My Austrian Love

r, the most graceful two-horse carriage you can imagine. Fiakers are well-known for their jolly cabbies. Was it their fame which made me look at this

ces. But he seemed a little younger and had that special low class smartness which distinguishes the Viennese cabman. So I concluded that after all this was only a coincidence. Nevertheless it was extraordinary

I first saw Mr. Doblana, that he too was greatly alike to somebody I knew. The funniest thing is tha

as increased by his speech. He pronounced his German with a Czech accent, which makes people speak wit

been first a comic-opera singer, and later had earned good money by giving singing lessons. This made me understand how it was possible th

The simplest thing would be to draw a plan of the apartment, but, somehow, I am too proud to fight against my incapacity as a draughtsman,

landing. In Vienna it is otherwise. The finer the apartment and the greater the number of rooms, the l

s right was situated what was destined to be my room, where until her mother's death Miss Doblana had lived. To the left of the salon there was first the musician's room and then his daughter's, the last of the four, which had bel

f the flat without disturbing anybody. Nor would I be disturbed if I wanted to work. Miss Doblana had singing lessons, she was taking them at he

Vienna the only score of any importance and value which I ever have written and am likely to write). If Mr.

the ante-room and from there into the back rooms of his flat. There was a

ours. Here I compose, without any instrument. It is very rare that I go to the piano and try a

ro Deo (literally to understand!) He used to say: "Even old Hammer must have some pleasure from time to time, and he gets it when he plays at St. Stephen's; and even God, to Whom all people, including myself, c

is ballets which were performed at the Opera, the slight ballets at the Grand Opera, out of which he succeeded in making quite a decent amount of money. Nor did he play the horn for the l

, I am not always such a peevish fellow as I am now. I am upset because of a

rs which seemed to be almost the ideal thing. And I still wondered where I could have know

chatterbox, but a friendly one. Mr. Doblana was out, and Fr?ulein was not visible; but she, Fanny, would m

has an only daughter, besides a fine estate at Bedford), well, I was also shown in by a housemaid, but who treated me as if she were a duchess, which perhaps she was, and who carried the hot water for my use as if she were

eople of the lower class throw themselves on any hand they may think kissable, viz.: capable of ki

crown is worth less than a shilling, and in stating this I do not think only of the Imperial crown.-When, an hour later, I left to take my lesson with old Ham

enna being always a windy place, and thus the opposite door had been slammed. But instinctively I felt that there was something else. Miss Doblana, who was, may be, not so unwell as it pleased her father to say, had had, no doubt, a fit of

I had no mind for them. Much less for a spinster who, to judge from her father's age, was probably ten years my elder and wore hair-curl

uist and enjoys playing such tricks. So do we. To-day he plays beside this the part of a postman, and he has a letter for me. It is from Daniel Cooper and consort. The conso

welcome; I ought to write a good military march, so that E

vidently vegetables have a greater value than flowers, but she had already had this mad idea in peace time, from the very day when her tiny brain awoke to wisdom.

nerally excellent. This evening, the first day of my stay at the Karlsgasse, I went to the Burg theatre to

belonged in some fashion to the theatrical world. One of them was an officer, but seemed nevertheless to belong to the co

nversation was generally much more of a serious character. There was but one individual, a Hungarian, who with a loud and discordant voice told funny yarns and tried to attract the general attention. He was a theatrical agent, named Maurus Giulay, and remarkable by the quantity of black ha

discussed. So it happened that keeping quiet, from no choice of my own, I overheard a part of the dialogue which just was taking

share is as large as mine,

I don't owe you anything, you know that you may count on any

you from my heart. But it is not a question of money. Think only: the

as always against

f your indifference now. You had taken a prejudice again

ily, "I do not care, and I have h

umed an air of an even more unspeakable sadness than

all eager to shake hands with him. If he was not King Arthur himself, he was nevertheless someth

. I had not recognized this clean shaven man with his heavy eyelids and deep drawn features, but I recollected at once his incomparable

the greatest experiences one can imagine: your Ma

oked

was said my accent must be more pronounced than my vanity would

ithdrawing your admiration once you have heard from Alfred Bischoff himself, that he

istorted his fe

"smells something like sulphur. After all he would like to have me burned." And he added laughing: "

im by this name which he has made s

in everything-freedom even in religion. A Jew, with you, is as c

ere is a little gratitude in your mast

s sake. And if I succeed in rendering Shakespeare's meaning,

ut then the German tongue is

e man who just had called us a great nati

t were not before all necessary to be inspired by the original! And it has always been like that. A workman's pay for a workman's job, while translating in reality is the most difficult occupation in literature. Do you know who translated Macbeth into German? Wieland, a classic, Voss, a classic, Schiller, a classic, and finally Schlegel and Tieck, two classics, whose translation you have heard this evening. Goethe translated the tragedies of Voltaire and novels by Diderot and Celli

silent for a

have excellent translations of Macbeth, wonderfu

an?" I asked ra

ed, "when in the first a

th! hail to thee

h! hail to thee,

h! thou shalt be

e with a gong and destroyed that moment of gr

do you start, a

t do sound

k his words aloud instead of murmuring them. The scene was spoiled. And so it went through the whole evening. The entire tragedy is a tissue of ter

in which the whole thing had been played. At one moment I had not been able to distinguish whether Macbeth had sighed or whether the night wind had howl

a sorry

elf with him. And Lady Macbeth! How dreadful

Macbeth this evening. She ought to flatter, to cajole me. She ought to be a beautiful, flexible cat, she ought to be trembling with love and to shudder herself before her awful thoughts and words. And a

ere's

er to weep w

t the old man to have

uined woman, and I want you,

d, for what he said

ndid task for a musician than to write a musical drama on Macbeth, to express all that the poet lef

l Scotch tunes, perhaps with bagpipes, an opera with a Lady Macbeth full of charm instead of full of hideousness, an opera with strange mysteriou

elf better in khaki. And, strange to say, the music I hea

gs. I should like to see you trying to do it. Sometimes I admire myself. But then I have only to t

ning I was again watched through the partly opened door, and in the evening I went to the opera, wher

elderly and seemed not to have understood the problem of sacred love versus profane love. And he treated Venus as though she had been his "Missus," and Elizabeth as though she had been his "fancy lady"; and yet it was Venus who was the "fancy lady." But the worst was Elizabeth. She was a beautiful, fair wig, large and wave

at a restaurant before we went home. For it was already late, and the horn-playe

was not a sign of life. In the salon a tiny flame of gas was burning. We parted wishing each othe

I did not know the writing, which was thin and pointed, a woman's hand. I tore the envelope open. Inside, o

ling reader, ima

acquaintances. (I beg Fanny's pardon, but as I had tipped her but the day befo

o wished to see me was that elderly spinster, Miss Doblana, with her curler-pins, a detail which made the adventure less desirable. Think of all that, and then of an idea which occurred to my shrewd brain, namely, that, after all, it was perhaps not Miss Doblana who wanted that nocturnal interview, for in that case she would have to cross her father's room. That, therefore, the mysterious lady was hidden in one of the backrooms whither she must have penetrated with the help of Fanny. That t

Was it possible to await a lady at such an hour in slip

re. Destiny had made me take it with me when I left Hampstead. Since this morning it had

e said most rudely: "Go to ... Venus!" whereupon they all disappeared. Lady Macbeth in the same moment became the fair Landgravine Elizabeth, but not the one I had seen at the Opera this evening, for she had two beautiful plaits thrown over her sh

in the dream scene, a forlorn child-and exactly dressed as I had wished Elizabeth to be dressed, in a long white gown, with long, rich, fair plaits fallin

talk

to press, nay! to kiss her

whatever might happen, not to tell m

that, Miss

y alike, that it had struck me on my first visit at the Karlsgasse; I had devined that SHE was neither a Comtesse, nor an elderly spinster with hair-curler

ise, bu

d you might even call it indiscreet, but Mi

leaves here at a quarter to ten and will not be home before two. I will be in the

sound she opened the door and disappeared. Not

as it