Meanwhile Franz continued his triumphant career. He played at almost every town in Germany; and even the old men thought him superior to the actors of “their day.” The greatest triumph an actor can achieve is to make the “laudator temporis acti” forget for a moment the illusions of his youth, and confess that, even seen through the magnifying mist which envelops and aggrandises the past, this living actor is as great as those who are no more.
But Franz, amidst his brilliant success, was far from happy. The stage was the scene of his triumphs, but home was the scene of his despair. He was in a false, a very false position. Petted and idolised by the loveliest women in Germany, he had learned to look upon his wife as what she was—a woman past her prime, faded in beauty, insignificant in mind. He began to blush for her! This is perhaps the cruellest torture a husband can know, because it affects his self-love as keenly as his love. It is a torture which generally results from such ill-assorted unions. Slowly had the conviction dawned upon him—but it had come. He struggled against it, but it would not be set aside; it pressed on and on, till at last it fairly gained admittance into his mind, and made him wretched.
For observe, it was not her faded beauty which made him blush—it was not that she was so much older—it was because this faded insignificant woman was fretful, jealous, ungenerous, and unprincipled. The perception of these faults of disposition opened his eyes to the perception of her faults of person; they raised the question in his mind—who is this whose jealousy irritates, whose fretfulness distresses me? He began to scrutinise her, and the scales fell from his eyes!
“My dear Clara,” he said to her one day, “what in heaven’s name has changed you so? You used to be cheerful—now you are unbearably peevish.”
“And what has changed you so, Franz?”
“I am not aware of any change!”
“No!” she said ironically.
“In what, pray?”
“You used to be fond and attentive, and now you are cold and neglectful.”
“If I am so, whose fault is it?”