“If you're there any time,” said Campion, tugging thoughtfully at his black beard, “you might look into what the Germans are doing with regard to Female Rescue Work. You might pick up a practical tip or two for use down here.”
What a thing it is to be a man of one idea! I gave him an evasive answer and rushed away to make the necessary preparations for my journey. I was absurdly, boyishly happy. No doubt as to my success crossed my mind. It was to be my final and triumphant adventure. Unless the High Powers stove a hole in the steamer or sent another railway train to collide with mine, the non-attainment of my object seemed impossible. I had but to go, to be seen, to conquer.
I arrived safely in Berlin at half-past seven in the evening, and drove to a modest hotel in the Kaiserstrasse, where I had engaged a room. My first inquiry was for a letter from Lola. To my disappointment nothing awaited me. I had telegraphed to her at the Winter Garten the day before, and I had written as well. A horrible surmise began to dance before me. Suppose Messrs. Conto and Blag had given Dale erroneous information! I grew sick and faint at the thought. What laughter there would be in Olympus over my fool journey! In great agitation I clamoured for a programme of the Winter Garten entertainment. The hotel clerk put it into my trembling hands. There was no mention of Madame Lola Brandt, but to my unspeakable comfort I saw the announcement:
“Professorin Anastasius Papadopoulos und ihre wunderbaren Katzen.”
Lola was working the cats under the little man's name. That was why she had baffled the inquiries instituted by Dale and myself and had not received my telegram. I scribbled a hasty note in which I told her of my arrival, my love, and my impatience; that I proposed to witness the performance that evening, and to meet her immediately afterwards at the stage-door. This, addressed to the Professorin Anastasius Papadopoulos, I despatched by special messenger to the Winter Garten. After a hasty toilet and a more hurried meal, I went out, and, too impatient to walk, I hailed a droschky, and drove through the wide, cheery streets of Berlin. It was a balmy June evening. The pavements were thronged. Through the vast open fronts of the cafes one saw agglutinated masses of people just cleft here and there by white-jacketed waiters darting to and fro with high-poised trays of beer and coffee. Save these and the folks in theatres all Berlin was in the streets, taking the air. A sense of gaiety pervaded the place, organised and recognised, as though it were as much part of a Berliner's duty to himself, the Fatherland, and the Almighty to be gay when the labours of the day are over as to be serious during business hours. He goes through it with a grave face and enjoys himself prodigiously. Your Latin when he fills the street with jest and laughter obeys the ebullience of his temperament; your Teuton always seems to be conscientiously obeying a book of regulations.
I soon arrived at the Winter Garten and secured a stall near the stage. The vast building was packed with a smoking and perspiring multitude. In shape it was like a long tunnel or a long, narrow railway station, an impression intensified by a monotonous barrel roof. This was, however, painted blue and decorated with myriads of golden stars. Along one side ran a gallery where those who liked to watch the performance and eat a six-course dinner at the same time could do so in elaborate comfort. In the centre of the opposite side was the stage, and below it, grouped in a semi-circle, the orchestra. Beneath the starry roof hung long wisps of smoke clouds.
The performance had only just begun and Lola's turn was seventh on the list. I reflected that greater deliberation in my movements would have suited the maturity of my years, besides enabling me to eat a more digestible dinner. I had come with the unreasoning impatience of a boy, fully conscious that I was too early, yet desperately anxious not to be too late. I laughed at myself indulgently and patted the boy in me on the head. Meanwhile, I gave myself up with mild interest to the entertainment provided. It was the same as that at any music-hall, winter garden, or variety theatre the world over. The same brawny gentlemen in tights made human pyramids out of themselves and played football with the little boys and minced with their aggravating steps down to the footlights; the same red-nosed clown tried to emulate his dashing companion on the horizontal bars, pulling himself up, to the eternal delight of the audience, by the seat of his baggy breeches, and hanging his hat on the smooth steel upright; the same massive lady with the deep chest sang sentimental ballads; the same China-man produced warrens of rabbits and flocks of pigeons from impossible receptacles; the same half-dozen scantily clad damsels sang the same inane chorus in the same flat baby voices and danced the same old dance. Mankind in the bulk is very young; it is very easily amused and, like a child, clamours for the oft-repeated tale.
The curtain went down on the last turn before Lola's. I felt a curious suspense, and half wished that I had not come to see the performance. I shrank from finding her a million miles away from me, a new, remote creature, impersonal as those who had already appeared on the stage. Mingled with this was a fear lest she might not please this vast audience. Failure, I felt, would be as humiliating to me as to her. Agatha, I remembered, confessed to the same feeling with regard to myself when I made my first speech in the House of Commons. But then I had an incontrovertible array of facts and arguments, drawn up by an infallible secretary and welded into cunning verbiage by myself, which I learned off by heart. And the House, as I knew it would, had been half asleep. I couldn't fail. But Lola had to please three thousand wide-awake Berlin citizens, who had paid their money for entertainment, with no other equipment than her own personality and the tricks of a set of wretched irresponsible cats.
The orchestra struck up the act music. The curtains parted, and revealed the brightly polished miniature gymnasium I had seen at Anastasius's cattery; the row of pussies at the back, each on a velvet stand, some white, some tabby, some long-furred, some short-furred, all sitting with their forepaws doubled demurely under their chests, wagging their tails comically, and blinking with feline indifference at the footlights; a cage in a corner in which I descried the ferocious wild tomcat; and, busily putting the last touches to the guy ropes, the pupil and assistant Quast, neatly attired in a close fitting bottle-green uniform with brass buttons. Almost immediately Lola appeared, in a shimmering gold evening gown, and with a necklet of barbaric gold round her neck. I had never seen her so magnificently, so commandingly beautiful. I was conscious of a ripple of admiration running through the huge assembly—and it was a queer sensation, half pride, half angry jealousy. My immediate neighbors were emphatic in their praise. Applause greeted her. She smiled acknowledgments and, flicking the little toy whip which she carried in her hand, she began the act. First of all, the cats jumped from their stands, right-turned like a military line, and walked in procession round the stage. At a halt and a signal each pussy put its front paws on its front neighbour and the march began again. Then Lola did something with voice and whip, and each cat dropped on its paws, and as if by magic there appeared a space between every animal.
At a further word the last cat jumped over the one in front and over the one in front of that and so on until, having cleared the first cat, it leaped on to its stand where it began to lick itself placidly. Meanwhile, the penultimate cat had begun the same evolution, and then the ante-penultimate cat, until all the cats had cleared the front one and had taken their positions on their stands. The last cat, left alone, looked round, yawned in the face of the audience, and, turning tail, regained its stand with the air of unutterable boredom. The audience, delighted, applauded vehemently. I raised my hands as I clapped them, trying vainly and foolishly to catch Lola's eye.