The brief scene between the King and Queen, which opens the fourth act, seemed to that impatient man as if it never would end; and when Rosenkranz was heard within calling, “Hamlet, Lord Hamlet!” the perspiration burst from every pore, and he trembled like a leaf as Hamlet appeared, uttering the “Soft—what news? Who calls on Hamlet?”
Schoenlein heard no more. The tones of that voice raised a mist before his brain—stung and perplexed him with rage and astonishment. He heard nothing, saw nothing—his brain was in a whirl.
The Hamlet before him—Franz, the dreaded rival—was his son!
CHAPTER III.
It is necessary here to take a retrospective glance into Schoenlein’s history, that we may understand the horror which possessed him at the discovery of his son upon the stage.
We may readily conceive how his dislike to his profession made him very sedulous of keeping his child from all contact with it, lest its fascination should mislead him also. He had never permitted him to see a play. He brought him up strictly, religiously, austerely. He had no friends among actors: acting was never spoken of in his presence. Yet, by an inconsistency easily enough explained, the works most constantly read and talked about by him were those of Shakspeare, Molière, Göthe, and Schiller. These were his household gods. Young Franz was early initiated into their beauties, and would declaim, (in private,) with great gusto, all the long speeches.
Franz was sent to the university of Leipsic, where it was his father’s fond hope he would distinguish himself as a student of theology. For the first year he was assiduous enough; but theology grew inexpressibly wearisome, while poetry became irresistibly alluring to him. Göthe’s Wilhelm Meister fell into his hands, and was read with rapture. He fell in love with the actor’s life, and felt secret yearnings to quit the university, and throw himself upon the world in quest of adventure—especially in quest of a Marianne, a Philina, and a Mignon! He had not as yet dared to disobey his father’s strict commands—he had never ventured inside a theatre; but he had imbibed the dangerous poison—he had learned to look upon an actor’s life as a life of poetry. The seed was sown!
About this time my cousin William went to the Leipsic university, and became the fellow-student and companion of Franz. From him I learned most of these details. William was by no means a model of select virtue—in fact, was what, in the jargon of the day, is called “rather a fast man;” and he led Franz into many a debauch which would have driven Schoenlein wild, had he known it; but he could not persuade him to go to the theatre.
Franz was ready enough at a duel, and had spoiled the beauty of some half-dozen faces by the dexterous sword-cut which draws a line over the nose, and lays open the cheek. He was ready enough, too, with his beer—few youths of his age had more promising talents that way: and as to patriotic songs, energetically demanding of the universe where the German’s fatherland might be, or the probability of tyrants long crushing free hearts beneath their heels, together with frantic calls upon the sword, responded to by the clatter of beer-jugs—in these Franz was distinguished.
At last he did brush away his scruples, and accompanied William to the theatre. They played Schiller’s Don Carlos. Conceive his rapture at this first taste of the long-coveted forbidden fruit! He thought the Marquis of Posa a demigod. But words cannot express his adoration of the Princess Eboli, that night played by Madame Clara Kritisch. She was to him the “vision of loveliness and light,” which an actress always is to an impassioned youth, the first time he sees one. Her large voluptuous eyes, her open brow, her delicate nostrils, her full and not ungraceful figure, together with the dazzling beauty of her (theatrical) complexion, made a powerful impression on him. Her acting seemed to him the acting of an angel.