“I know him too well to doubt them. There are many men quite as inconsistent. He deludes himself with all sorts of sophistry. He persuades himself that he acts only to realise an independence for his son, and to secure his own old age. But the truth is, he acts because he has an irresistible impulse to act. It is a sort of intellectual dram-drinking which he cannot forego.”
“To be sure, men are strange bundles of contradictions; and I suppose one must give Schoenlein credit for being sincere.”
“He is his own dupe, for to no one but very intimate friends has he ever disclosed his real opinions.”
“Then his life must be a constant struggle?”
“It is. This it is which has made him prematurely old: the struggle of his conscience with his passions. But this it is also which gives such touching pathos to his acting—which makes his voice so mournful that it vibrates through your whole being. As the poet’s sufferings are sublimed into song, and become the delight of mankind, so from the ground of this tragedian’s despair springs the well of his inspiration, which makes him truly great.”
We were both silent for a few moments.
“I have said enough,” added Madame Röckel, “to explain how such a man must necessarily be, above all others, envious—how the success of another must be torture to him. Nothing but intense vanity could keep him on the stage. Hitherto he has really had no rival—he has stood alone; other tragedians have not been named beside him. But now, within the last few weeks, there has arisen this young Franz, who has only played at Leipsic and Dresden, yet whose fame has spread all over Germany.”
“But I have seen Franz, and I assure you he is not so great an actor as Schoenlein. To be sure, he has youth on his side.”
“It is not his success alone which is so exasperating; it is because the critics, as usual, will do nothing but compare the young Franz with the old Schoenlein; while the public, with its natural inconstancy, begins to discover that Schoenlein is no longer young. It is a sad thing,” she pursued, with a faint smile, “for those who have reigned supreme over audiences to feel their dynasty is drawing to a close—sad for those who have swayed all hearts, to feel that another is now to usurp their place. We women know what it is, in a slight degree, when we grow old. Do we ever grow old, and know it? When our glass still tells us we are young, that the bloom is still upon our cheeks, the lustre in our eyes, the witchery in our smiles, now as of yore—and yet what the glass tells us, what our feelings confirm, we do not see mirrored in the admiration of those around us! We also know what it is when we see our former adorers pass to newer beauties, and we perhaps overhear such a phrase spoken of us as, ‘Yes, she has been handsome!’ But even we cannot know the actor’s triumph or the actor’s humiliation. To feel that our presence is the signal for applause, that every word we utter is listened to with eager interest, that every part we play is an image which we engrave upon the minds of thousands, there to abide as a thing of beauty and of wonder—this is beyond us.”
“But, my dear Madame Röckel, I see no diminution of admiration for Schoenlein in Berlin. Surely no audience can be more enthusiastic. Why should he fear a rival?”