate lover of mankind, especially of the common people, and more especially so when, united into a ma.s.s, the individuals forget for a time their own private ends and consider themselves part of a whole, in which there is, after all, the spirit of divinity, nay, G.o.d Himself--to me every popular festival is a real soul-festival, a pilgrimage, an act of devotion. Even in my capacity as dramatic poet, I always find the spontaneous outburst of an overcrowded theatre ten times more interesting, even more instructive, than the sophisticated judgment of some literary matador, who is crippled in body and soul and swollen up, spider-like, with the blood of authors whom he has sucked dry. As from a huge open volume of Plutarch, which has escaped from the covers of the printed page, I read the biographies of these obscure beings in their merry or secretly troubled faces, in their elastic or weary step, in the att.i.tude shown by members of the same family toward one another, in detached, half involuntary remarks. And, indeed, one can not understand famous men unless one has sympathized with the obscure! From the quarrels of drunken pushcart-men to the discords of the sons of the G.o.ds there runs an invisible, yet unbroken, thread, just as the young servant-girl, who, half against her will, follows her insistent lover away from the crowd of dancers, may be an embryo Juliet, Dido, or Medea.

Two years ago, as usual, I had mingled as a pedestrian with the pleasure-seeking visitors of the kermis. The chief difficulties of the trip had been overcome, and I found myself at the end of the Augarten with the longed-for Brigittenau lying directly before me. Only one more difficulty remained to be overcome. A narrow causeway running between impenetrable hedges forms the only connection between the two pleasure resorts, the joint boundary of which is indicated by a wooden trellised gate in the centre. On ordinary days and for ordinary pedestrians this connecting pa.s.sage affords more than ample s.p.a.ce. But on kermis-day its width, even if quadrupled, would still be too narrow for the endless crowd which, in surging forward impetuously, is jostled by those bound in the opposite direction and manages to get along only by reason of the general good nature displayed by the merry-makers.

I was drifting with the current and found myself in the centre of the causeway upon cla.s.sical ground, although I was constantly obliged to stand still, turn aside, and wait. Thus I had abundant time for observing what was going on at the sides of the road. In order that the pleasure-seeking mult.i.tude might not lack a foretaste of the happiness in store for them, several musicians had taken up their positions on the left-hand slope of the raised causeway. Probably fearing the intense compet.i.tion, these musicians intended to garner at the propylaea the first fruits of the liberality which had here not yet spent itself.

There were a girl harpist with repulsive, staring eyes; an old invalid with a wooden leg, who, on a dreadful, evidently home-made instrument, half dulcimer, half barrel-organ, was endeavoring by means of a.n.a.logy to arouse the pity of the public for his painful injury; a lame, deformed boy, forming with his violin one single, indistinguishable ma.s.s, was playing endless waltzes with all the hectic violence of his misshapen breast; and finally an old man, easily seventy years of age, in a threadbare but clean woolen overcoat, who wore a smiling, self-satisfied expression. This old man attracted my entire attention. He stood there bareheaded and baldheaded, his hat as a collection-box before him on the ground, after the manner of these people. He was belaboring an old, much-cracked violin, beating time not only by raising and lowering his foot, but also by a corresponding movement of his entire bent body. But all his efforts to bring uniformity into his performance were fruitless, for what he was playing seemed to be an incoherent succession of tones without time or melody. Yet he was completely absorbed in his work; his lips quivered, and his eyes were fixed upon the sheet of music before him, for he actually had notes! While all the other musicians, whose playing pleased the crowd infinitely better, were relying on their memories, the old man had placed before him in the midst of the surging crowd a small, easily portable music-stand, with dirty, tattered notes, which probably contained in perfect order what he was playing so incoherently. It was precisely the novelty of this equipment that had attracted my attention to him, just as it excited the merriment of the pa.s.sing throng, who jeered him and left the hat of the old man empty, while the rest of the orchestra pocketed whole copper mines. In order to observe this odd character at my leisure, I had stepped, at some distance from him, upon the slope at the side of the causeway. For a while he continued playing. Finally he stopped, and, as if recovering himself after a long spell of absent-mindedness, he gazed at the firmament, which already began to show traces of approaching evening.

Then he looked down into his hat, found it empty, put it on with undisturbed cheerfulness, and placed his bow between the strings. "_Sunt certi denique fines_" (there is a limit to everything), he said, took his music-stand, and, as though homeward bound, fought his way with difficulty through the crowd streaming in the opposite direction toward the festival.

The whole personality of the old man was specially calculated to whet my anthropological appet.i.te to the utmost--his poorly clad, yet n.o.ble figure, his unfailing cheerfulness, so much artistic zeal combined with such awkwardness, the fact that he returned home just at the time when for others of his ilk the real harvest was only beginning, and, finally, the few Latin words, spoken, however, with the most correct accent and with absolute fluency. The man had evidently received a good education and had acquired some knowledge, and here he was--a street-musician! I was burning with curiosity to learn his history.

But a compact wall of humanity already separated us. Small as he was, and getting in everybody's way with the music-stand in his hand, he was shoved from one to another and had pa.s.sed through the exit-gate while I was still struggling in the centre of the causeway against the opposing crowd. Thus I lost track of him; and when at last I had reached the quiet, open s.p.a.ce, there was no musician to be seen far or near.

This fruitless adventure had spoiled all my enjoyment of the popular festival. I wandered through the Augarten in all directions, and finally decided to go home. As I neared the little gate that leads out of the Augarten into Tabor Street, I suddenly heard the familiar sound of the old violin. I accelerated my steps, and, behold! there stood the object of my curiosity, playing with all his might, surrounded by several boys who impatiently demanded a waltz from him. "Play a waltz," they cried; "a waltz, don't you hear?" The old man kept on fiddling, apparently paying no attention to them, until his small audience, reviling and mocking him, left him and gathered around an organ-grinder who had taken up his position near by.

"They don't want to dance," said the old man sadly, and gathered up his musical outfit. I had stepped up quite close to him. "The children do not know any dance but the waltz," I said.

"I was playing a waltz," he replied, indicating with his bow the notes of the piece he had just been playing. "You have to play things like that for the crowd. But the children have no ear for music," he said, shaking his head mournfully.

"At least permit me to atone for their ingrat.i.tude," I said, taking a silver coin out of my pocket and offering it to him.

"Please, don't," cried the old man, at the same time warding me off anxiously with both hands--"into the hat, into the hat." I dropped the coin into his hat, which was lying in front of him. The old man immediately took it out and put it into his pocket, quite satisfied.

"That's what I call going home for once with a rich harvest," he said chuckling.

"You just remind me of a circ.u.mstance," I said, "which excited my curiosity before. It seems your earnings today have not been particularly satisfactory, and yet you retire at the very moment when the real harvest is beginning. The festival, as you no doubt know, lasts the whole night, and you might easily earn more in this one night than in an entire week ordinarily. How am I to account for this?"

"How are you to account for this?" replied the old man. "Pardon me, I do not know who you are, but you must be a generous man and a lover of music." With these words he took the silver coin out of his pocket once more and pressed it between his hands, which he raised to his heart.

"I shall therefore tell you the reasons, although I have often been ridiculed for them. In the first place, I have never been a night-reveler, and I do not consider it right to incite others to such a disgusting procedure by means of playing and singing. Secondly, a man ought to establish for himself a certain order in all things, otherwise he'll run wild and there's no stopping him. Thirdly, and finally, sir, I play for the noisy throng all day long and scarcely earn a bare living.

But the evening belongs to me and to my poor art. In the evening I stay at home, and"--at these words he lowered his voice, a blush overspread his countenance and his eyes sought the ground--"then I play to myself as fancy dictates, without notes. I believe the text-books on music call it improvising."

We had both grown silent, he from confusion, because he had betrayed the innermost secret of his heart, I from astonishment at hearing a man speak of the highest spheres of art who was not capable of rendering even the simplest waltz in intelligible fashion. Meanwhile he was preparing to depart. "Where do you live?" I inquired. "I should like to attend your solitary practising some day."

"Oh," he replied, almost imploringly, "you must know that prayers should be said in private!"

"Then I'll visit you in the daytime," I said.

"In the daytime," he replied, "I earn my living among the people."

"Well, then, some morning early."

"It almost looks," the old man said smiling, "as though you, my dear sir, were the recipient, and I, if I may be permitted to say so, the benefactor; you are so kind, and I reject your advances so ungraciously.

Your distinguished visit will always confer honor on my dwelling. Only I should like to ask you to be so very kind as to notify me beforehand of the day of your coming, in order that you may not be unduly delayed nor I be compelled to interrupt unceremoniously some business in which I may be engaged at the time. For my mornings are also devoted to a definite purpose. At any rate, I consider it my duty to my patrons and benefactors to offer something not entirely unworthy in return for their gifts. I have no desire to be a beggar, sir; I am very well aware of the fact that the other street musicians are satisfied to reel off a few street ditties, German waltzes, even melodies of indecent songs, all of which they have memorized. These they repeat incessantly, so that the public pays them either in order to get rid of them, or because their playing revives the memory of former joys of dancing or of other disorderly amus.e.m.e.nts. For this reason such musicians play from memory, and sometimes, in fact quite frequently, strike the wrong note. But far be it from me to deceive. Partly, therefore, because my memory is not of the best, partly because it might be difficult for any one to retain in his memory, note for note, complicated compositions of esteemed composers, I have made a clear copy for myself in these note-books."

With these words he showed me the pages of his music-book. To my amazement I saw in a careful, but awkward and stiff handwriting, extremely difficult compositions by famous old masters, quite black with pa.s.sage-work and double-stopping. And these selections the old man played with his clumsy fingers! "In playing these pieces," he continued, "I show my veneration for these esteemed, long since departed masters and composers, satisfy my own artistic instincts, and live in the pleasant hope that, in return for the alms so generously bestowed upon me, I may succeed in improving the taste and hearts of an audience distracted and misled on many sides. But since music of this character--to return to my subject"--and at these words a self-satisfied smile lighted up his features--"since music of this kind requires practice, my morning hours are devoted exclusively to this exercise. The first three hours of the day for practice, the middle of the day for earning my living, the evening for myself and G.o.d; that is not an unfair division," he said, and at the same time something moist glistened in his eyes; but he was smiling.

"Very well, then," I said, "I shall surprise you some morning. Where do you live?" He mentioned Gardener's Lane.

"What number?

"Number 34, one flight up."

"Well, well," I cried, "on the fashionable floor."

"The house," he said, "consists in reality only of a ground floor. But upstairs, next to the garret, there is a small room which I occupy in company with two journeymen."

"A single room for three people?"

"It is divided into two parts," he answered, "and I have my own bed."

"It is getting late," I said, "and you must be anxious to get home. _Auf Wiedersehen!_"

At the same time I put my hand in my pocket with the intention of doubling the trifling amount I had given him before. But he had already taken up his music-stand with one hand and his violin with the other, and cried hurriedly, "I humbly ask you to refrain. I have already received ample remuneration for my playing, and I am not aware of having earned any other reward." Saying this he made me a rather awkward bow with an approach to elegant ease, and departed as quickly as his old legs could carry him.

As I said before, I had lost for this day all desire of partic.i.p.ating further in the festival. Consequently I turned homeward, taking the road leading to the Leopoldstadt. Tired out from the dust and heat, I entered one of the many beer-gardens, which, while overcrowded on ordinary days, had today given up all their customers to the Brigittenau. The stillness of the place, in contradistinction to the noisy crowd, did me good. I gave myself up to my thoughts, in which the old musician had a considerable share. Night had come before I thought at last of going home. I laid the amount of my bill upon the table and walked toward the city.

The old man had said that he lived in Gardener's Lane. "Is Gardener's Lane near-by?" I asked a smell boy who was running across the road.

"Over there, sir," he replied, pointing to a side street that ran from the ma.s.s of houses of the suburb out into the open fields. I followed the direction indicated. The street consisted of some scattered houses, which, separated by large vegetable gardens, plainly indicated the occupation of the inhabitants and the origin of the name Gardener's Lane. I was wondering in which of these miserable huts my odd friend might live. I had completely forgotten the number; moreover it was impossible to make out any signs in the darkness. At that moment a man carrying a heavy load of vegetables pa.s.sed me. "The old fellow is sc.r.a.ping his fiddle again," he grumbled, "and disturbing decent people in their night's rest." At the same time, as I went on, the soft, sustained tone of a violin struck my ear. It seemed to come from the open attic window of a hovel a short distance away, which, being low and without an upper story like the rest of the houses, attracted attention on account of this attic window in the gabled roof. I stood still. A soft distinct note increased to loudness, diminished, died out, only to rise again immediately to penetrating shrillness. It was always the same tone repeated as if the player dwelt upon it with pleasure. At last an interval followed; it was the chord of the fourth. While the player had before reveled in the sound of the single note, now his voluptuous enjoyment of this harmonic relation was very much more susceptible. His fingers moved by fits and starts, as did his bow. Through the intervening intervals he pa.s.sed most unevenly, emphasizing and repeating the third. Then he added the fifth, now with a trembling sound like silent weeping, sustained, vanishing; now constantly repeated with dizzy speed; always the same intervals, the same tones. And that was what the old man called improvising. It _was_ improvising after all, but from the viewpoint of the player, not from that of the listener.