"I have scarcely recovered myself yet, dear Mr Ehrmann," said the Princess Theresa to me, between the acts. "The count quite frightened me. I could not help fancying it was the real Von der Mulde."
The completeness of the illusion was undeniable. The jests of the portly boar-hunter, in the part of the butler, passed unperceived, amidst the admiration excited by the count, who bewailed the pomatum-pot, forgotten by his servant, as though it were his best friend he had been compelled to leave behind, and whose eyes actually glistened with tears as he whined forth his apprehensions that unsavoury German mice would devour the most delicate perfume France had ever produced. The question passed round, amongst actors and audience, who this admirable performer was, and the duke himself sent behind the scenes to make the inquiry. "A Livonian gentleman," was the reply, "who would shortly have the honour to pay his respects to his highness."
The play proceeded, and if the rehearsal had had circumstances peculiarly gratifying to me as an individual, as an amateur of art I could not withhold my warmest approbation from this day's performance. The admirable tact and delicacy of the princess's acting, combined with the utter absence of stage-trick and conventionality, gave an unusual and extraordinary charm to her personation of a part that is by no means easy. The honours of the evening were for her and the count, and with justice, for few of the many German theatres I had visited could boast of such able and tasteful actors. Between the acts, the marshal's lady took her jestingly to task, and asked her whether, if the play were reality, she should not be disposed, without disparagement to me, to admit that the count was no despicable or unlikely wooer? "To her thinking," the princess replied, "our merits in real life might very well bear about the same relative proportion as those of the characters we assumed, and, for her part, she preferred her amiable and gentle tutor." Then perceiving, as she finished speaking, that I was within hearing, she turned away with a blush and a smile, that seemed to me like an opening of the gates of Elysium. Upon this occasion, however, the embracing scene was gone through according to the corrected version—that is to say, with the embrace omitted—but my vanity consoled me by attaching so much the greater price to the deviation that had been made in my favour upon the preceding evening. In short, I gave myself up to the enchantment of the hour: I was, or fancied myself, desperately in love; visions of felicity flitted through my brain to the exclusion of matter-of-fact reflections; I had dreamed myself into an impossible Paradise, whence it would take no slight shock to expel me. One awaited me, sufficiently violent to dissipate in a second the whole air-built fabric.
The performance was drawing to a close, when a sudden commotion arose behind the scenes, and cries of alarm were uttered. The flaring of a lamp, fixed in one of the narrow wings, had set fire to the elaborate frills and floating frippery that decorated the coxcombical costume of Count Von der Mulde. His servant, a simple fellow, who had attended him to the theatre, was ludicrously terrified at seeing his master in a blaze. "Water!" he shouted, at the top of his lungs. "Water! water! the Prince of Schnapselzerhausen is on fire!"
And, snatching up a crystal jug of water that stood at hand, he dashed it over his master, successfully quenching the burning muslin, but, at the same time, drenching him from head to foot. His exclamation had attracted universal attention.
"The Prince of Schnapselzerhausen!" repeated fifty voices.
"Blockhead!" exclaimed the stranger.
"Count Von der Mulde, I mean!" cried the bewildered servant. "Well," he added, seeing that none heeded his correction, "the murder is out; but it was better to tell his name than let him burn."
The murder was out, indeed. With much ado the scene was played to an end, and the curtain fell. Every one crowded round the singed and dripping Von der Mulde. The princess, instead of greeting in him the son of the reigning Prince of Schnapselzerhausen, her destined bridegroom, seemed bewildered and almost shocked at the discovery, and was carried fainting from the theatre. The prince was hurried away by his future father-in-law, whilst I, with my brain in a whirl, betook myself to my inn.