CHAPTER VI.
If in these brief sentences I have indicated the misery of Franz’s condition—the depth of the shadows which accompanied the lustre of his success—if I have truly presented the main outlines of his domestic history, the reader will imagine Franz’s feelings when a hand as friendly as that of death did interfere to set him free.
Clara ran away with the low comedian of the troop!
She had worn away in tears and fretfulness all the affection she once had felt for Franz, and having inspired a sort of passion in the breast of this comedian, lent a willing ear to his romantic proposal of an elopement. To a woman of her age an elopement was irresistible!
She fled, and left Franz at liberty.
The very day on which Franz received this intelligence he had to perform in Kotzebue’s Menschenhass und Reue (our “Stranger.”) He went to the theatre extremely agitated. Great as was his delight at being released from his wife, and released by no act of his own—he could not think without a shudder upon the probable fate which awaited her; and a remembrance of his former love and happiness with her returned to make him sad.
It happened that old Schoenlein had that night been seized with a sudden impulse to see his son act, and had gone privately into the parterre. It was the first time he saw his son acting—for on that Dresden night he saw nothing—a mist was before his eyes. He was now sufficiently calm to be critical.
Franz played the wronged husband with such intense feeling, such depth of passion, such thrilling intonation of voice, that the old man shared the rapture of the audience, and wept tears of joy and of pride as he confessed that his son was really a great actor.
The curtain had no sooner descended than Schoenlein, hurrying out of the house, went round to the stage-door, knocked at his son’s dressing-room, and in another instant had fallen on his shoulders, sobbing—“My boy! my dear, dear Franz! you have conquered me!”
“My dear father!” exclaimed Franz, pressing him convulsively to his heart.
“Franz, I retract all that I have said. I forgive you. You have a real vocation for the stage!”
This happy reconciliation was soon followed by the betrothal of Franz Schoenlein to Matilda Röckel; and the old man had not only the delight of seeing his son wedded to a woman worthy of him, but also to hear him announce his intention of retiring for ever from the stage. He had realised an independence, and the stage was connected with too many disagreeable associations for him not to quit it on this opening of a new era in his life.