His jesting tone did not seem to be exactly agreeable to his wife. At least she did not enter into it, but gravely continued to mend the crimson robe. But he was evidently in the best possible humor. While pacing up and down the spacious room with the slow strides of a stage hero, he cast a proud, well-satisfied glance into the mirror that hung above the sofa every time he passed it, talked of the rehearsal from which he had just come, and trivial annoyances which he had smoothed according to his wishes.
"You will make the acquaintance of the members of our company immediately," he said, turning to me; "and I hope you will find them by no means the worst sort of people. We must live and let live. My wise wife, who in the shortest possible time has transformed herself into a perfect mother to the company, has made the arrangement that we are all to dine together at noon, not at the hotel where food is dear and bad, but here under her wing. At first it was inconvenient to many of them. But they soon perceived it to be an advantage in every way. They obtain for a very small sum, which is deducted from their salaries in advance, good and abundant food, support themselves honestly, and contract no debts at the hotel. Besides, we have an opportunity of discussing at table many points concerning the evening performance which did not occur to us at the rehearsal."
A square-built personage, with a white cap surrounding her flushed face, entered and announced that dinner was ready.
"Here, my honored friend, you see the artist who provides for our physical support--Fräulein Kunigunde--the mistress of the kitchen and larder, who in her leisure hours renders us priceless services as mistress of the wardrobe.--Fräulein Kunigunde, I have the honor to present to you Herr Dr. Johannes, a distant relative of my wife, who would fain convince himself whether our car of Thespis merits the renown it enjoys in all the region where Low German is spoken. I hope you have some nice dish for us."
The embarrassed creature courtesied silently and vanished, settling her cap. She evidently supposed me to be some distinguished stranger, before whom she would not willingly have appeared in her working-clothes. The artist, after a parting look in the mirror, passed his hand familiarly through my arm, saying: "You won't object to my suppressing your title of Candidate and promoting you to that of Doctor in presenting you to my colleagues. Among these frivolous folk, theology plays the part of Knecht Ruprecht,[4] or must encounter disrespectful badinage. Your surname, too, would give cause for witticisms. So let us keep to the Christian one. Then it will be thought that you consider it a duty to your aristocratic relatives to be known on the stage only as Johannes."
I was about to protest against his taking possession of my person in this arbitrary fashion, but he had already opened the door of the adjoining room, and, as Frau Luise, who led the boy by the hand, cast a glance at me as she passed, which seemed to indicate that I need not be too rigorous, I entered without further scruple into the part thus forced upon me, and from which I fancied I could escape at any moment.
The dining-room was a long apartment with three windows. Its walls were perfectly bare, and the old white-lace curtains made them seem still more cold and unhomelike. A narrow table, whose uneven width betrayed that it had been formed of several sets of boards, occupied the center; its cloth was not fine, but exquisitely clean. About fourteen rude wooden chairs were ranged around it, all as yet unoccupied, and the number of guests, who stood chatting together in the window-niches, seemed still incomplete.
I was presented, as an old friend of the family and embryo student of the dramatic art, first to a married couple, Herr and Frau Selmar, who eyed me in unfriendly silence. These two oldest members of the company, as I afterward learned, were in a chronic state of dissatisfaction with everything and everybody except themselves. Probably there is no class of persons among whom the type of character embodying cureless, arrogant pride, may so frequently be found as amid the older dramatic artists, whose profession compels them to attach value to their personality, to long passionately for momentary triumphs, and to be on their guard against any rivalry. Herr Selmar, who took the parts of the stage fathers and blustering old men, considered himself still young enough for the lover's rôles in which the manager shone, and his faded wife, who years before had bewitched all hearts by her personal charms as much as by her acting, could not now feel satisfied to fill the characters of old women and mothers.
They had just been venting their irritation concerning some jealous grievance to each other, and I admired the good-natured cheerfulness with which the manager gradually soothed them. True, he was most ably assisted in doing so by the droll quips interposed by a tall, thin man of uncertain age, dressed in a greenish summer suit. The latter was presented to me as Herr Laban, comedian of the company, and as, spite of my uncomfortable mood, I could not help laughing heartily at his quaint jests, a sort of friendly familiarity instantly arose between us, and he took the seat next me at table.