CHAPTER II.
Schoenlein did not play for a fortnight, and, as the time of Franz’s engagement was drawing near, I imagined he was sulking. I communicated my suspicions to Madame Röckel.
“I would wager fifty thalers,” she replied, “that he has gone to Dresden to see his dreaded rival, and judge for himself.”
It was as Madame Röckel said: goaded by irresistible jealousy, Schoenlein had set off for Dresden to see his rival play.
Arrived there, he was three days before he could summon resolution to enter the theatre. Franz’s name met him every where. At the table-d’hôte he heard nothing but praises of Franz: in the newspapers he read nothing but invidious comparisons between Franz and himself, in which the palm was awarded to his rival. “Franz,” it was said, “had all the energy of Schoenlein, with youth, and grace, and beauty in his favour. The same power of distinct conception and unexaggerated execution, without Schoenlein’s tendency to conventional ‘points.’” Strangers asked him if he had seen Franz. The very waiters at the hotel recommended him to go and see Franz!
Schoenlein never hated his profession so much as at that moment. Yet, such was his exasperation, that he was constantly tempted to appear on the stage at Dresden, and crush his rival by acting in the same theatre with him—constantly tempted to show the fickle public the genius of the actor they were fast forgetting.
It was the fourth day of his presence at Dresden. Hamlet was to be performed that evening, and Schoenlein had resolved to be there. As the hour drew near, he was seated at a table on that beautiful terrace, which no one who has visited Dresden can ever forget, and which the Hahn-Hahn has so graphically set before us in her Faustine. He was smoking a meditative cigar, gazing abstractedly at the promenaders, who, in their gay dresses, passed to and fro in light happy talk, while the sounds of a good orchestra in the Café came mellowed by the distance, and lent another charm to the exhilarating scene. His thoughts were not at all in harmony with that happy scene—they were fixed mournfully on his own condition. He felt the sadness of a fallen favourite.
There he sat, and saw the sun go down over the antique bridge—saw its last rays shimmering on the placid bosom of the Elbe, which winds its undulating course beneath the terrace—saw the groups of promenaders gradually disappear, and the tables all deserted. The calls for ices, for cigars, for “light,” were becoming rarer and rarer. The music had ceased—night had shut in. Still he sat there in the same mournful mood, tempted to go to the theatre, so close at hand, but repelled by the idea of hearing Franz applauded.
At the conclusion of the third act, several playgoers reappeared upon the terrace, to cool themselves in the evening air, and to take an ice. Their conversation, of course, turned but upon one man, and that man was Franz. They spoke of his Hamlet as the finest part he had yet played.
Three men seated themselves at Schoenlein’s table. In the midst of their enthusiastic criticism one of them remarked—
“Well, Franz is certainly very fine; but it is absurd to compare him with Schoenlein.”
“I think him better,” said another.
“Nonsense!—you would not say so if you could see them together. You will find that in a little while the public will come round to my opinion. Let them once get over the novelty, and they will judge correctly.”
A thrill ran through the actor’s frame as he heard this. He called the waiter; paid; rose; departed. In another instant he was in the parterre of the theatre, feverishly impatient for the curtain to rise.
The brief scene between the King and Queen, which opens the fourth act, seemed to that impatient man as if it never would end; and when Rosenkranz was heard within calling, “Hamlet, Lord Hamlet!” the perspiration burst from every pore, and he trembled like a leaf as Hamlet appeared, uttering the “Soft—what news? Who calls on Hamlet?”
Schoenlein heard no more. The tones of that voice raised a mist before his brain—stung and perplexed him with rage and astonishment. He heard nothing, saw nothing—his brain was in a whirl.
The Hamlet before him—Franz, the dreaded rival—was his son!