XVII.
During those years I came into very curious relations with another celebrity of the time. This was M. Goldschmidt, the author, whose great talent I had considerable difficulty in properly appreciating, so repelled was I by his uncertain and calculating personality.
I saw Goldschmidt for the first time, when I was a young man, at a large ball at a club in Copenhagen.
A man who had emigrated to England as a poor boy returned to Copenhagen in the sixties at the age of fifty, after having acquired a considerable fortune. He was uneducated, kind, impeccably honourable, and was anxious to secure acquaintances and associates for his adopted daughter, a delicate young girl, who was strange to Copenhagen. With this object in view, he invited a large number of young people to a ball in the rooms of the King's Club, provided good music and luxurious refreshments. This man was a cousin of Goldschmidt's, and as he himself was unable to make more of a speech than a short welcome to table, he begged "his cousin, the poet," to be his spokesman on this occasion.
One would have thought that so polished a writer, such a master of language, as Goldschmidt, would be able, with the greatest ease, to make an after-dinner speech, especially when he had had plenty of time to prepare himself; but the gift of speaking is, as everyone knows, a gift in itself. And a more unfortunate speaker than Goldschmidt could not be. He had not even the art of compelling silence while he spoke.
That evening he began rather tactlessly by telling the company that their host, who was a rich man, had earned his money in a strictly honourable manner; it was always a good thing to know "that one had clear ground to dance upon"; then he dwelt on the Jewish origin of the giver of the feast, and, starting from the assumption that the greater number of the invited guests were young Jews and Jewesses, he formulated his toast in praise of "the Jewish woman, who lights the Sabbath candles." The young Jewesses called out all at once: "The Danish woman I The Danish woman! We are Danish!" They were irritated at the dead Romanticism into which Goldschmidt was trying to push them back. They lighted no Sabbath candles! they did not feel themselves Jewish either by religion or nationality. The day of Antisemitism had not arrived. Consequently there was still no Zionist Movement. They had also often felt vexed at the descriptions that Goldschmidt in his novels frequently gave of modern Jews, whose manners and mode of expression he screwed back fifty years.
These cries, which really had nothing offensive about them, made Goldschmidt lose his temper to such an extent that he shouted, in great exasperation: "Will you keep silence while I speak! What manners are these! I will teach you to keep silence!" and so forth,--which evoked a storm of laughter. He continued for some time to rebuke their exuberant mirth in severe terms, but was so unsuccessful that he broke off his speech and, very much out of humour, sat down.
Not long afterwards, perhaps in the year 1865, I came into contact with Goldschmidt once only, when walking one evening with Magdalene Thoresen. On meeting this lady, whom he knew, he turned round, walking with her as far as her house on the shores of the Lakes, after which his way led towards the town, as did mine. As long as Mrs. Thoresen was present, he naturally addressed his conversation to her and expressed himself, as his habit was, without much ceremony. For instance, he said: "I don't as a rule care for women writers, not even for those we have; but I will concede that, of all the ladies who write, you are the freshest." When Mrs. Thoresen brought the conversation round to her favourite subject, love, he said, banteringly: "My heart is like the flags of the Zouave Regiments, so pierced with holes that it is almost impossible to tell what the material originally looked like."
On the whole, he was animated and polite, but his glance was somewhat stinging.
Goldschmidt had greater difficulty in hitting on the right manner to adopt towards a much younger man. He used expressions which showed that he was standing on his dignity, and was all the time conscious of his own superiority. "People have spoken about you to me," he said, "and I know you by name." The word here rendered people had a strangely foreign sound, as though translated, or affected.
"Have you read Taine's History of English Literature?" he asked.
"No, I don't know it."
"Ah, perhaps you are one of those who regard it as superfluous to learn about anything foreign. We have enough of our own, is it not so? It is a very widespread opinion, but it is a mistake."
"You judge too hastily; that is not my opinion."
"Oh,--ah. Yes. Good-bye."
And our ways parted.
I did not like Goldschmidt. He had dared to profane the great Sören Kierkegaard, had pilloried him for the benefit of a second-rate public. I disliked him on Kierkegaard's account. But I disliked him much more actively on my master, Professor Bröchner's account.
Bröchner had an intense contempt for Goldschmidt; intellectually he thought him of no weight, as a man he thought him conceited, and consequently ridiculous. He had not the slightest perception of the literary artist in him. The valuable and unusual qualities of his descriptive talent he overlooked. But the ignorance Goldschmidt had sometimes shown about philosophy, and the incapacity he had displayed with regard to art, his change of political opinion, his sentimentality as a wit, all the weaknesses that one Danish critic had mercilessly dragged into the light, had inspired Bröchner with the strongest aversion to Goldschmidt. Add to this the personal collisions between the two men. At some public meeting Bröchner had gazed at Goldschmidt with such an ironic smile that the latter had passionately called him to account.
"Don't make a scene now!" replied Bröchner.
"I am ready to make a scene anywhere," the answer is reported to have been.
"That I can believe; but keep calm now!"
Shortly afterwards, in North and South, Goldschmidt, on the occasion of Bröchner's candidature for parliament, had written that the well-known atheist, H. Bröchner, naturally, as contributor to The Fatherland, was supported by the "Party." Now, there was nothing that annoyed Bröchner so much as when anyone called him an atheist, and tried to make him hated for that reason,--the word, it is true, had a hundred times a worse sound then than now,--he always maintaining that he and other so-called atheists were far more religious than their assailants. And although Goldschmidt's sins against Bröchner were in truth but small, although the latter, moreover--possibly unjustifiably-- had challenged him to the attack, Bröchner nevertheless imbued me with such a dislike of Goldschmidt that I could not regard him with quite unprejudiced eyes.
Goldschmidt tried to make personal advances to me during my first stay in Paris in 1866.
Besides the maternal uncle settled in France, of whom I have already spoken, I had still another uncle, my father's brother, who had gone to France as a boy, had become naturalised, and had settled in Paris. He was a little older than my father, a somewhat restless and fantastic character, whom Goldschmidt frequently met at the houses of mutual friends. He let me know through this man that he would like to make my acquaintance, gave him his address and mentioned his receiving hours. As I held back, he repeated the invitation, but in vain. Bröchner's influence was too strong. A few years later, in some dramatic articles, I had expressed myself in a somewhat satirical, offhand manner about Goldschmidt, when one day an attempt was made to bring the poet and myself into exceedingly close connection.
One Spring morning in 1869, a little man with blue spectacles came into my room and introduced himself as Goldschmidt's publisher, Bookseller Steen. He had come on a confidential errand from Goldschmidt, regarding which he begged me to observe strict silence, whatever the outcome of the matter might be.
Goldschmidt knew that, as a critic, I was not in sympathy with him, but being very difficultly placed, he appealed to my chivalry. For reasons which he did not wish to enter into, he would be obliged, that same year, to sever his connection with Denmark and settle down permanently in England. For the future he should write in English. But before he left he wished to terminate his literary activity in his native country by an edition of his collected works, or at any rate a very exhaustive selection from them. He would not and could not direct so great an undertaking himself, from another country; he only knew one man who was capable of doing so, and him he requested to undertake the matter. He had drawn up a plan of the edition, a sketch of the order in which the writings were to come out, and what the volume was to contain, and he placed it before me for approval or criticism. The edition was to be preceded by an account of Goldschmidt as an author and of his artistic development; if I would undertake to write this, I was asked to go to see Goldschmidt, in order to hear what he himself regarded as the main features and chief points of his literary career.
The draft of what the projected edition was to include made quite a little parcel of papers; besides these, Steen gave me to read the actual request to me to undertake the task, which was cautiously worded as a letter, not to me, but to Bookseller Steen, and which Steen had been expressly enjoined to bring back with him. Although I did not at all like this last-mentioned item, and although this evidence of distrust was in very conspicuous variance with the excessive and unmerited confidence that was at the same time being shown me, this same confidence impressed me greatly.
The information that Goldschmidt, undoubtedly the first prose writer in the country, was about to break off his literary activity and permanently leave Denmark, was in itself overwhelming and at once set my imagination actively at work. What could the reason be? A crime? That was out of the question. What else could there be but a love affair, and that had my entire sympathy. It was well known that Goldschmidt admired a very beautiful woman, who was watched the more jealously by her husband, because the latter had for a great number of years been paralysed. He would not allow her to go to the theatre to sit anywhere but in the mirror box [Footnote: The mirror box was a box in the first Royal Theatre, surrounded by mirrors and with a grating in front, where the stage could be seen, reflected in the mirrors, but the occupants were invisible. It was originally constructed to utilise a space whence the performance could not otherwise be seen, and was generally occupied by actresses, etc.], where she could not be seen by the public. The husband met with no sympathy from the public; he had always been a characterless and sterile writer, had published only two books, written in a diametrically opposite spirit, flatly contradicting one another. As long as he was able to go out he had dyed his red hair black. He was an insignificant man in every way, and by his first marriage with an ugly old maid had acquired the fortune which alone had enabled him to pay court to the beautiful woman he subsequently won.
It had leaked out that she was the original of the beautiful woman in The Inheritance, and that some of the letters that occur in it were really notes from Goldschmidt to her.
What more likely than the assumption that the position of affairs had at last become unbearable to Goldschmidt, and that he had determined on an elopement to London? In a romantic purpose of the sort Goldschmidt could count upon the sympathy of a hot-blooded young man. I consequently declared myself quite willing to talk the matter over with the poet and learn more particulars as to what was expected of me; meanwhile, I thought I might promise my assistance. It was Easter week, I believe Maunday Thursday; I promised to call upon Goldschmidt on one of the holidays at a prearranged time.
Good Friday and Easter Sunday I was prevented from going to him, and I had already made up my mind to pay my visit on Easter Monday when on Monday morning I received a letter from Bookseller Steen which made me exceedingly indignant. The letter, which exhibited, as I considered, (incorrectly, as it turned out), unmistakably signs of having been dictated to him, bore witness to the utmost impatience. Steen wrote that after undertaking to pay a visit to Goldschmidt I had now let two days elapse without fulfilling my promise. There was "no sense in keeping a man waiting" day after day, on such important business; in Steen's "personal opinion," it had not been at all polite of me, as the younger author, not to inform Goldschmidt which day I would go to see him.
I was very much cooled by reading this letter. I saw that I had wounded Goldschmidt's vanity deeply by not going to him immediately upon receipt of his communication; but my chief impression was one of surprise that Goldschmidt should reveal himself such a poor psychologist in my case. How could he believe that I would allow myself to be terrified by rough treatment or won by tactless reprimands? How could he think that I regarded the task he wished to allot me as such an honour that for that reason I had not refused it? Could not Goldschmidt understand that it was solely the appeal to my better feelings from an opponent, struck by an untoward fate, that had determined my attitude?
Simultaneously, though at first very faintly, a suspicion crossed my mind. Was it possible that the whole touching story which had been confided to me was a hoax calculated to disarm my antagonism, arouse my sympathy and secure Goldschmidt a trumpeting herald? Was it possible that the mysterious information about the flight to London was only an untruth, the sole purpose of which was to get me into Goldschmidt's service?
I dismissed the thought at once as too improbable, but it recurred, for I had learnt from experience that even distinguished authors sometimes did not shrink from very daring means of securing the services of a critic. A critic is like the rich heiress, who is always afraid of not being loved for herself alone. Even then, I was very loth to believe that any recognised author, much less a writer whose position was a vexed question, would make advances to me from pure benevolence, for the sake of my beautiful eyes, as they say in French.
At any rate, I had now made up my mind not to have anything whatever to do with the matter. I replied emphatically:
"Lessons in politeness I take from no one, consequently return you the enclosed papers. Be kind enough to appeal to some one else."
This reply was evidently not the one the letter had been intended to evoke. Steen rushed up to me at once to apologise, but I did not see him. Twice afterwards he came with humble messages from Goldschmidt asking me to "do him the honour" of paying him a visit. But my pride was touchy, and my determination unwavering. Undoubtedly Steen's letter was sent at Goldschmidt's wish, but it is equally undoubted that its form had not been approved by him. That the alliance so cleverly led up to came to nothing was evidently as unexpected by the poet as unpalatable to him.
Not long afterwards, I accidentally had strong confirmation of my suspicion that the story of a flight from Denmark was merely an invention calculated to trap me, and after the lapse of some time I could no longer harbour a doubt that Goldschmidt had merely wished to disarm a critic and secure himself a public crier.
This did not make me feel any the more tenderly disposed towards Goldschmidt, and my feeling lent a sharper tone than it would otherwise have had to an essay I wrote shortly afterwards about him on the production of his play Rabbi and Knight at the Royal Theatre. Three years passed before our paths crossed again and a short-lived association came about between us.