LOTTA SCHMIDT.
THE ADVENTURES OF FRED PICKERING.
THE TWO GENERALS.
FATHER GILES OF BALLYMOY.
MALACHI’S COVE.
THE WIDOW’S MITE.
THE LAST AUSTRIAN WHO LEFT VENICE.
MISS OPHELIA GLEDD.
THE JOURNEY TO PANAMA.
LOTTA SCHMIDT.
AS all the world knows, the
old fortifications of Vienna have been pulled down,—the
fortifications which used to surround the centre or kernel of the
city; and the vast spaces thus thrown open and forming a broad ring
in the middle of the town have not as yet been completely filled up
with those new buildings and gardens which are to be there, and
which, when there, will join the outside city and the inside city
together, so as to make them into one homogeneous
whole.The work, however, is going on, and if the war which
has come and passed has not swallowed everything appertaining to
Austria into its maw, the ugly remnants of destruction will be soon
carted away, and the old glacis will be made bright with broad
pavements, and gilded railings, and well-built lofty mansions, and
gardens beautiful with shrubs, and beautiful with turf also, if
Austrian patience can make turf to grow beneath an Austrian
sky.On an evening of September, when there was still
something left of daylight, at eight o’clock, two girls were
walking together in the Burgplatz, or large open space which lies
between the city palace of the emperor and the gate which passes
thence from the old town out to the new town. Here at present stand
two bronze equestrian statues, one of the Archduke Charles, and the
other of Prince Eugene. And they were standing there also, both of
them, when these two girls were walking round them; but that of the
prince had not as yet been uncovered for the
public.There was coming a great gala day in the city, Emperors
and empresses, archdukes and grand-dukes, with their archduchesses
and grand-duchesses, and princes and ministers, were to be there,
and the new statue of Prince Eugene was to be submitted to the
art-critics of the world. There was very much thought at Vienna of
the statue in those days. Well; since that, the statue has been
submitted to the art-critics, and henceforward it will be thought
of as little as any other huge bronze figure of a prince on
horseback. A very ponderous prince is poised in an impossible
position, on an enormous dray horse. But yet the thing is grand,
and Vienna is so far a finer city in that it possesses the new
equestrian statue of Prince Eugene.
“ There will be such a crowd, Lotta,” said the elder of
the two girls, “that I will not attempt it. Besides, we shall have
plenty of time for seeing it afterwards.”
“ Oh, yes,” said the younger girl, whose name was Lotta
Schmidt; “of course we shall all have enough of the old prince for
the rest of our lives; but I should like to see the grand people
sitting up there on the benches; and there will be something nice
in seeing the canopy drawn up. I think I will come. Herr Crippel
has said that he would bring me, and get me a
place.”
“ I thought, Lotta, you had determined to have nothing
more to say to Herr Crippel.”
“ I don’t know what you mean by that. I like Herr
Crippel very much, and he plays beautifully. Surely a girl may know
a man old enough to be her father without having him thrown in her
teeth as her lover.”
“ Not when the man old enough to be her father has
asked her to be his wife twenty times, as Herr Crippel has asked
you. Herr Crippel would not give up his holiday afternoon to you if
he thought it was to be for nothing.”
“ There I think you are wrong, Marie. I believe Herr
Crippel likes to have me with him simply because every gentleman
likes to have a lady on such a day as that. Of course it is better
than being alone. I don’t suppose he will say a word to me except
to tell me who the people are, and to give me a glass of beer when
it is over.”It may be as well to explain at once, before we go any
further, that Herr Crippel was a player on the violin, and that he
led the musicians in the orchestra of the great beer-hall in the
Volksgarten. Let it not be thought that because Herr Crippel
exercised his art in a beer-hall therefore he was a musician of no
account. No one will think so who has once gone to a Vienna
beer-hall, and listened to such music as is there provided for the
visitors.The two girls, Marie Weber and Lotta Schmidt, belonged
to an establishment in which gloves were sold in the Graben, and
now, having completed their work for the day,—and indeed their work
for the week, for it was Saturday evening,—had come out for such
recreation as the evening might afford them. And on behalf of these
two girls, as to one of whom at least I am much interested, I must
beg my English readers to remember that manners and customs differ
much in Vienna from those which prevail in
London.Were I to tell of two London shop girls going out into
the streets after their day’s work, to see what friends and what
amusement the fortune of the evening might send to them, I should
be supposed to be speaking of young women as to whom it would be
better that I should be silent; but these girls in Vienna were
doing simply that which all their friends would expect and wish
them to do. That they should have some amusement to soften the
rigours of long days of work was recognised to be necessary; and
music, beer, dancing, with the conversation of young men, are
thought in Vienna to be the natural amusements of young women, and
in Vienna are believed to be innocent.The Viennese girls are almost always attractive in
their appearance, without often coming up to our English ideas of
prettiness. Sometimes they do fully come up to our English idea of
beauty. They are generally dark, tall, light in figure, with bright
eyes, which are however very unlike the bright eyes of Italy, and
which constantly remind the traveller that his feet are carrying
him eastward in Europe. But perhaps the peculiar characteristic in
their faces which most strikes a stranger is a certain look of
almost fierce independence, as though they had recognised the
necessity, and also acquired the power, of standing alone, and of
protecting themselves. I know no young women by whom the assistance
of a man’s arm seems to be so seldom required as the young women of
Vienna. They almost invariably dress well, generally preferring
black, or colours that are very dark; and they wear hats that are,
I believe, of Hungarian origin, very graceful in form, but which
are peculiarly calculated to add something to that assumed
savageness of independence of which I have
spoken.Both the girls who were walking in the Burgplatz were
of the kind that I have attempted to describe. Marie Weber was
older, and not so tall, and less attractive than her friend; but as
her position in life was fixed, and as she was engaged to marry a
cutter of diamonds, I will not endeavour to interest the reader
specially in her personal appearance. Lotta Schmidt was essentially
a Viennese pretty girl of the special Viennese type. She was tall
and slender, but still had none of that appearance of feminine
weakness which is so common among us with girls who are tall and
slim. She walked as though she had plenty both of strength and
courage for all purposes of life without the assistance of any
extraneous aid. Her hair was jet-black, and very plentiful, and was
worn in long curls which were brought round from the back of her
head over her shoulders. Her eyes were blue,—dark blue,—and were
clear and deep rather than bright. Her nose was well formed, but
somewhat prominent, and made you think at the first glance of the
tribes of Israel. But yet no observer of the physiognomy of races
would believe for half a moment that Lotta Schmidt was a Jewess.
Indeed, the type of form which I am endeavouring to describe is in
truth as far removed from the Jewish type as it is from the
Italian; and it has no connexion whatever with that which we
ordinarily conceive to be the German type. But, overriding
everything in her personal appearance, in her form, countenance,
and gait, was that singular fierceness of independence, as though
she were constantly asserting that she would never submit herself
to the inconvenience of feminine softness. And yet Lotta Schmidt
was a simple girl, with a girl’s heart, looking forward to find all
that she was to have of human happiness in the love of some man,
and expecting and hoping to do her duty as a married woman and the
mother of a family. Nor would she have been at all coy in saying as
much had the subject of her life’s prospects become matter of
conversation in any company; no more than one lad would be coy in
saying that he hoped to be a doctor, or another in declaring a wish
for the army.When the two girls had walked twice round the hoarding
within which stood all those tons of bronze which were intended to
represent Prince Eugene, they crossed over the centre of the
Burgplatz, passed under the other equestrian statue, and came to
the gate leading into the Volksgarten. There, just at the entrance,
they were overtaken by a man with a fiddle-case under his arm, who
raised his hat to them, and then shook hands with both of
them.
“ Ladies,” he said, “are you coming in to hear a little
music? We will do our best.”
“ Herr Crippel always does well,” said Marie Weber.
“There is never any doubt when one comes to hear
him.”
“ Marie, why do you flatter him?” said
Lotta.
“ I do not say half to his face that you said just now
behind his back,” said Marie.
“ And what did she say of me behind my back?” said Herr
Crippel. He smiled as he asked the question, or attempted to smile,
but it was easy to see that he was too much in earnest. He blushed
up to his eyes, and there was a slight trembling motion in his
hands as he stood with one of them pressed upon the
other.As Marie did not answer at the moment, Lotta replied
for her.
“ I will tell you what I said behind your back. I said
that Herr Crippel had the firmest hand upon a bow, and the surest
fingers among the strings, in all Vienna—when his mind was not
wool-gathering. Marie, is not that true?”
“ I do not remember anything about the wool-gathering,”
said Marie.
“ I hope I shall not be wool-gathering to-night; but I
shall doubtless;—I shall doubtless,—for I shall be thinking of your
judgment. Shall I get you seats at once? There; you are just before
me. You see I am not coward enough to fly from my critics,” and he
placed them to sit at a little marble table, not far from the front
of the low orchestra in the foremost place in which he would have
to take his stand.
“ Many thanks, Herr Crippel,” said Lotta. “I will make
sure of a third chair, as a friend is coming.”
“ Oh, a friend!” said he; and he looked sad, and all
his sprightliness was gone.
“ Marie’s friend,” said Lotta, laughing. “Do not you
know Carl Stobel?”Then the musician became bright and happy again. “I
would have got two more chairs if you would have let me; one for
the fraulein’s sake, and one for his own. And I will come down
presently, and you shall present me, if you will be so very
kind.”Marie Weber smiled and thanked him, and declared that
she should be very proud;—and the leader of the band went up into
his place.
“ I wish he had not placed us here,” said
Lotta.
“ And why not?”
“ Because Fritz is coming.”
“ No!”
“ But he is.”
“ And why did you not tell me?”
“ Because I did not wish to be speaking of him. Of
course you understand why I did not tell you. I would rather it
should seem that he came of his own account,—with Carl. Ha, ha!”
Carl Stobel was the diamond-cutter to whom Marie Weber was
betrothed. “I should not have told you now,—only that I am
disarranged by what Herr Crippel has done.”
“ Had we not better go,—or at least move our seats? We
can make any excuse afterwards.”
“ No,” said Lotta. “I will not seem to run away from
him. I have nothing to be ashamed of. If I choose to keep company
with Fritz Planken, that should be nothing to Herr
Crippel.”
“ But you might have told him.”
“ No; I could not tell him. And I am not sure Fritz is
coming either. He said he would come with Carl if he had time.
Never mind; let us be happy now. If a bad time comes by-and-by, we
must make the best of it.”Then the music began, and, suddenly, as the first note
of a fiddle was heard, every voice in the great beer-hall of the
Volksgarten became silent. Men sat smoking, with their long
beer-glasses before them, and women sat knitting, with their long
beer-glasses also before them, but not a word was spoken. The
waiters went about with silent feet, but even orders for beer were
not given, and money was not received. Herr Crippel did his best,
working with his wand as carefully,—and I may say as accurately,—as
a leader in a fashionable opera-house in London or Paris. But every
now and then, in the course of the piece, he would place his fiddle
to his shoulder and join in the performance. There was hardly one
there in the hall, man or woman, boy or girl, who did not know,
from personal knowledge and judgment, that Herr Crippel was doing
his work very well.
“ Excellent, was it not?” said Marie.
“ Yes; he is a musician. Is it not a pity he should be
so bald?” said Lotta.
“ He is not so very bald,” said
Marie.
“ I should not mind his being bald so much, if he did
not try to cover his old head with the side hairs. If he would cut
off those loose straggling locks, and declare himself to be bald at
once, he would be ever so much better. He would look to be fifty
then. He looks sixty now.”
“ What matters his age? He is forty-five, just; for I
know. And he is a good man.”
“ What has his goodness to do with
it?”
“ A great deal. His old mother wants for nothing, and
he makes two hundred florins a month. He has two shares in the
summer theatre. I know it.”
“ Bah! what is all that when he will plaster his hair
over his old bald head?”
“ Lotta, I am ashamed of you.” But at this moment the
further expression of Marie’s anger was stopped by the entrance of
the diamond-cutter; and as he was alone, both the girls received
him very pleasantly. We must give Lotta her due, and declare that,
as things had gone, she would much prefer now that Fritz should
stay away, though Fritz Planken was as handsome a young fellow as
there was in Vienna, and one who dressed with the best taste, and
danced so that no one could surpass him, and could speak French,
and was confidential clerk at one of the largest hotels in Vienna,
and was a young man acknowledged to be of much general
importance,—and had, moreover, in plain language, declared his love
for Lotta Schmidt. But Lotta would not willingly give unnecessary
pain to Herr Crippel, and she was generously glad when Carl Stobel,
the diamond-cutter, came by himself. Then there was a second and
third piece played, and after that Herr Crippel came down,
according to promise, and was presented to Marie’s
lover.
“ Ladies,” said he, “I hope I have not gathered
wool.”
“ You have surpassed yourself,” said
Lotta.
“ At wool-gathering?” said Herr
Crippel.
“ At sending us out of this world into another,” said
Lotta.
“ Ah! go into no other world but this,” said Herr
Crippel, “lest I should not be able to follow you.” And then he
went away again to his post.Before another piece had been commenced, Lotta saw
Fritz Planken enter the door. He stood for a moment gazing round
the hall, with his cane in his hand and his hat on his head,
looking for the party which he intended to join. Lotta did not say
a word, nor would she turn her eyes towards him. She would not
recognise him if it were possible to avoid it. But he soon saw her,
and came up to the table at which they were sitting. When Lotta was
getting the third chair for Marie’s lover, Herr Crippel, in his
gallantry, had brought a fourth, and now Fritz occupied the chair
which the musician had placed there. Lotta, as she perceived this,
was sorry that it should be so. She could not even dare to look up
to see what effect this new arrival would have upon the leader of
the band.The new comer was certainly a handsome young man, such
a one as inflicts unutterable agonies on the hearts of the Herr
Crippels of the world. His boots shone like mirrors, and fitted his
feet like gloves. There was something in the make and set of his
trousers which Herr Crippel, looking at them, as he could not help
looking at them, was quite unable to understand. Even twenty years
ago, Herr Crippel’s trousers, as Herr Crippel very well knew, had
never looked like that. And Fritz Planken wore a blue frock coat
with silk lining to the breast, which seemed to have come from some
tailor among the gods. And he had on primrose gloves, and round his
neck a bright pink satin handkerchief joined by a ring, which gave
a richness of colouring to the whole thing which nearly killed Herr
Crippel, because he could not but acknowledge that the colouring
was good. And then the hat! And when the hat was taken off for a
moment, then the hair—perfectly black, and silky as a raven’s wing,
just waving with one curl! And when Fritz put up his hand, and ran
his fingers through his locks, their richness and plenty and beauty
were conspicuous to all beholders. Herr Crippel, as he saw it,
involuntarily dashed his hand up to his own pate, and scratched his
straggling, lanky hairs from off his head.
“ You are coming to Sperl’s to-morrow, of course?” said
Fritz to Lotta. Now Sperl’s is a great establishment for dancing in
the Leopoldstadt, which is always open of a Sunday evening, and
which Lotta Schmidt was in the habit of attending with much
regularity. It was here she had become acquainted with Fritz. And
certainly to dance with Fritz was to dance indeed! Lotta, too, was
a beautiful dancer. To a Viennese such as Lotta Schmidt, dancing is
a thing of serious importance. It was a misfortune to her to have
to dance with a bad dancer, as it is to a great whist-player among
us to sit down with a bad partner. Oh, what she had suffered more
than once when Herr Crippel had induced her to stand up with
him!
“ Yes; I shall go. Marie, you will
go?”
“ I do not know,” said Marie.
“ You will make her go, Carl; will you not?” said
Lotta.
“ She promised me yesterday, as I understood,” said
Carl.
“ Of course we will all be there,” said Fritz, somewhat
grandly; “and I will give a supper for four.”Then the music began again, and the eyes of all of them
became fixed upon Herr Crippel. It was unfortunate that they should
have been placed so fully before him as it was impossible that he
should avoid seeing them. As he stood up with his violin to his
shoulder, his eyes were fixed on Fritz Planken and Fritz Planken’s
boots, and coat, and hat, and hair. And as he drew his bow over the
strings he was thinking of his own boots and of his own hair. Fritz
was sitting, leaning forward in his chair, so that he could look up
into Lotta’s face, and he was playing with a little amber-headed
cane, and every now and then he whispered a word. Herr Crippel
could hardly play a note. In very truth he was wool-gathering. His
hand became unsteady, and every instrument was more or less
astray.
“ Your old friend is making a mess of it to-night,”
said Fritz to Lotta. “I hope he has not taken a glass too much of
schnapps.”
“ He never does anything of the kind,” said Lotta,
angrily. “He never did such a thing in his life.”
“ He is playing awfully bad,” said
Fritz.
“ I never heard him play better in my life than he has
played to-night,” said Lotta.
“ His hand is tired. He is getting old,” said Fritz.
Then Lotta moved her chair and drew herself back, and was
determined that Marie and Carl should see that she was angry with
her young lover. In the meantime the piece of music had been
finished, and the audience had shown their sense of the performer’s
inferiority by withdrawing those plaudits which they were so ready
to give when they were pleased.After this some other musician led for awhile, and then
Herr Crippel had to come forward to play a solo. And on this
occasion the violin was not to be his instrument. He was a great
favourite among the lovers of music in Vienna, not only because he
was good at the fiddle and because with his bow in his hand he
could keep a band of musicians together, but also as a player on
the zither. It was not often now-a-days that he would take his
zither to the music-hall in the Volksgarten; for he would say that
he had given up that instrument; that he now played it only in
private; that it was not fit for a large hall, as a single voice,
the scraping of a foot, would destroy its music. And Herr Crippel
was a man who had his fancies and his fantasies, and would not
always yield to entreaty. But occasionally he would send his zither
down to the public hall; and in the programme for this evening
there had been put forth that Herr Crippel’s zither would be there
and that Herr Crippel would perform. And now the zither was brought
forward, and a chair was put for the zitherist, and Herr Crippel
stood for a moment behind his chair and bowed. Lotta glanced up at
him, and could see that he was very pale. She could even see that
the perspiration stood upon his brow. She knew that he was
trembling, and that he would have given almost his zither itself to
be quit of his promised performance for that night. But she knew
also that he would make the attempt.
“ What! the zither?” said Fritz. “He will break down as
sure as he is a living man.”
“ Let us hope not,” said Carl Stobel.
“ I love to hear him play the zither better than
anything,” said Lotta.
“ It used to be very good,” said Fritz; “but everybody
says he has lost his touch. When a man has the slightest feeling of
nervousness he is done for the zither.”
“ H—sh; let him have his chance at any rate,” said
Marie.Reader, did you ever hear the zither? When played, as
it is sometimes played in Vienna, it combines all the softest notes
of the human voice. It sings to you of love and then wails to you
of disappointed love, till it fills you with a melancholy from
which there is no escaping,—from which you never wish to escape. It
speaks to you as no other instrument ever speaks, and reveals to
you with wonderful eloquence the sadness in which it delights. It
produces a luxury of anguish, a fulness of the satisfaction of
imaginary woe, a realisation of the mysterious delights of romance,
which no words can ever thoroughly supply. While the notes are
living, while the music is still in the air, the ear comes to covet
greedily every atom of tone which the instrument will produce, so
that the slightest extraneous sound becomes an offence. The notes
sink and sink so low and low, with their soft sad wail of delicious
woe, that the listener dreads that something will be lost in the
struggle of listening. There seems to come some lethargy on his
sense of hearing, which he fears will shut out from his brain the
last, lowest, sweetest strain, the very pearl of the music, for
which he has been watching with all the intensity of prolonged
desire. And then the zither is silent, and there remains a fond
memory together with a deep regret.Herr Crippel seated himself on his stool and looked
once or twice round about upon the room almost with dismay. Then he
struck his zither, uncertainly, weakly, and commenced the prelude
of his piece. But Lotta thought that she had never heard so sweet a
sound. When he paused after a few strokes there was a noise of
applause in the room, of applause intended to encourage by
commemorating past triumphs. The musician looked again away from
his music to his audience, and his eyes caught the eyes of the girl
he loved; and his gaze fell also upon the face of the handsome,
well-dressed, young Adonis who was by her side.He, Herr Crippel the musician, could never make himself
look like that; he could make no slightest approach to that outward
triumph. But then, he could play the zither, and Fritz Planken
could only play with his cane! He would do what he could! He would
play his best! He had once almost resolved to get up and declare
that he was too tired that evening to do justice to his instrument.
But there was an insolence of success about his rival’s hat and
trousers which spirited him on to the fight. He struck his zither
again, and they who understood him and his zither knew that he was
in earnest.The old men who had listened to him for the last twenty
years declared that he had never played as he played on that night.
At first he was somewhat bolder, somewhat louder than was his wont;
as though he were resolved to go out of his accustomed track; but,
after awhile, he gave that up; that was simply the effect of
nervousness, and was continued only while the timidity remained
present with him. But he soon forgot everything but his zither and
his desire to do it justice. The attention of all present soon
became so close that you might have heard a pin fall. Even Fritz
sat perfectly still, with his mouth open, and forgot to play with
his cane. Lotta’s eyes were quickly full of tears, and before long
they were rolling down her cheeks. Herr Crippel, though he did not
know that he looked at her, was aware that it was so. Then came
upon them all there an ecstasy of delicious sadness. As I have said
before, every ear was struggling that no softest sound might escape
unheard. And then at last the zither was silent, and no one could
have marked the moment when it had ceased to
sing.For a few moments there was perfect silence in the
room, and the musician still kept his seat with his face turned
upon his instrument. He knew well that he had succeeded, that his
triumph had been complete, and every moment that the applause was
suspended was an added jewel to his crown. But it soon came, the
loud shouts of praise, the ringing bravos, the striking of glasses,
his own name repeated from all parts of the hall, the clapping of
hands, the sweet sound of women’s voices, and the waving of white
handkerchiefs. Herr Crippel stood up, bowed thrice, wiped his face
with a handkerchief, and then sat down on a stool in the corner of
the orchestra.
“ I don’t know much about his being too old,” said Carl
Stobel.
“ Nor I either,” said Lotta.
“ That is what I call music,” said Marie
Weber.
“ He can play the zither, certainly,” said Fritz; “but
as to the violin, it is more doubtful.”
“ He is excellent with both,—with both,” said Lotta,
angrily.Soon after that the party got up to leave the hall, and
as they went out they encountered Herr Crippel.
“ You have gone beyond yourself to-night,” said Marie,
“and we wish you joy.”
“ Oh, no. It was pretty good, was it? With the zither
it depends mostly on the atmosphere; whether it is hot, or cold, or
wet, or dry, or on I knew not what. It is an accident if one plays
well. Good-night to you. Good-night, Lotta. Good-night, Sir.” And
he took off his hat, and bowed,—bowed, as it were, expressly to
Fritz Planken.
“ Herr Crippel,” said Lotta, “one word with you.” And
she dropped behind from Fritz, and returned to the musician. “Herr
Crippel, will you meet me at Sperl’s to-morrow
night?”
“ At Sperl’s? No. I do not go to Sperl’s any longer,
Lotta. You told me that Marie’s friend was coming to-night, but you
did not tell me of your own.”
“ Never mind what I told you, or did not tell you. Herr
Crippel, will you come to Sperl’s to-morrow?”
“ No; you would not dance with me, and I should not
care to see you dance with anyone else.”
“ But I will dance with you.”
“ And Planken will be there?”
“ Yes, Fritz will be there. He is always there; I
cannot help that.”
“ No, Lotta; I will not go to Sperl’s. I will tell you
a little secret. At forty-five one is too old for
Sperl’s.”
“ There are men there every Sunday over fifty—over
sixty, I am sure.”
“ They are men different in their ways of life from me,
my dear. No, I will not go to Sperl’s. When will you come and see
my mother?”Lotta promised that she would go and see the Frau
Crippel before long, and then tripped off and joined her
party.Stobel and Marie had walked on, while Fritz remained a
little behind for Lotta.
“ Did you ask him to come to Sperl’s to-morrow?” he
said.
“ To be sure I did.”
“ Was that nice of you, Lotta?”
“ Why not nice? Nice or not, I did it. Why should not I
ask him, if I please?”
“ Because I thought I was to have the pleasure of
entertaining you; that it was a little party of my
own.”
“ Very well, Herr Planken,” said Lotta, drawing herself
a little away from him; “if a friend of mine is not welcome at your
little party, I certainly shall not join it
myself.”
“ But, Lotta, does not everyone know what it is that
Crippel wishes of you?”
“ There is no harm in his wishing. My friends tell me
that I am very foolish not to give him what he wishes. But I still
have the chance.”
“ Oh yes, no doubt you still have the
chance.”
“ Herr Crippel is a very good man. He is the best son
in the world, and he makes two hundred florins a
month.”
“ Oh, if that is to count!”
“ Of course it is to count. Why should it not count?
Would the Princess Theresa have married the other day if the young
prince had had no income to support her?”
“ You can do as you please, Lotta.”
“ Yes, I can do as I please, certainly. I suppose Adela
Bruhl will be at Sperl’s to-morrow?”
“ I should say so, certainly. I hardly ever knew her to
miss her Sunday evening.”
“ Nor I. I, too, am fond of dancing—very. I delight in
dancing. But I am not a slave to Sperl’s, and then I do not care to
dance with everyone.”
“ Adela Bruhl dances very well,” said
Fritz.
“ That is as one may think. She ought to; for she
begins at ten, and goes on till two, always. If there is no one
nice for dancing she puts up with some one that is not nice. But
all that is nothing to me.”
“ Nothing, I should say, Lotta.”
“ Nothing in the world. But this is something; last
Sunday you danced three times with Adela.”
“ Did I? I did not count.”
“ I counted. It is my business to watch those things,
if you are to be ever anything to me, Fritz. I will not pretend
that I am indifferent. I am not indifferent. I care very much about
it. Fritz, if you dance to-morrow with Adela you will not dance
with me again—either then or ever.” And having uttered this threat
she ran on and found Marie, who had just reached the door of the
house in which they both lived.Fritz, as he walked home by himself, was in doubt as to
the course which it would be his duty as a man to pursue in
reference to the lady whom he loved. He had distinctly heard that
lady ask an old admirer of hers to go to Sperl’s and dance with
her; and yet, within ten minutes afterwards, she had peremptorily
commanded him not to dance with another girl! Now, Fritz Planken
had a very good opinion of himself, as he was well entitled to
have, and was quite aware that other pretty girls besides Lotta
Schmidt were within his reach. He did not receive two hundred
florins a month, as did Herr Crippel, but then he was
five-and-twenty instead of five-and-forty; and, in the matter of
money, too, he was doing pretty well. He did love Lotta Schmidt. It
would not be easy for him to part with her. But she, too, loved
him, as he told himself, and she would hardly push matters to
extremities. At any rate, he would not submit to a threat. He would
dance with Adela Bruhl, at Sperl’s. He thought, at least, that when
the time should come he would find it well to dance with
her.Sperl’s dancing saloon, in the Tabor Strasse, is a
great institution at Vienna. It is open always of a Sunday evening,
and dancing there commences at ten, and is continued till two or
three o’clock in the morning. There are two large rooms, in one of
which the dancers dance, and in the other the dancers and visitors
who do not dance, eat, and drink, and smoke continually. But the
most wonderful part of Sperl’s establishment is this, that there is
nothing there to offend anyone. Girls dance and men smoke, and
there is eating and drinking, and everybody is as well behaved as
though there was a protecting phalanx of dowagers sitting round the
walls of the saloon. There are no dowagers, though there may
probably be a policeman somewhere about the place. To a stranger it
is very remarkable that there is so little of what we call
flirting;—almost none of it. It would seem that to the girls
dancing is so much a matter of business, that here at Sperl’s they
can think of nothing else. To mind their steps, and at the same
time their dresses, lest they should be trod upon, to keep full
pace with the music, to make all the proper turns at every proper
time, and to have the foot fall on the floor at the exact instant;
all this is enough, without further excitement. You will see a girl
dancing with a man as though the man were a chair, or a stick, or
some necessary piece of furniture. She condescends to use his
services, but as soon as the dance is over she sends him away. She
hardly speaks a word to him, if a word! She has come there to
dance, and not to talk; unless, indeed, like Marie Weber and Lotta
Schmidt, she has a recognised lover there of her very
own.At about half-past ten Marie and Lotta entered the
saloon, and paid their kreutzers and sat themselves down on seats
in the further saloon, from which through open archways they could
see the dancers. Neither Carl nor Fritz had come as yet, and the
girls were quite content to wait. It was to be presumed that they
would be there before the men, and they both understood that the
real dancing was not commenced early in the evening. It might be
all very well for such as Adela Bruhl to dance with anyone who came
at ten o’clock, but Lotta Schmidt would not care to amuse herself
after that fashion. As to Marie, she was to be married after
another week, and of course she would dance with no one but Carl
Stobel.
“ Look at her,” said Lotta, pointing with her foot to a
fair girl, very pretty, but with hair somewhat untidy, who at this
moment was waltzing in the other room. “That lad is a waiter from
the Minden hotel. I know him. She would dance with
anyone.”
“ I suppose she likes dancing, and there is no harm in
the boy,” said Marie.
“ No, there is no harm, and if she likes it I do not
begrudge it her. See what red hands she has.”
“ She is of that complexion,” said
Marie.
“ Yes, she is of that complexion all over; look at her
face. At any rate she might have better shoes on. Did you ever see
anybody so untidy?”
“ She is very pretty,” said Marie.
“ Yes, she is pretty. There is no doubt she is pretty.
She is not a native here. Her people are from Munich. Do you know,
Marie, I think girls are always thought more of in other countries
than in their own.”Soon after this Carl and Fritz came in together, and
Fritz, as he passed across the end of the first saloon, spoke a
word or two to Adela. Lotta saw this, but determined that she would
take no offence at so small a matter. Fritz need not have stopped
to speak, but his doing so might be all very well. At any rate, if
she did quarrel with him she would quarrel on a plain, intelligible
ground. Within two minutes Carl and Marie were dancing, and Fritz
had asked Lotta to stand up. “I will wait a little,” said she, “I
never like to begin much before eleven.”
“ As you please,” said Fritz; and he sat down in the
chair which Marie had occupied. Then he played with his cane, and
as he did so his eyes followed the steps of Adela
Bruhl.
“ She dances very well,” said Lotta.
“ H—m—m, yes.” Fritz did not choose to bestow any
strong praise on Adela’s dancing.
“ Yes, Fritz, she does dance well—very well, indeed.
And she is never tired. If you ask me whether I like her style, I
cannot quite say that I do. It is not what we do here—not
exactly.”
“ She has lived in Vienna since she was a
child.”
“ It is in the blood then, I suppose. Look at her fair
hair, all blowing about. She is not like one of
us.”
“ Oh no, she is not.”
“ That she is very pretty, I quite admit,” said Lotta.
“Those soft gray eyes are delicious. Is it not a pity she has no
eyebrows?”
“ But she has eyebrows.”
“ Ah! you have been closer than I, and you have seen
them. I have never danced with her, and I cannot see them. Of
course they are there—more or less.”After a while the dancing ceased, and Adela Bruhl came
up into the supper-room, passing the seats on which Fritz and Lotta
were sitting.
“ Are you not going to dance, Fritz?” she said, with a
smile, as she passed them.
“ Go, go,” said Lotta; “why do you not go? She has
invited you.”
“ No; she has not invited me. She spoke to us
both.”
“ She did not speak to me, for my name is not Fritz. I
do not see how you can help going, when she asked you so
prettily.”
“ I shall be in plenty of time presently. Will you
dance now, Lotta? They are going to begin a waltz, and we will have
a quadrille afterwards.”
“ No, Herr Planken, I will not dance just
now.”
“ Herr Planken, is it? You want to quarrel with me
then, Lotta.”
“ I do not want to be one of two. I will not be one of
two. Adela Bruhl is very pretty, and I advise you to go to her. I
was told only yesterday her father can give her fifteen hundred
florins of fortune! For me—I have no father.”
“ But you may have a husband
to-morrow.”
“ Yes, that is true, and a good one. Oh, such a good
one!”
“ What do you mean by that?”
“ You go and dance with Adela Bruhl, and you shall see
what I mean.”Fritz had some idea in his own mind, more or less
clearly developed, that his fate, as regarded Lotta Schmidt, now
lay in his own hands. He undoubtedly desired to have Lotta for his
own. He would have married her there and then—at that moment, had
it been possible. He had quite made up his mind that he preferred
her much to Adela Bruhl, though Adela Bruhl had fifteen hundred
florins. But he did not like to endure tyranny, even from Lotta,
and he did not know how to escape the tyranny otherwise than by
dancing with Adela. He paused a moment, swinging his cane,
endeavouring to think how he might best assert his manhood and yet
not offend the girl he loved. But he found that to assert his
manhood was now his first duty.
“ Well, Lotta,” he said, “since you are so cross with
me, I will ask Adela to dance.” And in two minutes he was spinning
round the room with Adela Bruhl in his arms.
“ Certainly she dances very well,” said Lotta, smiling,
to Marie, who had now come back to her seat.
“ Very well,” said Marie, who was out of
breath.
“ And so does he.”
“ Beautifully,” said Marie
“ Is it not a pity that I should have lost such a
partner for ever?”
“ Lotta!”
“ It is true. Look here, Marie, there is my hand upon
it. I will never dance with him again—never—never—never. Why was he
so hard upon Herr Crippel last night?”
“ Was he hard upon Herr Crippel?”
“ He said that Herr Crippel was too old to play the
zither; too old! Some people are too young to understand. I shall
go home, I shall not stay to sup with you
to-night.”
“ Lotta, you must stay for supper.”
“ I will not sup at his table. I have quarrelled with
him. It is all over. Fritz Planken is as free as the air for
me.”
“ Lotta, do not say anything in a hurry. At any rate do
not do anything in a hurry.”
“ I do not mean to do anything at all. It is simply
this—I do not care very much for Fritz, after all. I don’t think I
ever did. It is all very well to wear your clothes nicely, but if
that is all, what does it come to? If he could play the zither,
now!”
“ There are other things except playing the zither.
They say he is a good book-keeper.”
“ I don’t like book-keeping. He has to be at his hotel
from eight in the morning till eleven at night.”
“ You know best.”
“ I am not so sure of that. I wish I did know best. But
I never saw such a girl as you are. How you change! It was only
yesterday you scolded me because I did not wish to be the wife of
your dear friend Crippel.”
“ Herr Crippel is a very good man.”
“ You go away with your good man! You have got a good
man of your own. He is standing there waiting for you, like a
gander on one leg. He wants you to dance; go
away.”Then Marie did go away, and Lotta was left alone by
herself. She certainly had behaved badly to Fritz, and she was
aware of it. She excused herself to herself by remembering that she
had never yet given Fritz a promise. She was her own mistress, and
had, as yet, a right to do what she pleased with herself. He had
asked her for her love, and she had not told him that he should not
have it. That was all. Herr Crippel had asked her a dozen times,
and she had at last told him definitely, positively, that there was
no hope for him. Herr Crippel, of course, would not ask her
again;—so she told herself. But if there was no such person as Herr
Crippel in all the world, she would have nothing more to do with
Fritz Planken,—nothing more to do with him as a lover. He had given
her fair ground for a quarrel, and she would take advantage o
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