He exclaimed, surprisedly: "So! so!" as I continued my speech. Now in this country, "So—so!" is a term applied to restless cows at milking-time, and the devil of ridicule, never long at rest in my mind, suddenly wakened, so that when I had to say:
"Let not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:
I pray thee, stay with us; go not to Wittenberg."
and Mr. Bandmann smilingly cried: "So! so!" and I swiftly added the word "Bossy," and every soul on the stage broke into laughter. He saw he was laughed at, and it took a whole week's time and an elaborate explanation, to enable him to grasp the jest—but when he got a good hold of it, he so! so! bossied and stamped and laughed at a great rate.
During the rehearsal—which was difficult in the extreme, as his business (i.e., actions or poses accompanying certain words) was very different from that we were used to—he never found one single fault with my reading, and made just one suggestion, which I was most careful to follow—for one taste of his temper had been enough.
Then came the night—a big house, too, I remember. I wore long and loose garments to make me look more matronly; but, alas! the drapery Queen Gertrude wears, passed under her jaws from ear to ear, was particularly becoming to me, and brought me uncommonly near to prettiness. Mr. Ellsler groaned, but said nothing, while Mr. Bandmann sneered out an "Ach Himmel!" shrugged his shoulders, and made me feel real nice and happy. And when one considers that without me the theatre must have closed or changed its bill, even while one pities him for the infliction, one feels he was unnecessarily unkind.
Well, all went quietly until the closet scene—between Hamlet, the Queen, and the Ghost. It is a great scene, and he had some very effective business. I forgot Bandmann in Hamlet. I tried hard to show shame, pride, and terror. The applause was rapturous. The curtain fell, and—why, what, in the name of heaven, was happening to me?
I was caught by the arms and lifted high in air; when I came down I was crushed to Hamlet's bosom, with a crackling sound of breaking Roman-pearl beads, and in a whirlwind of "Himmels!" "Gotts!" and things, I was kissed with frenzied wet kisses on either cheek—on my brow—my eyes. Then disjointed English came forth: "Oh, you so great, you kleine apple-cheeked girl! you maker of the fraud—you so great nobody! ach! you are fire—you have pride—you are a Gertrude who have shame!" More kisses, then suddenly he realized the audience was still applauding—loudly and heartily. He grasped my hand, he dragged me before the curtain, he bowed, he waved his hands, he threw one arm about my shoulders.
"Good Lord!" I thought, "he isn't going to do it all over again—out here, is he?" and I began backing out of sight as quickly as possible.
It was a very comforting plaster to apply to my wounds—such a success as that, but it would have been so much pleasanter not to have received the wound in the first place.
Mr. Bandmann's best work, I think, was done in "Narcisse." His Hamlet seemed to me too melodramatic—if I may say so. If Hamlet had had all that tremendous fund of energy, all that love of action, the Ghost need never have returned to "whet his almost blunted purpose." Nor could I like his scene with his guilty mother. There was not even a forced show of respect for her. There was no grief for her wrong-doing—rather, his whole tone was that of a triumphant detective. And his speeches, "Such an act!" and "Look upon this picture!" were given with such unction—such a sneeringly, perfect comprehension of her lust, as to become themselves lustful.