Riven Bonds. Vol. II. / A Novel, in Two Volumes

by E. Werner

Cesario looked at him in undisguised astonishment. "That sounds very cool, Signor Capitano. Have you no other expression of admiration for this woman, who stands so close to your brother?"

Hugo's countenance was indeed as cool as his tone, while he replied quietly, "That is just Reinhold's taste. Sometimes our views lie very far apart. However, it would be unjust not to admire Signora Biancona to-night without reserve, and I do it, too--that is to say, from a spectator's point of view. Close to her, such a passion, beyond all reason, which seems to know no limits, would be rather unnatural. I can never quite dismiss the thought that one day Donna Beatrice will carry this truly masterful acting into reality, and could be a sort of Medea there also, who only breathes forth death and ruin. That she can do it, one sees by her eyes and--although I do not otherwise exactly belong to the timid class, I could not love such a woman."

"And yet Reinhold's works require exactly this fiery representation," said the Marchese, reproachfully, "and of that only a Biancona is capable."

"Yes, to be sure, she has always been his doom," murmured Hugo, "and he will never be free so long as this doom reigns over him."

The two gentlemen had long since remarked Consul Erlau in the opposite stage box, and exchanged greetings with him. They never suspected that he was not alone any more than did others of the audience, as the lady who accompanied him sat far behind in the background of the box, entirely concealed by the folds of the half lowered curtain, but yet so that she could quite overlook the stage, and her companion, when he spoke to her, took the precaution of rising and stepping back also. She wished, evidently, to avoid being seen, and also to avoid a visit from the two gentlemen.

Ella had actually obtained the fulfilment of her wish by her indulgent adopted father. So far she knew but few, and only the unimportant compositions of her husband, several songs and fantasias, nothing else. The peculiar field of his labours and its results--the opera--was unknown to her. In consequence of the deadly wound inflicted upon her, she had never been able to conquer herself sufficiently to witness the triumphs which his operas obtained in her native town, those triumphs which were founded on the ruins of her life's happiness; and what she learned from the newspapers, or through strangers to whom her near connection with the admired composer was not known, only plunged the dagger deeper into her soul. Now, for the first time, the tone poet, Rinaldo, appeared before her in the most genial of his works, now she learned to know the power of those notes which so often had conquered friends and foes, and even carried away opponents to admiration, and the effect was overpowering. Half bent forward, listening breathlessly, the young wife followed every note of the music; she was now still capable, amid all the beauties which developed themselves before her, of gazing into the dark depths which were disclosed therein. For the first time she understood her husband's character entirely and wholly, this glowing artist's nature with all its contradictions, with its storms, tempests and struggles; for the first time she comprehended what the deeply injured wife would not comprehend until now, the inner need of nature which compelled Reinhold to tear himself loose from the confined fetters of provincial every-day life and to follow the call of his genius, which made this catastrophe for him a struggle between life and death.

That he also broke those bonds, which under every circumstance ought to have been held sacred by him, that he sacrificed the duties of a father and a husband, who forsook his own for what would have been justifiable independence of a free man, could not be exonerated even by his genius; but in Ella's heart there now dawned, softly suggested, the question--what had she herself been in those days to her husband, that she should have required him to resist temptation, which came before him in the guise of a Beatrice Biancona, and what could she offer against a passion, whose glowing romance had, from the first, ruled the artist more than the man. The wife entrusted to him was then far too much oppressed with the burden of her education and surroundings, to be able to raise herself in any degree to his height; in her place there stood another in all the glory of her beauty and talent, and this other showed the young composer the path of liberty and fame. He had succumbed! Ella felt from the depths of her inmost heart that he would not have done so, could she have been to him then what she was to-day.

For the last time the curtain was drawn up, and until the last note Reinhold showed that he had been true to himself. The finale was as grand as the entire opera, and created a thrilling effect. Yet the work was wanting in one thing, the highest, for which not all the brilliant flashes of genius could atone, namely, harmony with itself. It had no peace, and awoke none in the minds of the audience. The composer appeared to have infected his work with the conflict which lay unappeased in his own breast; it was after all but the despair of life, of happiness, of himself. When the nightlong tempest had raged until exhausted, no fluttering morning's red peeped forth, promising a new and better day; on the wide, dreary waste of waters only the wreck was driven about, and clinging to it the shipwrecked traveller reached his native coast at last--too late to be saved. When wearied and wounded to death he sinks down there; once more is heard completed, as if 'twere ghostly tones from the far off unapproachable distance, that dream-like melody for the first time ringing out full and perfect in death, and the notes fade and die softly, as the life-blood ebbs away.

The reception of this opera by the audience far surpassed any success which Rinaldo had ever gained. Surely this music and performance were certain of approbation from a southern public. There every spark took fire, there each flame ignited and spread from one to another. One would have imagined the applause must have exhausted itself at last, the acclamations must have moderated themselves, but to-day even the most exalted enthusiasm appeared capable of rising still higher. After the close of each act, after every scene, it broke forth anew, and ended at last in a regular uproar with which the whole house demanded the composer's appearance most tumultuously.

Signor Rinaldo let them wait long before he acceded to this demand, he allowed Signora Biancona to come forward alone, again and again, in despite of all the stormy cries which were for him. Only at the end of the opera, when the calls resembled a riot and the enthusiasm could no longer be controlled, only then did he show himself and was greeted in such a manner by the audience as must have satisfied the most immeasurable ambition.