“Who was that,” he inquired, as they came out into the street, “who called you Lieber Franz?”
“Oh! that—an actress—one of our company—Madame Kritisch.”
“Hm!” growled the old man; but he did not speak again till they reached the hotel. Arrived there, they went up into his room.
“Franz, my dear boy,” said Schoenlein, with great tenderness, “you must promise me to quit this life, and I will forget that you have ever disobeyed me. Let us look on it as a boyish freak, now over.”
Franz was silent.
“It is your father who speaks. Remember he is your best friend; and he earnestly implores you to quit a career which even success can only make a gilded disgrace. Will you promise me this?”
He felt very uncomfortable, and knew not what answer to make.
“You are young,” pursued his father; “young and hopeful. You look as yet only to the bright side of life, and see only the pleasures of the stage. You think it glorious to be applauded, to have your name in the mouths of men, your portrait in shop windows. In a little while all this applause will pall upon your ear; all these portraits will look like so many signs of your disgrace, and caricatures of yourself. The charm will pass away, and you will feel yourself to be a mountebank, painted to amuse a gaping crowd! Then the wear and tear of the profession, its thousand petty irritations and miserable anxieties, will be as stings of wretchedness, and you will curse the day you first trod upon a stage.
“Look at me!” he said, suddenly pausing in the angry walk which he was taking up and down the room. “Have I not been successful? have I not been flattered, envied? have I not known what it is to be a great tragedian, to dictate terms to managers, to sway audiences? Have I not known all this? And yet, since you can remember me, have you ever seen me happy? Is not my life an example? Does not my whole life cry out to you, Beware! Will you not profit by the bitter lessons of my experience?”
“But, my dear father, you forget one thing: you have always looked upon the profession with disgust. I do not.”