It was in Vienna that Lensky received his daughter's letter, at breakfast in a hotel, the day after a concert when he had at length received an ovation. He felt electrified, newly animated, ten years younger.

He read the letter twice; but if the first reading had truly pleased him, the second attentive perusal only moderately satisfied him.

"H-m! h-m!" he murmured to himself. "Yes, it is quite good, it is better than I dared expect. Poor woman! He loves her from convenience; she rules him since she no longer deludes herself about him. But still it is fearful for her to be bound for her whole life to this shallow man. She has a fine character, she will do her duty, will fight out her life-conflict honorably from pride, so as not to be reproached by her children, and not to give the malicious world the pleasure of slandering her. She will be a splendid mother. How maternity sanctifies a woman! And Nita--poor Colia!" Suddenly he felt strangely; remembrance had allured him to a dark spot of which he felt a horror. How would the meeting with Colia be? For years he had longed to be reconciled with his son, and still he could not overcome a certain anxiety in this case.

He tried to think of something else. What city should he appoint as the place of the family meeting? He did not wish to cause Mascha any great expense. Venice would have been the most convenient, but the old Barenburgs vexed him. Well, it would occur to him. Meanwhile he picked up the newspaper. A correspondence from Rome was among the contents.

The name Perfection immediately met his eye, the name of the young pianist who had formerly accompanied him on his concert tours. He had never had any special personal liking for Perfection, but yet he looked upon him as his musical apprentice and was interested in his progress.

He looked over the article more closely. The blood rushed to his head.

What was it he read there? His name--yes--near Perfection's.

"Two greater contrasts would be hard to name in the musical world than Albert Perfection and Boris Lensky. This is the more striking as they, travelling together for years, formed a musical whole. But while the art of the pianist developed more splendidly with each year, the virtuosity of the violinist crumbled away bit by bit. The public did not suspect at Lensky's last concert tour what is now apparent to the most short-sighted; namely, that the applause which was accorded to Lensky was really only for Perfection's accompanying. Since then Perfection has emanc.i.p.ated himself from the despotism of his musical tyrant--for whom he has, nevertheless, preserved the most touching affection--and now stands alone in his artistic greatness, one of the n.o.blest phenomenal artists of all times. Especially striking is the circ.u.mstance that he has been quite uninfluenced by Lensky in his artistic development.

"It is not uninteresting to bring more plainly to view the particulars of the glaring contrast between these two musical individualities. The princ.i.p.al difference is that Albert Perfection is a civilized genius, while Lensky, even at the height of his achievements, was nothing but a genial barbarian.

"Perfection is just as free as Lensky of old-fashioned virtuoso-pedantry, but he is also free of that distorted Tartar romanticism of which Lensky never knew how to make an end. Without, in so far as his thankless instrument permits, standing behind, in warmth and tenderness, the violinist's performances, his playing is still distinguished by a quite architectural perfection of style which no other virtuoso has attained. He never sins against good taste, against what we might call the higher moral principles of art. A Roman lady remarked recently that Perfection was for her a too well-bred pianist.

He lacks the bewitching sinfulness, the demoniac fire which distinguished Lensky in his good days. That may be, but how sadly these bewitching peculiarities of youth degenerate in an old artist we have already unfortunately had occasion to observe in Lensky's last concert tour. And how greatly the symptoms of decay have increased in him since then, every musical report which comes to us from Germany proves. The bewitching sinfulness has become a caricature, and of the demoniac fire nothing more seems to be left than a Berserker rage expressed with the bow over the unvanquishable coldness of the public.

"One remembers in Rome no such success of a virtuoso as that which Albert Perfection attained last month in the Palazzo Caffarelli. He is the lion of the day. When he drives through the streets, the students nudge each other and say: '_Ah, e Perfezione!_' and hats are removed as before a crowned head."

This article was signed Arnold Spatzig. And if, instead of the name, had stood three stars, it would have been the same for Lensky; he would still have known whom he had to thank for this essay. For more than twenty years Arnold Spatzig had made a practice of insulting and vexing him; what wonder that he had become a master in this art? But until now he had confined himself to insulting Lensky the composer; the virtuoso had been too popular for him to venture to attack him before; and now--Lensky looked at the article again. "Nonsense--moral principle in art--lecture on musical morals--caricature--old scoundrel--nonsense! He has only injured Perfection by his partiality.

The article is indeed well written, that is the foolishness. Distorted Tartar romanticism--that will please many--very many--" He struck his fist on the table, his throat contracted.

That critics frequently please themselves with thrusts at an old great man in order to pay homage to new ones, he knew. That the time might have already come for him, already now--that had never occurred to him.

"What Lensky was--" he repeated. "The donkey treats me like a corpse whom one has forgotten to bury. I will show him that I still live, and that an old eagle is always more than a young sparrow!"

Hereupon the impressario, Herr Braun, entered. "A brilliant success yesterday," said he. "Affairs are coming round; we have great victories before us." He spread out a number of musical criticisms before the virtuoso, and then continued: "We must now consider where we will turn.

Perhaps to Paris, and from thence to London. Or shall we first take Brussels?"

"Cut short all preparations in Paris," cried Lensky.

"What do you prefer?"

"Rome."

A momentary confusion takes possession of the agent. "H-m! The moment is not exactly favorable; Perfection has just--in Rome----"

The old violinist started up, he clapped the impressario on the chest; he was beside himself, his face was distorted with rage. "And shall I fear this street-boy?" he gasped. "I tell you, it is to be Rome!"

x.x.xVI.

Rome! Rome! The word had always had a particular ring for him. The most beautiful happiness of his life he had found in Rome--he had buried it in Rome.

If his great, weary soul, dreading the future, had, after the fashion of weary souls, sought in the past a place of rest, it always stopped at the point where Natalie had entered his life. His thoughts did not willingly wander further back.

His childhood and early youth had been a time of harsh renunciation, amidst rough, immoral surroundings. The impression of immodest jokes, impure habits, petty distrust, ambiguous sneers, hard work, unaesthetic education, was inseparable from this period of his life. He was so much the more horrified thereat as he knew that the influence of these repulsive details had secretly penetrated through his every pore, that the soil in which he had grown up had forever soiled the roots of his being. He detested the slightest remembrance of his early youth.

All that was beautiful and n.o.ble and good in his life had begun with Natalie, in Rome. A strange, urgent longing drove him there. He was convinced that he would there experience something extraordinary, a last brilliant point in his existence, an immense victory and--the ghostly alluring which had formerly only pursued him at long intervals of time now vibrated about him ever oftener, no longer tormenting as formerly, but sweet, mysteriously promising, quite calming. It was now quite near.

Rome! Rome! He said the word often to himself, softly, slowly, as one utters the name of a beloved one. Ever more foolish became the expectations which he centred upon his stay in Rome.

He would grow young again--the dead would arise for him in Rome. His heart beat loudly when the train stopped and the conductor cried out in the clear April air, "Roma--Roma!"

It was in the afternoon, and the sun shone brightly. They had both come to the station, Mascha and Nikolai--Mascha full of happy, tender expectation; Nikolai not without a certain embarra.s.sment. Even now, after nearly five years, it had cost him a certain effort to resolve upon meeting his father. But scarcely had his glance fallen upon Lensky when he forgot all that had separated him from him. When he noticed the slow anxiety with which the old man came up to him, without venturing to stretch out the arms, with which he made frequent twitching, helpless motions, to him, his heart bled for him, and not troubling himself about the tourists and loungers on the platform, he hurried up to his father and embraced him. Lensky laughed convulsively, somewhat childishly, as old men laugh in order not to weep; then he walked through the station between his two children.

Walking heavily, with the forcedly erect carriage of a man who tries to conceal his increasing infirmity, he strode through the crowd. As formerly when he casually showed himself in a public place, he stared straight before him to avoid the curious looks which used to follow him. But to-day no one looked after him. Only a street-boy pointed out his long hair to another, and laughed at it.

A brilliant blue April sky arched itself over the city. At first Lensky merely exchanged a few remarks with his children and inquired heartily of their affairs. Gradually he grew more silent, ever more silent.

Mascha alone maintained the conversation. But Lensky did not hear what she said. His nearsighted eyes wandered uneasily over everything they pa.s.sed. At times he bent far forward, and then suddenly, as if disappointed, turned away his head.

"What are you seeking, father?" asked Nikolai.

"Rome--I find it no more," murmured Lensky.

"Yes, it has changed very much since eight years ago, since mamma's death."

"I did not see it eight years ago," replied Lensky, roughly. "The Rome that I seek dates much further back."

"The Rome in which you were betrothed to our little mother," whispered Mascha, softly.

He nodded shortly, repellently. All at once his sad face cleared.

"There I still see old acquaintances," he cried, and pointed to two antique columns which, strangely enough, were built into a small house, one of whose tiny windows looked out over their time-blackened magnificence.

"That is just as at that time," cried the old man, animatedly, "even to the particulars of white curtains and red flowers. I remember how your mother once could not laugh enough at the contrast between these freshly washed curtains and the gloomy Roman splendor. Heavens, how she laughed! You can none of you laugh as she. I must show you the house in the Via Giulia, where she lived at that time."

"That has long disappeared," said Colia. "Even eight years ago it no longer existed."

"How do you know that?" burst out Lensky, quite harshly.

"Because she--because mamma sought it then and did not find it."

"Ah! she also sought it," murmured Lensky, and fell into a brooding silence. After a while he raised his head.

"Why did they tear it down?" cried he, angrily. "They had no right to tear it down. It was no trivial, ordinary house, but an old palace, a wonderful old palace, a bit of history. Do not these clowns know that there are relics on which one dare not lay a hand? It brings misfortune to desecrate sanctuaries."

Once more his eyes wander over his surroundings. "No; there is nothing more left of my Rome," said he, after a pause. Then slowly raising his eyes, he adds: "Nothing but the eternal blue heavens above us."

x.x.xVII.