Through Night to Light: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

"Ladies and gentlemen!" she said, examining the faces of the audience, as they looked up to her, with satisfaction. "You know that we have chosen at our last sitting 'Wallenstein's Death' for this meeting with universal acclimatization; I meant to say, acclamation. As unfortunately the piece has more parts than we have members, I have been forced to leave out several which did not appear to me essential. But even then there remained a few which I could not well fill, and which would have remained blank if some of our dear guests who give us the pleasure of their company to-night had not put it into my power to complete the bill to the general satisfaction of all, I hope. Although most of you already know which part has been allotted to you, I will for the sake of regularity, and especially for the benefit of our dear guests, read the whole list from the beginning once more. Listen then, I pray, attentively!"

Mrs. Manager cleared her voice and read, amid the attentive silence of the company:

Wallenstein,		Rector Clemens.
Octavio Piccolomini,		Professor Snellius.
Max Piccolomini,		Doctor Winimer.
Terzky,		Fredegunda Clemens.
Illo,		Doctor Kubel.
Butler,		Doctor Broadfoot.
Gordon,		Mrs. Kubel.
Seni,		Miss Ida Snellius.
Duchess,		Mrs. Snellius.
Countess Terzky,		Myself.
Thekla,		Thusnelda Clemens.
Fräulein Neubrunn,		Marie Kubel.
Swedish Captain,		Doctor Stein.
Devereux,	}	Mr. and Mrs. Jager. Captains in Wallenstein's army.
MacDonald,

Oswald, who had been not a little amused by this original distribution, had to bite his lips not to laugh loud, when he saw the foolish faces made by the last-named persons as they heard their names coupled so intimately with the names of the murderers of the hero. Professor Jager drew down the corners of his mouth lower than Oswald had ever seen them; and Primula, who had turned as white as the lace collar on her pale-yellow dress, seemed to be on the point of breaking into tears.

That was, then, the triumph which she had hoped for from this night! Was this the hospitable house of dear friends, who were so proud of their perfect humanity? or was it a blood-dripping cave of brutal Troglodytes? Was he the interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos, or was he not? Was she the famous author of the "Cornflowers," or was she not? And no cry of indignation broke forth from the throats of all who had heard with their own ears this desecration of names so renowned in science and in art!

The professor and his wife looked at each other across the table with eyes in which an attentive observer might have read these and other questions; then they glanced around the company at the table to see what impression such blasphemy must needs have produced upon the audience. But no one seemed to think any harm about this disgraceful insult to scientific and poetic fame; no one, with the exception perhaps of fat Doctor Kubel, who replied to an interrogative glance of the professor with a friendly grin, and Oswald, who stealthily pressed Primula's hand under the table as a sign of his sympathy, for Primula sat on his left, while Thusnelda was his right-hand neighbor. Otherwise nobody troubled himself about the insulted sufferers, each one was busy only with his own part, and the impression he hoped to make upon the others, and all awaited now the signal for beginning. The lady manager gave it at once, with the same grace and the same noise with which, in a menagerie, the docile elephant rings the bell for dinner, and the bear or the monkey for supper.

Mrs. Clemens presented next, in a neat little speech to Miss Ida Snellius, the offer to "come down, as day was breaking and Mars in the ascendant," whereupon the young lady begged her to "let her observe Venus first, that was just rising and shining in the east like a sun," but her voice was so indistinct as to be almost inaudible, either from the great remoteness of the astronomer or from the embarrassment of the performer.

The rest corresponded with this interesting beginning, and they inflicted upon the unlucky drama all the horrors which art-loving ladies and gentlemen are apt to practice when they assemble for the purpose of reading a drama with "distributed parts," as they call it. Rector Clemens changed Wallenstein into the gentle member of a Moravian brotherhood; Professor Snellius, the clever, intriguing Octavio, into a wooden pedant; Doctor Winimer howled and groaned as the noble son of an ignoble father, so that unspeakable horror befell every heart; and Doctor Kubel seemed to take Illo for Chamisso's washerwoman; while Doctor Broadfoot read silent Butler's words as if he had been a charlatan dentist at a fair. Countess Terzky became one of Pappenheim's Cuirassiers; and Thekla, in the hands of Miss Thusnelda, a love-sick seamstress.

And with all that, there was a holy zeal animating them all and inducing them to turn over the leaves long before their turn came again, and thus to produce a continuous rustling; and with all that, an unvarnished enthusiasm which rewarded the performances of some, as those of Doctor Winimer; and with all that an unselfish modesty with which less gifted members, like Marie Kubel, submitted to correction on the part of Rector Clemens, who enjoyed, by the regulations of the club, the privilege of interrupting the reader and of pointing out to him or to her the mistakes made in reciting.

Oswald enjoyed this Babylonian confusion, this nibbling of mice at the club of Hercules, until gradually disgust overcame him, and even the sight of Mr. and Mrs. Jager was no longer able to cause him to laugh heartily. The professor sat, lost in his large easy-chair, immovable, the corners of his mouth drawn down so low that its outline presented the form of a horse-shoe, while he looked with his small, green eyes over the frame of his large, round spectacles at his wife, his fellow-sufferer, his companion in his disgrace. The conduct of the poetess was, of course, far more striking, as might have been expected from so eccentric a character. Now she would throw herself back in her chair with crossed arms and fix her eyes on the ceiling, and now she would lean forward and support her head, with the golden hair and the wreath of blue cornflowers, in her hands. Then again she smiled a smile of supreme contempt, or she yawned as if overcome by intolerable ennui. Oswald was very curious to see what she would do when her turn came, for she had whispered to him at the beginning, in feverish excitement, "I will not read; rely upon it, I will not read!"