CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 Joseph Whitmore Barry 
 dramatic library 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 TWO FRIENDS 
 
 OF Cornell University 
 
 t934 
 
DATE DUE 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 
 PT 2603.A789E4 1916 ^ 
 
 Elisabeth Koett, 
 
 1924 026 204 903 
 
The original of tliis bool< is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924026204903 
 
ELISABETH KOETT 
 
ELISABETH KOETT 
 
 BY 
 
 RUDOLF HANS BARTSCH 
 
 TSANSLATED BY 
 LUDWIG LEWISOHN, M.A. 
 
 New York 
 Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. 
 
 Publishers 
 
It, ^910, by / 
 
 Copyright, ^910, 
 Desmond FitzGerald, Inc. 
 
 All Rights Seserved 
 
ELISABETH KOETT 
 
 IT was upon the occasion of the first performance 
 of the Valkyrie in Graz. After the first act 
 the crowded boxes had poured their occu- 
 pants into the passages where comparisons with the 
 Vienna opera were instituted. The galleries, however, 
 and a part of the pit, were still held silent and 
 moveless by the magic of the perished music. In all 
 these fevered bodies soared and stirred the song of 
 Spring, the rapture of the moonlit night and of the 
 approach of fate. 
 
 Observed from the stage through a hole in the 
 curtain, this deeply moved, watchful, trembling 
 crowd in the auditorium seemed but one being — a 
 being in its collective entirety of form like a huge 
 bird of prey, wings and beak tensely held in check 
 for an attack. The possibility of a sudden descent, 
 a fierce grasping of its prey! — the inferior artist 
 was conscious of this image. A very different one 
 presented itself to the few powerful temperaments 
 among the performers. They saw in these bright 
 but speckled wings spread out over the galleries, in 
 the white body of the center, in the dark, drawn 
 
 1 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 rows of the parterre, rather the picture of a hawk 
 transfixed by the peasant to his barn-door. For 
 they had it in their power to rob of its own will 
 this monster of four thousand eyes, to shake it, to 
 affright it, to transfix it by the power of a passion 
 cleaving bone and marrow. And this being which 
 resembles a bird of prey, but which can destroy or 
 else exalt one to the very regions of the sun, now 
 trembled, moveless, through a million nerves. . . . 
 
 High up, in the topmost gallery, this quiver was 
 most intense and most sacred. For there stood the 
 consecrated poor of our time. There stood, a bit 
 of dry bread in their pockets, those who had sac- 
 rificed the rest of their supper in order to feel, in 
 all its might and terror, the revelation of the secret 
 of all human things. 
 
 They stood there or sat on the last benches, those 
 who had scarce money enough to buy a few numbers 
 in some series of cheap reprints: those blessed ones 
 whose poverty keeps them afar from the books of the 
 day and who are therefore drawn into kinship with 
 all Olympus. They whose daily commerce was with 
 Sophocles, Homer, Shakespeare, Moli^re, and Goethe, 
 experienced a joy as pure and piercing as is ever 
 felt by mortal man. 
 
 With an innocent throbbing of the heart they stand 
 in the gallery — ^they to whom the great Russians of 
 the eighties were the last word in literature and who, 
 in the Winter of 1897, were on the point of dis- 
 covering Wagner! To-morrow, or next Spring, 
 
EUsabeth Koett 
 
 perhaps, they will discover Schopenhauer, Nietzsche 
 or Stimer — these poor students, clerks, music- 
 scholars, apprentices and workingmen, to whom al- 
 most alone in our time the Kingdom of Heaven opens 
 an earthly portal. They are to be called blessed. 
 
 Up there, among them, stood Wigram, the sturdy, 
 strong-skulled, poor librarian with his roughly chis- 
 elled face, his agate-like eyes, and the most schooled 
 of visionary hearts. It was his ambition to be a 
 philosopher, but he spoke of it to no one. 
 
 There, too, stood the student and private tutor 
 Theodore Rasmus, holy and unholy at once! He 
 was lean, as became his calling. He shared the ad- 
 mirable pagan piety of our time, and hence loved with 
 a deep and cherishing love the frogs and reeds of riv- 
 ersides, mountain height, and cloud, great music and 
 great verse. The man's whole nature vibrated like a 
 cradle-song, even his deliberate hymning voice. He 
 was just speaking to Wigram, a deep devoutness in 
 his modulated tones. He held this Richard Wagner 
 to be among the true children of God, even though, 
 and in spite of . . . much ! He had dark-brown hair 
 and his long locks rose with every expressive move- 
 ment of his head. His nose was curved, long, 
 pointed, ardently red. 
 
 Wigram was silent and continued to regard a seri- 
 ous young woman who stood near him, and who 
 seemed to have no acquaintance here but stage and 
 curtain. She was tall and of heroic build, and he had 
 never seen her in Graz, on the promenade, or in the 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 park, where women, worthy of being seen, are to be 
 seen. To be sure, she seemed poor. Her garb was 
 almost like that of a Russian student : whether from 
 poverty or a craving after pure form, Heaven only 
 knew. Her dress was dark-blue and plain: her atti- 
 tude straight, moveless, and tense. 
 
 During the darkness of the first act Wigram heui 
 thought her hair black. Her great earnestness had 
 even then evoked two or three glances from him. 
 Now, under the glow of the chandeliers, she seemed 
 almost fair. 
 
 " Look here, Rasmus," Wigram turned to his 
 friend, " is that tall girl dark or light.'' " 
 
 Rasmus was in his element. The science of woman 
 was his. He let the Wagner question glide, eel-like, 
 from his grasp, and turned a consciously practiced 
 eye upon the tall girl's profile. 
 
 " Aha, yes, yes," he said. " She's one with hair 
 hke threads of old, golden bronze. When the tresses 
 are all together, they are like darkened bronze: the 
 delicate locks on forehead, temple, or nape are 
 luminous gold. She ought to have the so-called Nu- 
 bian skin. Heavens, what a superb creature ! Look 
 at her throat, the way she holds her head ! " 
 
 " The Nubian style is darker," Wigram said critic- 
 ally. 
 
 " Peach-tinted," Rasmus corrected himself. " It's 
 a color like the brunette fruit-stains which peaches 
 leave on white table-linen." His judgment was de- 
 livered with the gestures of a connoisseur. 
 
 4 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 The pale girl turned farther away ; the lights soft- 
 ened ; the second act began. 
 
 Rasmus was a good critic. As long as Wotan and 
 Fricka contended on the stage he improved his 
 esthetic joy by the devout consumption of an ad- 
 mirable cervelat sausage. Soft and savory sounded 
 the gentle detonation of the severed skin, the intimate 
 mastication and swallowing to the beat of Wagner's 
 music: the odor of the sausage soared triumphantly 
 above it. Gently and tenderly Rasmus broke his 
 accompanying bun, and opened all the pores of soul 
 and body to Wagner, and to the delicious sausage. 
 No one up there was disturbed by him. He was sug- 
 gestive to them all of true life. Not till that central 
 scene in which Briinhilde announces to Siegmund the 
 coming of death, did he hasten to swallow his last 
 morsels before the beginning of the thunders of fate. 
 Now, comfortable and strengthened, he was rever- 
 ently all ear to terror and death. 
 
 The girl, whose pallor glimmered through the dark, 
 still stood upright beside him like a thirsty blade of 
 grass in the field. But at the great presage of 
 death a mysterious shudder passed from her to 
 Rasmus, from him to Wigram. The whole gallery 
 felt it. 
 
 It was silent in the theater. No one knew, at the 
 end of the act, the reason of its greatness. The audi- 
 ence applauded itself back to life. But far off, un- 
 der the stucco ceiling, stood Wigram, and when the 
 act was over he spoke these words : 
 
 5 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Death is the most precious gift of life. To love 
 death, to yearn for death — ^that will be, some day, 
 the loftiest of religions." 
 
 In spite of the almost tropical storm of applause 
 that roared through the house, the strange girl 
 showed a delicately alert ear. She had taken in 
 every word of the earnest, square-built man, and 
 looked at him with great eyes. 
 
 Rasmus interpreted deprecatingly between them. 
 
 " My friend here is a philosopher." 
 
 " It is most beautiful, what you said of death." 
 She nodded assentingly. 
 
 " Death is the mightiest, the ninth and last sym- 
 phony of God," Wigram explained. " We must 
 learn to love and understand it, and we shall be un- 
 assailably blessed." 
 
 At the close of the evening he and the girl, drift- 
 ing inevitably together, left the theater. Rasmus 
 had helped her on with her fur-collar ; Wigram drew 
 on his great-coat. Then they stepped out together 
 into the great pure silence of the night, and made 
 their way through the heavy, thawing snow that lay 
 on the streets. 
 
 " If you go with me," said the tall girl, " you must 
 keep on speaking as earnestly as you began. But 
 I live far from here." 
 
 "Very far?" 
 
 She named a distant suburb. 
 
 " And you tramped all that distance through the 
 slush to the theater.-' " 
 
 6 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " I would h^ve gone much farther," she answered 
 with her modulated, warmly sensuous voice. 
 
 The suburb she had named was one of those quiet 
 places in which, in other days, it had been possible 
 even for the workingman to acquire a bit of ground 
 and set on it his own homestead. " There," as 
 Wigram remarked, " the little people still live in 
 their little houses." 
 
 " Not entirely," the girl replied. " At the edge 
 of the village a butcher has built our first flat-house. 
 My parents are caretakers there, and in it live people 
 of the new day: little people in big houses — people 
 in whose hearts burrows the worm of modernity." 
 
 " You must tell me about all that," Wigram 
 begged her. 
 
 They went through the wet snow, and the whole 
 night and the whole street were one great dripping 
 and purling. It was the secret ministry of the mes- 
 sengers of Spring, and musically the Winter died 
 under every eave. 
 
 Here stood little independent houses with a bit 
 of porch in front of each, accessible from either side. 
 For a moment the girl stood still and pointed toward 
 a house. 
 
 " The woman who lives there and her daughters 
 shell com, and their friends come in and help them 
 and sing the while. In our big house few help their 
 neighbors cheerfully, and all contend with one an- 
 other. Yonder in that little garden-house sits an 
 old locksmith during the still Autumn evenings when 
 
 7 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 his little harvest of berries and fruits is garnered, and 
 smokes and looks up at the clouds. In our house the 
 men read the newspaper and, instead of clouds and 
 dreams, the whole world's unrest floats through their 
 souls. Here drowses a passing world. Up where 
 we live a new one is arising, and of how that 
 hew world will upheave our souls I can tell you 
 more than a little. To conquer — that is our watch- 
 word." 
 
 " And you would conquer this new world from the 
 stage.'' " 
 
 The girl was silent, perplexed and hurt. 
 
 " Do I bear the stamp of it so plainly ? " she asked 
 and stood still. 
 
 " You haven't a single trait in common with the 
 easy-going folk of the stage," said Wigram. " But 
 I think you may have the make-up of a great and seri- 
 ous actress." 
 
 " I want to be a tragic actress," she assented. 
 " And now I'll have the courage to ask you — much. 
 I did want you to go with me, so that I might for 
 once hear an earnest, thoughtful man speak of my 
 plans. I've known you for long; I've often stood 
 behind you to listen to your comments on a play or 
 an opera. You never looked at me, and I often 
 wanted to speak to you. Tell me now : can a woman 
 like myself succeed on the stage? " 
 
 " In the art or in the life of the stage.? " 
 
 " In the art," she said without hesitation. 
 
 " If she's big enough to contemn the success of the 
 8 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 day and of the market-place — she can succeed, to the 
 point of eminence, of genius." 
 
 " Genius ! " she cried raptly. 
 
 " Yes," said Wigram. " Outside of the stage it 
 has always seemed to me that woman can attain 
 eminence only in the sphere of moral endeavor. Here 
 is the sole exception. To please, to enrapture, to 
 sway — isn't that woman's most primitively instinctive 
 tendency.'' And so, in this one art, she can develop 
 her true, her native being. Vanity, an ugly vice in 
 man, is here and in her a high virtue. And hence 
 woman is more truly meant for the stage than 
 man. Into that art she can throw herself: in it a 
 man may lose his individuality. Not she, who 
 can express through it all the chameleon nature 
 of her soul. Yes, truly, in this art she may reach 
 genius ! " 
 
 " Ah, you give me strength and courage," she 
 said, breathing deeply, and stretching out her arms 
 into the refreshing night air. " Come a little 
 farther; I'm near home. But tell me, how can one 
 reach those heights, how achieve great parts .'' " 
 
 " Are you employed on the stage now ? " 
 
 " Oh yes, as a super, or in small parts of ten words 
 each. And I can't get on. Because these little parts 
 — servants, confidantes, seamstresses — are never 
 treated with serious intent by the playwright, but 
 require lightness, archness ! Then, too, our director 
 is really an opera singer, and you know how he con- 
 quers all souls with his art. And how much tragedy 
 
 9 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 is tolerated outside of the opera to-day? Serious 
 drama, even first-rate comedy, scarcely ever outlasts 
 a few days here." Her voice rang out tumultuously. 
 " Heavens ! — to be able to sing Briinhilde or those 
 mighty women of Mozart, which no singer has yet 
 comprehended fully — Elvira, or the Queen of the 
 Night, to sing these greatly, sorrowfully, passion- 
 ately ! " 
 
 " Tragic singing and coloratura? A big or- 
 der!" 
 
 " Ah yes," she answered, suddenly depressed, 
 " everywhere one meets barriers." 
 
 " Would you," Wigram asked, " some day give a 
 friend of mine and myself a specimen of what you 
 can do? If you are the woman I take you for, a 
 very small lift will go far to help. If, then, you 
 get a chance to be heard, it will be your business to 
 give us something worth hearing." 
 
 " Oh, I should love to do that, and I could ! " 
 
 " What is your name ? " 
 
 " Elisabeth Koett." 
 
 " And when can I see you again? " 
 
 " To-morrow, after rehearsal, on the Franzens- 
 platz." 
 
 " Good. I'll ask a friend of mine to exert himself 
 for you. . . . Elisabeth Koett ... I wonder if that 
 name will carry far some day ? " 
 
 The girl shuddered gently. Her one chance was 
 coming. It would be all or nothing. Here her whole 
 being was at stake. She had no money for her 
 
 10 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 wardrobe, and this consideration she knew to be, in 
 the majority of cases, the price of innocence. To 
 barter that priceless jewel for gaudy rags, for feath- 
 ers, for silk stockings — as mighty an array of these 
 as possible — ^that was usually the first step toward 
 greatness ! She knew it and clenched her teeth. " A 
 sacrifice like any other," she thought ; " I must . . . 
 must be great ! " 
 
 But she trembled instinctively, like an animal in 
 danger, when she thought of such a beginning for her 
 career. 
 
 " And now," said Wigrara, " sleep well. Though, 
 if you tumble your bedclothes all night, it may be 
 better. The way to greatness lies past sleepless 
 nights." 
 
 He went straight through the noisy slush : he didn't 
 seem to observe it. One thought soared high in him. 
 To observe a mighty spiritual development from its 
 very beginning. What knowledge of humanity might 
 arise from such a subject of contemplation! If, in- 
 deed, this woman were a genius, that rarest thing in 
 the sex! One might then spend all one's life in ob- 
 serving her and her soul, and the price to pay for 
 the privilege would be no excessive one. 
 
 " If only," he thought, " she truly is what she de- 
 sires to be! But it is almost impossible. I'm once 
 again foolish enough to believe a dream. Let us wait 
 and prove all things. If disappointment is in store 
 for me — that, too, will be marvelously instruc- 
 tive. . . ." 
 
 11 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 The tall, earnest Elisabeth Koett looked after him 
 as, unregarding, hands folded on back, he stormed 
 on through the spattering slush and disappeared 
 clumsily into the night. She thought — ^halfway — 
 of a hippopotamus — ^halfway of . . . Beethoven. 
 
 12 
 
n 
 
 WiGKAM had made the acquaintance of the old 
 Baron Gundenau in an antiquary's shop. He was 
 buying a work on numismatics for the library which 
 he managed. The old gentleman requested a mo- 
 ment's glance at the book, opened it at a copper-plate, 
 and compared with the picture two old, thick silver 
 coins which he drew from his pocket. 
 
 " Upon my word ! " exclaimed Wigram, " what 
 beautiful Dareikons ! " 
 
 " You recognize them.'' " The old gentleman was 
 charmed. " Darius the Second and the Third. What 
 do you think of them.'' " 
 
 Wigram picked up the coins carefully. 
 
 " You'll be glad to hear, perhaps, that they're 
 faultlessly beautiful examples of their kind. They're 
 eloquent, too, in a most suggestive way. The elder 
 Darius, you can see, had barbarians cut his matrix. 
 Look at that long-nosed, bumpy head, like a badly- 
 baked brm. And here, the younger employed Ionian 
 Greeks. What lovely curves and lines ! What a di- 
 vine head ! The coin is exquisite." 
 
 The old gentleman beamed. 
 
 " Man alive ! " he cried, " I specialize in the tyrants 
 of Asia Minor — lonians, Medes, Lycians, Persians, 
 Phoenicians, and Jews. But my Ionic Greeks, my 
 
 13 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 demi-gods — they are the best. Would you like to 
 look at them? Will you come with me? I happen 
 to have the time." 
 
 Thus had Wigram come to know old Ferdinand 
 von Gundenau, who cared for nothing on earth so 
 much as for Ionic coins and for the theater. At his 
 house, too, he had met the student Rasmus, who eked 
 out his small income by helping the Baron with his 
 numismatic essays. All three were thoroughly con- 
 genial. 
 
 Gundenau sat in the pit of the theater, while the 
 two poor young men stood in the gallery. Beyond 
 this none of them had a sense of social diiference. 
 
 On the morning of the day following his meeting 
 with Elisabeth Koett, Wigram rushed to Rasmus. 
 
 "Look here, can the Baron be seen? " 
 
 " He's just arranging some new acquisitions, and 
 can't be disturbed." 
 
 " When can I get hold of him? " 
 
 " Shortly before noon. Why? " 
 
 " You remember the tall girl in the gallery last 
 night? " 
 
 " Yes, surely." 
 
 " She's on the stage, still largely in the dark about 
 herself, but a plugged volcano in reality. Give her 
 air, and the world will echo ! " 
 
 " She makes that impression. A great artist.'* 
 And you saw her home? How did she act? " 
 
 " Silent, but full of passion." 
 
 " For you? " 
 
 14 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " For her ideas." 
 
 " Ah, she is beautiful, too. What are your inten- 
 tions? " 
 
 " Merely to help her on. You must cooperate." 
 
 " Gladly ! Gundenau's interest must be engaged. 
 It's a miracle that has come to us. It will be mag- 
 nificent. And how splendid she is. Remember the 
 way she held her head, as if a crown were pressing 
 that bronze hair ! What's her name ? " 
 
 "Elisabeth Koett." 
 
 " Elisabeth — the name of the great queens. Ah, 
 Wigram, we must apply this torch to the world." 
 
 " What are you so noisy about ? " the Baron asked 
 from the next room. 
 
 " We have discovered a genius ! " cried this enthusi- 
 ast of all that is unusual. 
 
 Gundenau joined them and smiled at Wigram. 
 
 " That coin of Cyrus is a work of genius, I know." 
 
 " That ! " Rasmus snorted. " We've discovered a 
 great tragic actress," he declared, full of faith. 
 
 Gundenau was immediately attentive. He took his 
 turkish fez from his thin, gray hairs, and turned it 
 about in his hands. Then he put it on again, locked 
 the door of his cabinet of coins, and stood, all portly 
 attention, before his two friends. 
 
 " Let me hear about her." 
 
 " Heavens ! " thought Wigram, " but Rasmus will 
 lay it on." 
 
 Rasmus was a liar. He was willing to lie Heaven 
 down upon earth. He did not lie from vanity or the 
 
 16 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 craving to assume romantic airs ; he did not lie from 
 the desire to be overheard and wondered at, nor to de- 
 ceive, nor to give pain. It was the creative artist's 
 yearning that made him lie, the poet's woe ! He lied 
 the crooked straight, smoothing out what the Eternal 
 had bungled. Once, having saved and stinted him- 
 self for long, he had made a journey to Venice. And, 
 most bitter fate, it rained, rained. . . . But he came 
 back and told of the luminousness of the azure flame 
 of heaven in the greenish lagoon, of the opalescence 
 of the pink, orange, and blue houses of the South on 
 the banks of the Riva and in Chioggia. He told of 
 the laughter of the soul-compelling waves at Murano, 
 of that masterpiece of the Celestial Artist, which con- 
 stantly tempts the great craftsmen in cut and colored 
 glass — that mirror of the sea which is lovelier than 
 any Venetian mirror with its golden blue and rosy 
 green mosaic effects whenever a breeze trembles 
 across its surface. And all men, hearing him, con- 
 ceived a yearning to follow in his footsteps, saying: 
 " Fortunate man ! All things are revealed to you 
 at their loveliest." 
 
 And thus he now related the fable and the fairy- 
 tale of Elisabeth Koett. 
 
 " She is an enchanted queen, and from the garb of 
 Cinderella rises the sinewy, slender, proudly passion- 
 ate body of Gudrun. She washes furniture-covers 
 and table-linen, and sings old sagas the while, so that 
 men, hearing her, must dream of mighty things. Her 
 voice is like the wind in the cliffs of the sea — now 
 
 16 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 murmuring like a harp, now resonant as thunder. 
 She has all gifts: passion, sweetness, power, and in- 
 gratiatingness, beauty, heroism, hysteria, perversity 
 — everything, everything ! " 
 
 " Well, well," said Gundenau, who knew his man 
 somewhat, " let us hope that one-tenth of all that is 
 true. We'll put her through her paces — ^but thor- 
 oughly ! You may trust me for that." 
 
 " When may she come? " 
 
 " Would to-day do ? At noon ? " asked Wigram. 
 
 " Perfectly," said Gundenau. " And watch out, 
 watch out ! Trying out actresses, that's my spe- 
 cialty." 
 
 Wigram went, Rasmus hurried along with him ; the 
 old Baron, excited and distraught, went back to his 
 coins. . . . 
 
 On the next morning Elisabeth started out into 
 the day of her awakening. She had told her par- 
 ents nothing, for these were ever awaiting the rich 
 gentleman who should make Elisabeth his mistress 
 and pour money into their lap. Had they known 
 of Wigram they would have given way to a rancorous 
 outburst against the poor philosopher. Had they, 
 on the other hand, known about Gimdenau, they 
 would have tried to bedizen her like a plaster saint. 
 But this day with its deep searchings was sacred 
 to her, and so she held her peace. 
 
 The thaw had continued, and the air was redolent 
 with the odors of earth and of melting snow. High 
 in the heavens the clouds jostled each other north- 
 
 17 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 ward, and were rent in their haste : the hearts of men 
 were clamorous with joy over the blue of the heaven. 
 The whole landscape was full of wandering shadows, 
 and, like celestial sailing-ships, islands of light floated 
 silently over the plain, over the curving hills, and the 
 farther uplands. At one moment the vales of the Mur 
 were picked out by a sunny glow, next a hill church, 
 then the whole Schlossberg. 
 
 Elisabeth belonged to those myriads whose feeling 
 for nature does not extend beyond an appreciation 
 of the elements that make up a free Sunday — dust- 
 less greenery, quietude, a meal in the open, the faint, 
 far crowing of a cock. Without her knowledge, how- 
 ever, her vibrating nerves were under the sway of 
 wind and weather. To-day, in the thaw, she was 
 restless and, in a measure, intoxicated; now full of 
 confidence, now full of troubling thoughts. When- 
 ever the sunshine filled the street with glitter and 
 warmed her shoulders, she went slowly ; when clouds 
 passed over the sun and a frosty wind arose, she 
 hastened, driven by the skies themselves. 
 
 The rehearsal had not yet begun. On the Frcm- 
 zensplatz, under the columns of the driveway, stood 
 the great ones of the stage and spoke of trifles; the 
 small fry huddled together behind the great gate 
 in the frosty alley. Only a few ventured to emerge 
 into the changeful, fleeting sunshine. None were 
 truly glad of the day's many graces, 
 
 Elisabeth stood there silent and apart from the 
 others. " Am I going to stand here to-morrow, and 
 
 18 
 
lElisabeth Koett 
 
 the next day, and a month from now ? " The fateful 
 uncertainty of her life agitated her deeply, and she 
 felt her impassioned heart-beats throb in her very 
 throat. She almost gasped for air, and every beat 
 of her pulses seemed to veil her eyes as with a cloud. 
 
 At last came the manager of to-day's performance 
 — a clever, malicious fellow, full of new notions and 
 a passion for reform. He was a native of Stockholm, 
 named Sven Eppelin; he preferred Ibsen, and con- 
 fused all the minor actors with the excessive subtlety 
 of his requirements. To-day they were to rehearse 
 An Enemy of the People, but the actors were quite 
 indiiferent to the play. They stared at the get-up of 
 the manager. 
 
 " You may congratulate yourselves, my children," 
 said an old stager, " he's got on his Prince Albert 
 and his black tie. That means he's invited to dine 
 out." 
 
 They were all as delighted as schoolboys. The re- 
 hearsal would soon be over. Half of them had drifted 
 hither through a vague love of art, half to gain a 
 sorry but almost effortless livelihood. All united in 
 detesting the necessary periods of instruction. 
 Among these people Elisabeth was necessarily a 
 stranger. Concerning her ambitions, she was silent. 
 She did what was required of her, and lay in wait 
 for a chance. And such opportunity, sure to arise 
 in the general life of man, comes even oftener amid 
 the changeful folk of the stage. 
 
 This time Elisabeth, too, longed for the end of 
 19 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the rehearsal. Usually she silently followed the work 
 of that actress among the principals whose parts 
 were most congenial to her. In her soul she would 
 accompany every glance, every gesture, every sigh, 
 and be tempted to cry out in triumph over her inner 
 certainty of deeper power and more impassioned in- 
 sight. Every such moment she would treasure as an 
 unforgetable one. At home she went over the parts 
 by herself, and cried out aloud in the glorious con- 
 sciousness of her superiority. In such hours she gave 
 her temperament free reign, for she wanted to test its 
 tone and quality. In public she was reserved and of 
 a tense serenity. 
 
 On the stage itself she restrained herself with diflS- 
 culty. When the icy breath of the great, empty 
 place floated around her, she wanted to play, play 
 till she was heated. And this passion went through 
 her very marrow whenever she perceived the mingled 
 odor of dust, lime, and canvas — that odor which has 
 prepared so many hearts for the great disappoint- 
 ment. 
 
 The gray reverse of the curtain, the bare per- 
 spectiveless stage represented to her the darkness and 
 repression of a pre-natal state. " When will the cur- 
 tain rise for me and I stand in that pool of light? 
 When, ah, when ? " 
 
 To-day she was almost feverish, and when the re- 
 hearsal was over, she went slowly and with a nervous 
 terror in her heart from the theater. In the sun 
 stood Wigram and Rasmus, awaiting her. Rasmus 
 
 20 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 laughed with the triumph of life, Wigram was seri- 
 ous, almost solemn. Rasmus cried out: 
 
 " This day will make you great ! " 
 
 " If you haven't some special didble au corps, you 
 will remain small for all external success. Don't 
 trust his gilded dreams." 
 
 Elisabeth gave Wigram her hand. 
 
 " I will trust you, for you are strict." 
 
 So these three went to Gundenau's house, and Ras- 
 mus related as many wonderful things of that friend 
 as he thought necessary to give her a sense of the 
 latter's pecuKar temper. 
 
 Gundenau, his little fez on his head, remained 
 seated in the cushions of his ample arm-chair. 
 
 " So this is she ! " 
 
 Elisabeth bowed and stood with arms lightly hang- 
 ing at her side, in the middle of the old gentleman's 
 room. The silent noonday sun glowed on the book- 
 cases which showed only mahogany and green hang- 
 ings. From one comer a bust of Shakespeare looked 
 down at her. She saluted it silently as that of a 
 colleague, friend, and brother. He would help her. 
 Then she turned her quiet, golden-brown eyes to Gun- 
 denau, who arose before the command of this glance 
 and said : 
 
 " You have the externals, young lady. Now I 
 suppose you think I'll let you go through one of 
 your cut-and-dried parts, all gotten up for the occa- 
 sion, monologue of Jean d'Arc or Mary Stuart .f" " 
 
 " I'll do whatever you wish." 
 31 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " That's better," said Gundenau with a sly air. 
 He went up to one of the book-cases and drew out a 
 pretty eighteenth century volume, fragrant of with- 
 ered rose-leaves. He held it up to her. 
 
 " Do you know this book .J" " 
 
 She read the title. 
 
 " Voices of the Nations m Song. No, I don't 
 know it ; it's lyrical." 
 
 " Lyrical, young woman ; exactly. Suppose you 
 read us one of these lyrical pieces : for instance, the 
 Scotch ballad, Edward." 
 
 Surprised, she took up the volume. 
 
 " There," he commanded, " sit down in my arm- 
 chair. Read it to yourself five times, ten times ; take 
 half an hour. Steep yourself in the tragedy of the 
 poem, and then let's hear you." 
 
 He joined his friends at the window and seemed 
 to be looking down into the street. In reality his 
 glance was fixed on a dark comer of the panes in 
 which Elisabeth, who sat in the light, was visibly mir- 
 rored. Her left arm supported her thoughtful head 
 with its wandering eyes. Her right wrist lay upon 
 the arm of the chair, her hand holding the book. She 
 sat upright in the first effort of attention. Rasmus 
 regarded her full of admiration. 
 
 " Lord, but the woman knows how to sit," he whis- 
 pered, " like a Greek statue." 
 
 Elisabeth had finished her first reading. A light 
 shudder passed over her skin. The artist in her be- 
 gan to conceive. She hastened back to the beginning 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 of the poem, crossed her legs, grasped the book with 
 both hands as though it were a snake which she must 
 throttle. Gundenau observed with pleasure this un- 
 conscious play of the nerves in her flexible body. 
 That, in itself, was something. 
 
 Elisabeth, having read the poem two or three times, 
 dropped book and hands lightly between her knees 
 and sat, deeply stirred, far forward. She was list- 
 ening to the hissing and whispering in her own soul. 
 She was lying in wait for the subtle feints, the cruel 
 grasp of these great verses to reveal themselves to 
 her fully. All her nerves were alert for that dagger- 
 like thrust with which the poem closes. And now 
 she looked dangerous, for in her heart she was mixing 
 poison. And, like Fredegund, the queen of the 
 Franks, the act of torture gave her a blasphemous 
 joy. She was like a beautiful but evil beast of prey, 
 tense for an onslaught, cowering in the caverns of its 
 own strength. 
 
 " Yes, yes, she can sit," Gundenau repeated the 
 words of Rasmus to himself. 
 
 Elisabeth, speaking in half-tones, wrestling with 
 her powers of memory which reached out passionately 
 after the verses, repeated the poem softly. Then she 
 arose, pallid with agitation. 
 
 " I'll begin." 
 
 " One moment ! " Gundenau went for a chair. 
 Wigram and Rasmus retained their place by the win- 
 dow. 
 
 And Elisabeth began. Her voice sank to a hasty 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 whisper, it trembled with tortured curiosity, as of one 
 suddenly coming from a hiding-place where he has 
 waited long: 
 
 "Why is thy sword with blood so red?" 
 
 And she hissed like one in the grip of a nocturnal 
 terror, hissed out the refrain: 
 
 "Edward, Edward!" 
 
 Then she restrained herself to an evil and false 
 tone of sympathy: 
 
 "Why is thy sword with blood so red 
 And why walk'st thou so dreary — Oh ! " 
 
 Then came a weary voice, deprecating, full of deep 
 disgust : 
 
 "Oh, I have slain my falcon keen. 
 Mother, Mother ! 
 Oh, I hare slain my falcon keen. 
 
 And have not such another — Oh!" 
 
 And this last " Oh " was filled with abomination 
 and anger. 
 
 Then the first voice began again, insinuatingly, 
 pressingly, charged with an evil hope and a more evil 
 jubilation : 
 
 " Thy falcon's blood is not so red, 
 Edward, Edward! 
 Thy falcon's blood is not so red ! " 
 
 24! 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 And then the repressed passion broke forth, shame- 
 lessly, victoriously, — the passion of glutted revenge : 
 
 " My son, open thy heart — Oh ! " 
 
 And this time the monosyllable was full of tense 
 expectation. But stubbornly, and yet full of a sad 
 curiosity, comes the deep, weary voice : 
 
 " Oh, I have slain my roan charger. 
 Mother, Mother! 
 Oh, I have slain my roan charger. 
 
 And proud he was and true — Oh!" 
 
 And now the voice had taken on a faint significance 
 of misery and reproachfulness : 
 
 " And proud he was and true — Oh ! " 
 
 But this last " Oh " sounded like a shudder of un- 
 willing resignation and dumb defeat. 
 
 Again came the woman's voice, but this time hur- 
 ried and angry and urgent, as if desirous of putting 
 an end to the grim comedy : 
 
 " Thy charger was old and there was no need, 
 Edward, Edward! 
 Thy charger was old and there was no need. . ." 
 
 Insolently the final words rang forth : 
 
 "Another woe eats in thee — Oh!" 
 
 And this " Oh " was like a challenge ; it had the 
 intonation of a question. 
 
 25 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 With inexpressible power followed the man's thun- 
 derous outburst, the easement of an awful despair : 
 
 "Oh, I have slain my own father. 
 Mother, Mother! 
 Oh, I have slain my oven father, 
 
 And wae, wae is my heart — Oh!" 
 
 And this last " Oh " was long drawn out. It burst 
 forth resonantly, then broke and almost whined. It 
 ceased with almost the moaning sound of a sick child. 
 
 There is no need to illustrate further the woman's 
 facile hypocrisy of repentance, utterly rejected by 
 her son's wounded soul, and the whining lamentation 
 of her words : 
 
 " And what wilt thou leave for my heart's desire? " 
 "Edward, Edward?" 
 
 But the " Oh " this time rang a sharp change as 
 though her son had suddenly faced her like the last 
 Angel with his Dreadful Sword. 
 
 There was a short quivering of the breath, a sudden 
 silence as between lightning and thunder. Then 
 crashed forth the trumpet tone of doom, metallic, 
 terrible, a voice that no one would have thought 
 credible as coming from Elisabeth: 
 
 " A curse I will leave thee and hellish fire f 
 Mother, Mother!" 
 
 The words were as of hammered adamant : 
 
 "A curse I will leave thee and hellish fire. 
 For 'twas thy counsel slew him — Oh!" 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 And this last cry — ^more like an " Ah " — ^was the 
 mightiest of all. It was a jubilation of rage, a 
 desperate relief, a threatening irony. It was a tri- 
 umphant squaring of the bloody account, as though a 
 stone had rolled from the tortured heart. It was 
 ^ull of an angry, wildly woeful relief. It was out — 
 the monstrous truth. 
 
 Elisabeth ceased. Her hands fell to her sides. 
 She seemed humiliated by her own victory. 
 
 " Rasmus, don't speak a word," implored Gun- 
 denau, and for some minutes there was only a breath- 
 ing silence in the room. Then the old gentleman 
 went up to Elisabeth and took her hand in his. 
 
 *' You have created anew for us a great tragedy. 
 You have the creative gift, and you should soon be 
 a great artist. Go and be patient and rely on my 
 help." 
 
 Rasmus was moved; he shook two tears from the 
 sides of his red nose, and sought to go Gundenau's 
 laconic simplicity of speech one better. He said : 
 
 " You are an Olympian, and this day is unfor- 
 gettable." 
 
 Wigram said nothing, but his wild, fixed eyes 
 burned and his heart burned. 
 
 Elisabeth went and Wigram accompanied her a 
 part of the way. 
 
 " Let your great happiness vibrate in you," he 
 said, " and toll its full noon-tide ; such hours are 
 rare enough. I will go silently by your side and 
 think of you." 
 
 87 
 
in 
 
 GuNDENATj had friends at the theater. Hence, 
 some days later, the manager had Elisabeth sum- 
 moned to his presence, and assigned to her, without 
 giving any reason and not without irritation, a small 
 part. It was a graceful part in an insignificant 
 comedy, and her somber genius could make nothing 
 of it. Hence the critics did not mention her per- 
 formance, and all the supers looked upon her with 
 irony. A small actress asked acridly : 
 
 " What price did you pay for that part. J" " 
 
 " The price of your valuable friendship," Elisa- 
 beth rapped out adroitly. 
 
 Nevertheless, she was in despair. The actor Ep- 
 pelin, of whom she thought a great deal, said to her : 
 " One mustn't hope to begin as a spoiled and petted 
 star who rents the playwrights and has plays fitted 
 on her as if they were gowns." 
 
 And the manager asked: "What will you have? 
 I give you parts in which every actress pleases. 
 That's it — a woman must be able to please. If you 
 haven't the desire to stir, to allure, you haven't a 
 quality that makes a possible actress of every waitress 
 or milliner. What am I to do for you? " 
 
 " Give me a classical part," she implored, " only 
 don't put me in light comedy ! " 
 
 S8 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Very well : two weeks from now we'll put on 
 Moli&re's Tartuffe. You may play the part of 
 Dorine." 
 
 " But that, too, needs amiableness and archness." 
 
 " Oh, very well. You want me to tell Baron Gun- 
 denau that I give you grateful parts, and that you 
 refuse them." 
 
 " Oh no, I'll take it." 
 
 Thoroughly perplexed, she left the office. What 
 was she to do.? Was she to be forced into playing 
 ingenue parts, and have her talent dry up for want 
 of use? 
 
 Those were days of an evil pressure. She breathed 
 a weary, miasmic air, and saw above her a heaven 
 without mercy, without anger, without movement. 
 Her delicate nerves became terribly worn. She 
 memorized her part, but the glow of inspiration did 
 not come. There was not a single passage at which 
 her heart could cry out : " This will transport, this 
 will charm." 
 
 And so she went to Wigram. 
 
 Cyrus Wigram lived on the outskirts of the town, 
 and his single window gave on the rich plain of the 
 South. He loved a limitless prospect. On that dim 
 day on which Elisabeth dragged herself to him in 
 such deep discouragement that her soles seemed to 
 cling to the earth, and her knees to give way, he was 
 standing by his window and observing the gray of the 
 sky as a connoisseur studies the most delicate shad- 
 ings of an opal. He regarded this melancholy mass 
 
 29 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 of cloud as though it had palpable being. He noted 
 the drifting shadows on its surface, and said : " I 
 pierce the secret of your life. I see your might, the 
 enduring sloth of your being, but I will see your end. 
 You, too, must die." 
 
 And he observed the secret revolution of the air. 
 He saw the beginning of the end of this dim time. 
 He wanted to go now and Jook up the meteorological 
 reports to see from what source and in what manner 
 a victorious wind would sweep down upon this mon- 
 ster that hovered over and depressed all the Alpine 
 lands. But he heard a knock, answered " Come in," 
 and saw Elisabeth, weary and disconsolate, in the 
 door. 
 
 " You.? " he asked. " What has happened.? " 
 
 " I am unhappy. The god has deserted me. I'm 
 a slave of my nerves. I can't play but by their per- 
 mission, and they've — stopped ! I'm going to make 
 a mess of my new part." 
 
 " Ah, you child of a faithless divinity. Time will 
 bring counsel." 
 
 " No, no, not in this instance." 
 
 The words rang out, and the beautiful, suffering 
 face twitched as though Elisabeth had but come to 
 seek a haven for her tears. 
 
 Wigram felt timidly anxious. He was not good 
 at consolation, for in his own heart he let every grief 
 corrode and destroy itself. So he asked questions 
 instead. 
 
 " What part have you.? " 
 30 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Dorine in Tartuffe. Think of it, the witty, flex- 
 ible, pert, chattering Dorine. They want to throttle 
 my career now." 
 
 " Aha ! " cried Wigram, " to you, too, the art of 
 acting shows first its slime before it gives you the 
 freedom of its clear waters. Yes, it is the earthiest 
 of all the arts. But take my counsel, and for once 
 fight unfair dealing with its own weapons. Play the 
 part to death." 
 
 " Why.? How.? » 
 
 " By the sheer weight of your personality. Force 
 your own idiosyncrasy on the part. Express your- 
 self through it ; use it as a medium only." 
 
 "But how, how.?" 
 
 " Let us see! Isn't there some passion in Dorine.? 
 Surely, her hatred of Tartuffe." 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Elisabeth, who was beginning to un- 
 derstand. 
 
 " Take this hatred and raise it to the wth power. 
 Play it, repressed and half -hidden if you please, but 
 play it — a hatred that lies in wait, that reveals 
 itself in flashes, but one that quivers through 
 the whole piece and fills it with an intolerable sus- 
 pense." 
 
 " Ah, I see, I see ! Oh, you clever man, you dear ! 
 A great hatred, yes, that I can play." 
 
 She threw her fur cap, tippet, and jacket on the 
 bed. 
 
 " I bought those things out of my New Year's tips 
 at home." 
 
 SI 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 The notion of a glowing hatred had hypnotized 
 her already, and these words of hers were involun- 
 tarily charged with its electric might. 
 
 " I've got the book here," Wigram put in, and 
 opened the little brownish paper-backed volume. 
 " Let us look through the part from the point of 
 view I've suggested." 
 
 Elisabeth sat down close to him. She trembled in 
 all her limbs from the nervous strain and sudden re- 
 lief, while he began to read softly and to make his 
 comments. She spread apart the fingers of her 
 lovely, dull-white hand, and Wigram admired its 
 shape, its nervousness, its passion, as she clung to 
 his arm. He thrilled with her emotion. And in him 
 that emotion became transmuted. Thus, while her 
 flexible body was impassioned through all its fibers 
 for the aim and artistic effort that was before her, 
 he had to fight, to repress himself uninterruptedly, 
 lest that exquisite body and fragrant hair become all 
 in all to him, and Moliere's masterpiece less than 
 nothing. 
 
 But she read and tested his interpretation. At 
 times her cheeks reddened; at times her pallor 
 stretched to her very throat. 
 
 When, in her first enthusiasm, she had finished the 
 reading, twilight stole upon them. She pushed the 
 now illegible book aside and talked on in the grow- 
 ing darkness. Wigram gazed at her until his eyes 
 failed him and the darkness swallowed her pallid 
 image. 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Now it is night, Elisabeth," he said desperately. 
 
 " Yes ! " she cried happily ; " it is night, and we 
 have forgotten night and day. I can go now — 
 happy ! And I thank you, you great, unselfish " 
 
 " It gave me happiness, EUsabeth," he broke in. 
 
 " How can I make any return to you," she said, 
 " except to give you my friendship.'' " 
 
 Wigram bowed his head silently. 
 
 " It will be a pure, true friendship," she went on, 
 " a communion of spirits. And so, if you will let me, 
 Cyrus, I will come to you in my doubts and my dif- 
 ficulties." 
 
 In the darkness she sought his hands and pressed 
 them with her nervous, happy strength. He returned 
 the pressure, but gently. 
 
 Then she went. Wigram accompanied her, for a 
 moment, into the illuminated hallway, then turned 
 angrily and scornfully from the reddish glow, and 
 slammed the door of his room behind him. 
 
 Now he sat alone in the nocturnal room, whose air 
 was still athrob with her passion and her life. He 
 thought of his uncouth figure, and his heart swelled 
 with unconquerable yearning and recollection and 
 woe. He suffered and fought the whole night 
 through. . . . 
 
 It was fortunate for Elisabeth that Eppelin was 
 to take the part of Tartuffe. When, at rehearsal, 
 she began to develop the motive of a growing hatred, 
 her fellow-actors were astonished at her temerity. 
 The actress who played Elmire called the perform- 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 ance an insult to the memory of Moliere. It was 
 deepening the comedy into tragedy. But Eppelin 
 said: 
 
 " Tartufe is a tragedy, just as le Misanthrope is 
 one. Moliere was full of bitterness, and conceived 
 these comedies in a tragic spirit. But he wrote com- 
 edies because he wrote for Frenchmen. The whole 
 play, however, with the exception of the inevitable 
 and wretched adulation of Louis XIV at the end, is 
 tragic. Consider, furthermore," he went on in 
 friendly fashion, " that Miss Koett, by the strong 
 emotion she expresses, and thus evokes, not only 
 raises the significance of my part, but increases the 
 suspense that attends my appearance. Nor is this 
 all. She presents a most effective foil to the alluring 
 charm and sweetness of your Ehnire. Also, the ir- 
 ritability of Orgon is made clearer. What more do 
 you want.?" 
 
 In truth, the performance of Tartwffe was laden 
 with tragic suspense. 
 
 The audience was one that did not come to enjoy 
 a comedy, but to admire the great master. In the 
 first and second acts Elisabeth merely contented her- 
 self with portraying adequately the character of 
 Tartuffe, and with preparing for his appearance. 
 But even here crackled and glowed, now and again, 
 the sparks of her passionate temperament. But 
 when Orgon came on, constantly asking after 
 Tartuffe, while Dorine desired to tell of the suf- 
 ferings of the unfortunate wife, her acting began to 
 
 34 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 gather force and fire. She began tentatively, slowly, 
 and reservedly : 
 
 " Two days ago Madame was feverish. . ." 
 
 Then she answered Orgon's question slowly and 
 icily, as if she desired to appear indifferent and yet 
 to veil a threat: 
 
 "Tartuffe? Ah, he is welL" 
 
 But the constant, deeply moved attitude and an- 
 swer of Orgon, " Ah, the good man ! " exasperated 
 her, and into the second description of Tartuife's 
 well-being there stole a tone of grim and icy irony; 
 in the third her disgust broke its bounds ; in the last 
 her irrepressible rage surged up fiercely, so that the 
 last lines resounded like the throb of approaching 
 drums: 
 
 " He drank for breakfast several quarts of wine 
 The blood supplying that — Madame — had lost." 
 
 The cry of her rage, intensely held in check though 
 it was, vibrated through the house. It affrighted, 
 and yet did not break into the character of the com- 
 edy, since this indignation proceeded, after all, from 
 a serving-maid. The last words of the scene, " Now 
 both are very well," she uttered with the grief of bit- 
 ter resignation. In all this there was no straining 
 of the note. The vibration of the acting — but for 
 that one outbreak — ^was an inner one. And thus a 
 mood of heavy and tense expectation for the appear- 
 ance of this evil man was created, and the whole 
 
 35 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 play gained in somber power, depth, and suggestlve- 
 ness. 
 
 In all her scenes with Orgon she struck the same 
 note. In the scene, on the other hand, in which she 
 has to scofF at Val^re and Mariane, she developed a 
 gentle, melancholy humor. Upon the whole she suc- 
 ceeded admirably in arousing curiosity after Tartuffe, 
 who read his lines in a low, vibrant voice. It sounded 
 like cracked glass, searched the hearts of the audi- 
 ence, made the man not only credible, but even agree- 
 able, since his hypocrisy seemed so artistic, so im- 
 passioned, so complete. And, at the moment when 
 Tartuffe steps into the trap prepared for him, a 
 wave of dramatic intensity came from the stage and 
 filled the house. With soft, slow, fox-like tread, 
 seeking to guard himself on every side, the man 
 crossed the stage, and the magic of his low, vibrant 
 voice filled all hearers with a sense of admiration. 
 What a magnificent scamp ! 
 
 And thus should criminals be depicted on the 
 stage. The actor should see in the most detestable 
 character only the master's impartial perfection of 
 workmanship who, in that creative joy over the char- 
 acter — irrespective of its moral quality — which he 
 has brought forth, approaches the Divine Love which 
 is partial to none of its creatures. 
 
 The audience, unprejudiced by previous perform- 
 ances, followed the play with rapt attention. The 
 critical voices, next day, were unanimous. The per- 
 formance had, indeed, been a sin against the spirit 
 
 36 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 of French comedy, but in the direction of German 
 pregnancy and depth. And, just as the moderns 
 stress the landscape in the Odyssey of which Homer 
 thought little, just as Wagner's Briinhilde has 
 changed in thirty years, so it is legitimate to interpret 
 the French poets in the light of the modem soul. 
 Analogously, it was said, Miss Koett's Dorine was a 
 failure from the point of view of French comedy. 
 But the actress had shown herself capable of tragic 
 forcefulness, a woman of quivering nervousness and 
 passion, to whom hereafter (it was suggested) the 
 management might profitably assign the position due 
 her gifts. 
 
 Next day, carrying newspapers, Eppelin came to 
 see Elisabeth in her suburban home. His coming 
 pierced her. Happiness and glory seemed to attend 
 his steps. The papers seemed lovelier to her than 
 laurel-wreaths. Eppelin pressed her hand, sat down 
 with her in the arbor's mild March sunshine, and read 
 to her. Then, when her pride and her thirst for 
 happiness were satisfied for the moment, he said to 
 her: 
 
 " We will work together. You and I can confer 
 greatness on any play, and I have long desired a com- 
 rade such as you. I think we will be able to make 
 each other famous. I will see to it that you get the 
 parts which are most suitable to your temper, and 
 you — well, I trust you won't leave me in the lurch, 
 and even go with me if I should change to another 
 stage." 
 
 37 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Bravely Elisabeth gave him her hand, and he went. 
 She looked for some minutes after this admirably 
 thoughtful man, who always reflected with such 
 probity over the works of the masters which he was to 
 interpret. When the interpretation of a work of art 
 was in question, his strength and resistance were un- 
 conquerable. In ordinary converse he was dis- 
 traught, melancholy, and slightly ironical. He de- 
 fended neither himself nor, often as it was attacked, 
 the honor of his calling. But he did defend his art. 
 He thought of it sixteen hours a day, and during the 
 other hours he dreamed of it. He lived an honor of 
 his profession and of our day, in which there are 
 men who are willing to live and die for art. 
 
 Elisabeth admired the way in which, hesitatingly at 
 first, he attacked a given problem, weighed.it, tested 
 it, illuminated it from every side. This deep thought- 
 fulness and silence won her soul. For she herself 
 flung her whole being upon a problem and conquered 
 it. She needed a single flash of inspiration, and the 
 complete solution at once. 
 
 His very gait seemed characteristic of him. He 
 was to her a living symbol of thought — thought that 
 grapples with obstacles and so wins a slow but mo- 
 mentous victory. Wigram was different, more like 
 herself. Eppelin's spirit was like a light breeze, 
 turning the leaves of a book. It was silent, blessed, 
 and beautiful. . . . 
 
 Once in her life she had loved — a neighbor's son. 
 It had been a tenderness expressed across the divid- 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 ing fence of the two houses. The simple, timid lad 
 had been drafted into the army, and so her faith- 
 fulness had endured for three years (from her six- 
 teenth to her nineteenth). Then he had come back, 
 sure of himself, noisy, impudent, desiring to grasp 
 victoriously what he held to be his property. She 
 had shrunk back. She detested loud and grasping 
 men, she hardly knew why. Perhaps because there 
 was in herself too much of stormy will-power, and 
 she had little admiration for her own nature. 
 
 39 
 
IV 
 
 As the theatrical season approached Spring, the 
 whole city was full of stormy battles which, in a 
 metropolis, are usually fought out underground. 
 But in Graz two fierce parties were formed, like the 
 blues and the greens of the chariot-races in Byzan- 
 tium. The question that divided these parties was: 
 whether the theater was to have a new manager or 
 not. And this fight involved the question of the pre- 
 ponderance of opera over drama. And, since the 
 modern public is more easily approachable by music, 
 the attacking party had a hard time. 
 
 Graz — ^it should be kept in mind — is a city that 
 lies, like a chance-flung bowlder, at the foot of the 
 Northern mountains, and gazes dreamily across the 
 plains of the South. It dreams of the storms on the 
 heights, of the battles of the forests, while all about 
 it still meadows hum sweetly, and the silent sunshine 
 of the fields trembles over nodding flowers. Many 
 old people live in this town, who are spending their 
 latter days in peace, and who have no lack of leisure. 
 They are done with the illusions of life, and devote 
 themselves to the fairer illusion of art. 
 
 And in Graz you will also find the wild, ferment- 
 ing youth of the chill Alpine lands. And in the two 
 universities are gathered no less the impassioned chil- 
 
 40 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 dren of the South — Italians and Slavs. Thus one 
 section of the population is no longer in the turmoil 
 of the difficult, draining, cruel forces of life — the 
 other has not yet been dragged into the whirl. And 
 so art is the mistress of much free time and many 
 free souls. An actor is observed and talked about, 
 and every strong individuality tends to become the 
 hero of cyclic myths. Elisabeth, simple, austere, 
 and usually lonely, otherwise in converse with quaint 
 half -unknown people who were equally lonely, excited 
 through her proud poverty a timid admiration. The 
 whole town was stormily anxious to have her stay ; 
 to observe her development, and to see who would be 
 — ^her first lover. 
 
 Her parents were but little satisfied with the meas- 
 ure and quality of her success. The salary was 
 wretchedly small. Gundenau gave her only a very 
 little in addition, and confined his admiration of her 
 to the ostentatious vantage-point of his box. The 
 wealthy lovers, the extravagant gentlemen of fashion, 
 seemed as far away as ever. And why.'' Why.' 
 That's what the old people couldn't quite compre- 
 hend. What was the use of being an actress if you 
 couldn't turn men's heads.'' 
 
 At the end of the season the tumult of the con- 
 tending factions died out. But first they gave the 
 retiring manager and his operatic artists a great ova- 
 tion, replaced the horses of their carriages, and 
 forced them to six or nine farewell addresses. And 
 when, as a last blow, the report circulated that Ep- 
 
 41 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 pelin and Miss Koett — the chief non-operatic artists 
 — ^were also going away, a mighty roar of despair 
 arose outside the stage-door. Eppelin was taken up 
 and carried on the backs of fierce admirers ; Elisabeth 
 stood against the door, three steps above the crowd, 
 and thus hoped to render unnecessary the Germanic 
 hoisting on a shield. But these impassioned youths 
 stormed up to her, tore off her Summer-shawl — her 
 dearest and best garment — and shredded it into a hun- 
 dred bits, which, souvenirs of the great tragic actress 
 of the future, were taken possession of by student and 
 workingman, clerk and soldier. 
 
 The grand " row " which resulted from this in- 
 cident had the advantage of permitting Eppelin and 
 Elisabeth a quiet escape. He pressed her hand: 
 " Just the contrary of what these good folk think 
 happens, actually, to be true. The new manager is 
 thoroughly interested in you. He has consulted me, 
 and we're going to be engaged together." 
 
 Very happy and half in love she came home and 
 told with a sort of happy regret the story of her 
 torn shawl. 
 
 " So those are the admirers you've gained," her 
 mother shrilled. " Instead of giving you clothes, 
 they tear the few rags that you've bought off your 
 back!" 
 
 And for all that Elisabeth could do, the woman 
 went to a newspaper olHce and, to the delight of the 
 editors, complained bitterly of the destructive enthusi- 
 asm of the hot-blooded youth of Graz. 
 
 42 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 The reporters made of the incident a charming 
 story which won all hearts. The consequence was 
 that, next day, eleven shawls of varying qual- 
 ity came to the suburban janitor's house. Eight 
 of these shawls Elisabeth's mother sold most profit- 
 ably. But the girl cried a good deal on that day, 
 considering that her confessed poverty had won her 
 more friends than her art, and that her success in 
 life had opened with the receiving of alms. . . . 
 
 Then Summer came. 
 
 Elisabeth had failed to obtain an engagement at 
 one of the Summer theaters. " They play nothing 
 but frothy comedies," she complained to her friend 
 Eppelin, when he came to take leave of her. 
 
 " Save your passion," he counselled, " store it up 
 against the Autumn, dearest friend. Then you will 
 conquer all hearts — including mine." 
 
 He looked deep, deep into her eyes and went, but 
 his last words remained thorn-like in her heart. Ah, 
 that is what she would do ! And it was in her, she 
 knew, that piercing magic without which no woman is 
 a woman. But for the sake of a high and severe 
 conception of art she had suppressed that part of 
 herself wholly. Now she determined to liberate her 
 whole self and not to throttle the woman in her heart. 
 It had been Wigram's fault that she had conceived 
 of her art with such virile austerity. " One should 
 follow oneself alone," she told herself. So the Sum- 
 mer passed in a silent contest with Wigram, whom 
 she saw daily. 
 
 43 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Gundenau had invited herself, Rasmus, and Wi- 
 gram, to spend some weeks at a country-house he had, 
 south of the city, upon a silent, fertile height. 
 Where the beautiful oval of the Graz valley narrows 
 about the river Mur, there stand a row of charming 
 little country-seats on heights among forest, fruit, 
 and grain like enchanted warders of the dale. In this 
 region, the heart of Steiermark, nearly every emi- 
 nence is blessed with a view for the sake of which, in 
 hidden valley-lands, people would erect tall look-out 
 pavilions. Here, high above the world and its turmoil, 
 old Gundenau sat on a chaise-longue, in order to watch 
 the clouds that rolled their shifting glories across 
 the fertile plain. There they passed through the 
 gleaming sunshine — streamers of white silk, heavenly 
 sheep. And there the leaves of aspen and poplar 
 twinkled and trembled. For the lightest currents 
 of the air stir the life of these trees. 
 
 " Ah," said Gundenau, " what is man, after all, 
 since his truest happiness consists in vegetating in 
 the good sunlight ? There he lies, opening the petals 
 of his soul, and all his pores drink in, like thirsty chil- 
 dren, the moods and changes of the world's central 
 force." 
 
 Rasmus likewise lay, as if crucified to the earth, 
 upon the greensward, tasted the joy of exquisite in- 
 dolence, and listened to the lullabies of the trees. 
 When the soft wind came, which caresses these heights 
 gently, he would shut his eyes and say : " I hear the 
 hemlocks to the North. And now the pine-trees 
 
 44 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 are murmuring: I scent their fragrance. And 
 now the linden is speaking; its voice is soft as its 
 foliage." 
 
 He luxuriated in sound. The glare and colorful- 
 ness of these days dazzled his sight. So he eliminated 
 that sense from the symphony of his delights. If 
 freshly washed linen was hung out in the wind to dry, 
 he sought a place near it and chatted with it. And 
 when a storm came with its great cloud-masses, he 
 begged the frightened maid-servants to leave of these 
 dancing linen ghosts at least Elisabeth's shifts. 
 " These," he said, " are stirred to tragic altitudes, 
 and whisper to me troubling, alluring secrets. Ha, 
 they're trying to fly away. Take hold of them. I 
 know everything, Elisabeth." 
 
 Elisabeth was often on the point of flight. While 
 these two men dreamed and Wigram wandered about 
 alone, she sat still and thought : " How futile, how 
 futile all this is." 
 
 Her heart burned and she went to the great stone 
 from which one had a view of the North. Where the 
 valley rose toward the hills, there spread the city, the 
 camp where her life's battle really lay. She could see 
 the gleaming of the roofs, could see whole streets 
 picked out by the sunlight, and could hear, when the 
 winds held their breath, the faint, far noises of the 
 city. And if, at such moments, a peasant's cart with 
 its peaceable little horse clattered along the forest 
 way, her heart filled with misery and rage because the 
 trampling of the hoofs deadened for her the voice of 
 
 45 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the city. For the city was to her the dwelling- 
 place of her art and also of the great game of her 
 fate. There lay her triumphs, there her disappoint- 
 ments. It seemed to her often now like a huge kalei- 
 doscope which had flung her — a useless bit of colored 
 glass — out of the richness of its shifting pattern. 
 Did it no longer desire its plaything of the theater.? 
 " Ah," she thought, " the long evenings of Winter 
 will come, and then I shall be desired once more to 
 show the life, the glory, and passion which the com- 
 mon life of man cannot compass. 
 
 Once Rasmus caught her thus and asked sadly : 
 
 " Are you home-sick for the city ? " 
 
 " Yes," Elisabeth confessed, " tell me something 
 of what is going on down there. Or tell me of Vienna. 
 You've been there. How do the great actresses 
 there look.'' Am I like them.? " 
 
 " Not at all," Rasmus answered. " They have 
 long ceased to be what you are, a woman desirous of 
 revealing across the footlights the height and depth 
 of man's life. Their souls are a mosaic of all the 
 thousand desires and perversities of the great city. 
 They believe in the godhead of the ostrich-plume, of 
 diamonds, silk, and lace. To them the lofty peaks 
 of human achievement are represented by a faultless 
 swallow-tail, a box for the season, and a racing- 
 stable. They have faith in every idol of the market- 
 place, and contemn all that the world contemns. 
 They tread upon precious carpets, they " 
 
 She interrupted him abruptly. 
 46 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " What do you think one of those lovely rugs costs 
 the Baron?" 
 
 " Those are genuine Oriental weaves ; five thousand 
 gtdden." 
 
 " Heavens ! " she cried, " I'm a far way from 
 that!" 
 
 Rasmus was easily led into another conversational 
 channel, and chimed in with her mood. 
 
 " Next year your salary will be two thousand 
 gulden, and your engagement short. Don't take a 
 longer one. If you feel drawn to Vienna, you must 
 get there. I'm going there myself. Gundenau has 
 recommended me to the old Count Ziebem. The lat- 
 ter's son is a bit timid, and lives foolishly. He knows 
 no measure. One day he wants to act the part 
 of the grand seigneur, next day that of a monk. 
 He's bored when he's left to his own society. And 
 so,- since Gundenau thinks I'm an amusing per- 
 son " 
 
 " Are you .'' " said Elisabeth and looked at the mel- 
 ancholy Rasmus in a new way. " Well, then, amuse 
 me, please ! " 
 
 " You'll have to wait a little," he assured her. 
 " I'm still attuned to the Gundenau mood, and must 
 (like a phonograph) slip a new record into my ma- 
 chinery. But I'll amuse you, first, with an anecdote. 
 Whatever you wish: my first love, my first spree, a 
 night in Vienna, a picnic with sweet girls, the story of 
 my deepest hatred, Venice seen through the eyes of a 
 Casanova, or the history of the serenade which I and 
 
 47 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 seven others played for a girl who deceived each of us 
 
 with all the rest; or else " 
 
 "Oh," cried Elisabeth, "that will be charming. 
 Tell me the maddest things you know, only please, 
 please, no more Gundenau moods." 
 
 48 
 
Elisabeth had found herself. She blossomed 
 forth and even persuaded Wigram to join in her 
 cheerfulness. Of an evening the three young people 
 would go arm in arm, sing, chat, and, sometimes, Elis- 
 abeth would flatter the anecdotical Rasmus, sometimes 
 the thoughtful Wigram. And so the two men ended 
 by feeling each other's presence to be, in a sense, tor- 
 ture. Wigram fought down this overpowering jeal- 
 ousy as best he could: Rasmus's feeling did not ex- 
 ceed a slight occasional doubt, for he knew himself 
 to be more successful with women than his friend. 
 
 Rasmus often made Elisabeth laugh at the relent- 
 less carelessness of the philosopher's garb. He would 
 invent humorous names for him, or describe him tak- 
 ing a bath, so that Elisabeth would shriek with laugh- 
 ter. But there was no rancor in all this, for Rasmus 
 truly loved all things and men, and not least the un- 
 couth but original Wigram. So that every outburst 
 ended with the words : " But what a passion for 
 thought he has ! What glow of soul, what proud 
 forlornness ! He's a great fellow, for all we may 
 say." 
 
 And thus it came about that Elisabeth often ex- 
 perienced a slight remorse when she was alone with 
 Wigram and ssked her questions : " What do you 
 
 49 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 think of the character of Rautendelein ? Or of the 
 girl who drags the Master Builder to his doom, or 
 Elhda, who desires to choose freely, or Nora, or that 
 splendid Hedda?" 
 
 A question was enough. He would at once let his 
 mind bite itself into the subject, and she listened de- 
 lightedly to his drastic declarations : " Do you know," 
 he would say, " our plethoric society has chased after 
 all desires. It seeks the blue distance in whirring 
 motor-cars, only to find a few mud-huts at the end 
 of its quest. It swallows authors by the dozen, and 
 dots its cities with theaters. Everything, everything 
 can be had on its market-place, except men — com- 
 plete men. Such have died out because there is no de- 
 mand for them. And so the women, who are accus- 
 tomed to have everything, become ravenous ogres. 
 They experiment with men, start each time with a 
 subtle presentiment, and end in disgust and contempt. 
 Two or three men scarcely suffice for a season. And 
 then these women, who are so empty themselves, raise 
 a great cry of reproach against those whose souls 
 they have found equally void. Equally void, I say, 
 but not so avid. For there it is : men are more easily 
 satisfied, but women have this eternal greed for the 
 souls of men, the greed that marks all the characters 
 you mention. Are these Heddas and Noras greater 
 than their sisters whom they despise? Only in that 
 greed for the spiritual man whom the very society 
 in which they live has destroyed and lost. And hence 
 it is that our rich women carry with them that ex- 
 
 50 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 pression of gentle suffering. It is this fact that 
 makes their eyes half-expectant, half-disconsolate, 
 that gives their hands that nervous grasp. They 
 knead a dream. And you have seen their lovely, list- 
 ening throats, bent forward ever, their quivering lips, 
 and their cheeks which are no longer muscles, but 
 nerves. Our time has produced men who conquer all 
 things, attain all things, enjoy all things, are apt 
 for all uses, but have lost the depth of the immortal 
 secret of life. And thus a new woman has arisen — 
 yoiu-self, Elisabeth, are such an one — ^to whom no 
 distance is too far upon her quest, who must seek and 
 seek and seek. The noblest of them find, in the end — 
 their own true selves." 
 
 " Ah, I should like to play the parts of such 
 women ! " she cried. And then she linked her arm 
 with that of her somber friend, and said : " You are 
 one of those rare men, Wigram, only you are all 
 Lernel, all divine inwardness, and no fruit. No sweet- 
 ness of indulgence illumines your barren days. Do 
 you believe that any lovely woman will care to satiate 
 her thirst with your kisses. Why don't you set 
 your clever head the task of earning a few thousand 
 gulden? Then put on the garb of this world, and go 
 into the drawing-rooms and tell them the truth you 
 have found, and write books that will make you fa- 
 mous, and surround yourself with the colors of the 
 fruits of this world. Don't you suffer in your ob- 
 scurity.? Adopt the elegance of Gundenau's friends. 
 A barber could make a fine character head of that 
 
 51 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 uncouth block of yours, could make a demi-god of 
 you. Do all that, Wigram, and I'll fall in love with 
 you." 
 
 He grew alternately hot and cold. But she turned 
 the conversation aside. 
 
 " What do you work at all day over your notes 
 and manuscripts ? " 
 
 "A book." 
 
 " What good does it do you ? Down in the streets 
 is the tumult of life. And you sit, writing, with 
 bent back and trembling hand and glowing head and 
 battling soul ! The others live and suffer : you groan 
 and strive and — ^write ! " 
 
 " O you child of life," he answered with his somber 
 smile. " O you child of life, sent by life to mirror 
 its own multiformity, don't you know that in those 
 hours that seem so lost to you, I myself am the 
 world? Do you not know that then I contain more 
 of life than all that hopes and hates, suffers and sor- 
 rows on the world's highway? Do you not under- 
 stand that I have everything, that I am blessed? " 
 
 " Forgive me, Cyrus," she said, " I do honor you 
 and your aims truly. I could almost love you. . . ," 
 
 It wasn't the sincere truth that she spoke. But 
 she had to act, the impulse was too strong. And dur- 
 ing this summer she learned the art of playing her- 
 self into the most various hearts. With Rasmus she 
 was a good comrade. They laughed together, stole 
 potatoes from the fields, lit a fire in the woods to 
 bake them, went about to the farmsteads and made 
 
 52 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the farmers compliments. A desire and a power had 
 taken hold of her to tell all men what they loved to 
 hear. Rasmus was enchanted with the soft breath of 
 flattery that she breathed upon all. Even Gundenau 
 would sit erect in his armchair and gaze at her as 
 though she had become another. Jestingly he flirted 
 with her, called himself her lover and, since he had 
 no longer the gift of youth to offer, he had to be con- 
 tent with quirps and jests which fell from him as 
 sadly and beautifully as golden leaves from an 
 autumnal tree. 
 
 Once there came on a visit a good-looking young 
 fellow who didn't in the least dress himself like the 
 other gentlemen, showing no desire to be thought an 
 Englishman. As an offset he dressed French fashion 
 like a young Parisian artist. His large, soft hat, his 
 sack-coat, his silk-shirt, his very trousers, had a flow- 
 ing, streaming efi^ect. And all about him, except his 
 bronzed face, was white or light-blue. He looked as 
 if the winds had blown him across the mountains. This 
 was the Alcibiades of Graz, young Ferdinand Hiller, 
 heir of a great firm, and quite useless except in so- 
 ciety. He had served for a year in a cavalry regi- 
 ment, and had come in contact with the city's rather 
 reserved nobility through his love and knowledge of 
 horses. He cared for little except beautiful horses, 
 had a magnificent stable, drove about all day, and 
 talked of little else. Then, suddenly, he sold his 
 stable and bought one motor-car after another. He 
 always kept a minimum of two, a larger car and a 
 
 53 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 smaller, and never was to be seen in either unaccom- 
 panied by an actress or singer. So he raised the 
 dust again and was happy. Now, in the summer sea- 
 son, alone with his chauffeur in a huge touring-car, 
 he visited the country-seats of his friends. 
 
 " What, Miss Koett is here? " he laughed when he 
 was told who the guests were. " Poor thing ! " 
 
 Nevertheless, he stayed a day longer than he had in- 
 tended to, and was pleased that Elisabeth had grown 
 womanlier. " Do you know," he said to her naively, 
 " we don't care nowadays for these tall sybils a la 
 Michael Augelo. Our women take shorter steps. 
 Not tripping ones, to be sure. A sense of something 
 between crime and pleasure — that's what we demand 
 of our heroines. And you mustn't any longer love or 
 hate with your heart, not even with your head. 
 Nerves, nerves — ^the dear chaotic nerves : there's the 
 cry of modernity. Do you smoke ? " 
 
 " No, lord and master," she smiled. 
 
 " Do so ; it makes one nervous, gives one a sort of 
 quiet, slothful, dreamy, sensuous nervousness that is 
 truly modern." 
 
 " Baron Gundenau achieves the same effect by the 
 use of sky and clouds without tobacco." 
 
 " Yes, but you haven't those things always at 
 hand. At all events," he went on, " don't forget to 
 cultivate a certain style at once. Of a lady who 
 smokes nothing should be distinctly visible but her 
 toes, knees, and throat. One should model one's pose 
 on that of a Bacchic Maenad, with head thrown back. 
 
 54 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Of course, that's only my individual taste. Only one 
 must cultivate one's style. How do you smoke, Ras- 
 
 mus 
 
 ? " 
 
 " Like Goethe," Rasmus answered quietly. 
 
 " That is to say ; not at all. And you, Wigram? " 
 
 " Oh, when I begin to think I light one cigarette 
 after another. When I'm in the midst of work, I 
 let them go out . . -" 
 
 " Ah, you happy man ! " 
 
 There was genuinely honest envy and warmth in the 
 exclamation of the young worldling. Wigram, just 
 because he disdained to compete with worldly people 
 on their own ground, gained from such of them as 
 were capable of any thoughtfulness a kind of timid 
 admiration. He seemed to them like a scarce de- 
 cipherable runic stone dating from a mysterious age. 
 But rapidly the young man turned again to Elisa- 
 beth. 
 
 " What do you think, Miss Koett ? Shall we take 
 my car and rush for a while out into the world.'' " 
 
 Elisabeth trembled with pleasure at the thought. 
 But she spoke with a touch of irony. 
 
 " Heaven, I don't think I'm half fashionable 
 enough to be exhibited to society by you ! " 
 
 Hiller was a bit startled. He recovered himself. 
 
 " I didn't think of offering you a drive in the corso 
 merely. I want to show you wood and valley, hill and 
 resounding cliff. You will hear the echo of my 
 chauffeur's horn, and think the old days of the postil- 
 lion have come back." 
 
 55 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " No," she said, " take me down to the city. It 
 doesn't matter whether I'm seen with you. And I'd 
 like to see if everything down there is still so dead 
 and quiet and country-like." 
 
 She uttered the last word with frank contempt. 
 
 " Who'll come along? " Hiller cried merrily. " It's 
 just for the day ; we'll spend the night here again." 
 
 " I'll go," said Rasmus. 
 
 Gundenau looked at the weather and the clouds. 
 
 " Well, so will I." 
 
 " Good, and you, Wigram.f" " 
 
 " I can't. I'm troubled with thought." 
 
 " That's right ; think for us all. Pay our debts 
 in that kind, you Croesus. We'll be thoughtless 
 enough. Shall we start.'' " 
 
 " As you like." 
 
 " Very well. Where's my gentleman in the leather 
 suit? All aboard!" 
 
 The car whizzed off and the pebbles flew. Down 
 the steep way it sped, into the valley of the Mur — 
 the center of a comet's tail of dust. It seemed to 
 lash the road it left behind it and — ^was gone. Only 
 the silvery tones of the horn could be alluringly heard 
 as it played with the echoes of forest and hill. 
 
 Wigram stared down into the valley. His suffer- 
 ing heart was heavy, heavy. 
 
 " There she flies. She will belong to the rich, light 
 men of the market-place, like all the others. She will 
 not, in lonely greatness, brood with me over the 
 thoughts of the poets. A few weeks ago she was a 
 
 66 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 reserved, shy, glowing girl. To-day she is a woman 
 who radiates admiration and love. And she will 
 learn her lesson better and better." 
 
 Yes, she flew away from him and left him with his 
 somber, tragic love. 
 
 " She's coming back to-night. But the day will 
 come when she will go from me and not come back, and 
 I shall hear her name only upon alien lips and with 
 unlovely comment." 
 
 He strode across the heights, passed wayside cross, 
 chapel, and great fir-trees, passed houses and fields, 
 to the great look-out mountain, and gazed southward. 
 Here murmured the noble chestnut-trees and the 
 beech-trees, and doves cooed in the distance. But 
 he could not think. All the magnificence of the world 
 could not carry him to his wonted altitude. The coo- 
 ing of the doves enchanted him with its soft rhythm ; 
 it sounded like the voice of Elisabeth. And, in his 
 powerlessness, he murmured words that were not 
 meant to have rhyme and meter : 
 
 " In the golden-green bushes. 
 Soft and tenderly I call 
 Like the wild and hidden dovei 
 Shyly, yet again forever. 
 Thy dear name." 
 
 It was no song, no ending, but it brought relief. 
 He repeated the few lines over and over, and re- 
 turned, distraught, to the house. 
 
 "How can I escape? By flight. I can't. And 
 then — these summer days will soon be over . . ." 
 
 6T 
 
VI 
 
 Soon young Hiller left, throwing back a merry au 
 revo'ir to Elisabeth. The world about the little castle 
 grew silent and blue and silvery. September had 
 come, and with it the apparently endless days of the 
 South Styrian summer. This season is like the In- 
 dian summer of the Canadian lakes, when forest, field, 
 and the immeasurable distance glow with such glory 
 of hue as though the earth were an iridescent soap- 
 bubble. 
 
 Toward the East, hill glimmers behind hill, golden- 
 green, steel-green, dark-blue, ultramarine, and light- 
 blue, all colors losing themselves in that dream- 
 distance where heaven and earth embrace. There lies 
 the sunlight. Toward the West there is another kind 
 of form and color. Sharply defined and definitely 
 shaded one horizon projects behind another, almost 
 like stage-scenery. It is, in truth, a time that takes 
 the soul captive. The landscape lies, sweet and ripe, 
 in the silvery weather ; there is an echo of singing in 
 the air ; the windmills waken from their dreams ; the 
 orchards breathe their fragrance under the yearning 
 kiss of the departing sun, and the wind plays with 
 the delicate, reddened leaves as it hurries them across 
 the scene. 
 
 68 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Open your heart, Elisabeth," Wigram implored in 
 those days, " and look about you." 
 
 But she turned darkly glowing eyes toward the 
 city : her time, her time was beginning. 
 
 Then came her last day upon those heights. Wi- 
 gram walked beside her, and his heart was as heavy 
 as the lump of gold in the fairy-well. On the edge 
 of the beech-forest the wind had split a tree so that it 
 had to be felled. Now the great pieces lay upon 
 the earth, and from under the bark oozed out the liv- 
 ing sap. 
 
 " Look, Elisabeth," Wigram called to her in de- 
 light. 
 
 "What.? Where.?" 
 
 " Yonder, the wasps ! " 
 
 " The wasps ; ah, yes." To please him she stopped. 
 
 And yet it was a sight worth stopping for. Around 
 the edge of the fallen trunk whence the sap oozed, 
 the wasps fluttered and trembled about each other 
 with their nervous golden-brown wings. It was a 
 thick, pearly interplay of yellow-ringed little bodies. 
 They were drunken with the sweet ichor as though 
 they knew the summer to be offering its impassioned 
 guests a last meal. They did not swarm or sting as 
 Wigram stepped nearer. They trembled and drank 
 and sucked. 
 
 " life, life ! " cried Wigram. " In a few weeks 
 they will be motionless and dead, these dwellers upon 
 sunny fences and barns, these lovers of sweets. And 
 how utter is their enjoyment now ! Did the immortal 
 
 59 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 gods ever so rejoice? Is this quivering joy not im- 
 mortal? Look, Elisabeth, look!" 
 
 " I don't see much to look at," she said, wonder- 
 ing. 
 
 Then they went on, and he was sad at heart be- 
 cause from her was hidden the happiness of seeing, 
 at every step, the movement of the inner nature of the 
 world, of which so many falsehoods have been spoken, 
 but which is not invisibly beyond our reach, but which, 
 to the seeing eye, reveals itself hourly . . . 
 
 Next day Elisabeth sat, studying her new part, in 
 a niche of the bastions of the ScTilossherg which Wi- 
 gram had pointed out to her. The September sun 
 went through and through her, and her body jubilated 
 in a sense of the beauty of the day and the beauty of 
 life. At this time she enjoyed the sun because she 
 was enjoying her part. The instinct for nature was 
 a secondary one with her. The convulsive battle of 
 life, the cry of passionate joy, or the silence of deep 
 absorption — in a word, all the phenomena of human 
 life — in these she lived and moved. 
 
 Her ambition to be great throbbed mightily. A 
 new manager had come: an insignificant actor, but a 
 notable personality. How far his ecstatic devotion 
 to art was perfectly sincere, might have been ques- 
 tionable. It mattered little. He burned with a 
 priestly spirit, preached from behind the foot-lights, 
 and once more forced the town into divided factions. 
 He made the stage seem more important than the uni- 
 versity or the affairs of the commonwealth. And 
 
 60 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 thus actors and actresses trod the parks and streets 
 in a reflected glory. 
 
 But Elisabeth sat amid the crumbling stones of 
 the old fortification, and her pulses beat out one 
 phrase: Deserve your flame! Deserve to live so 
 potently in the consciousness of men. And she 
 opened her manuscript and read all her thirsty pas- 
 sions into the part. 
 
 Lady Macbeth! How she had longed to play the 
 part of this woman, who desired to be stronger than 
 man, and who died, in this straining of her natural 
 strength. But now she read on and on in gathering 
 terror. Ah, if she could have played the part a 
 year ago, when all her thoughts were fixed so in- 
 tensely upon her art. Now the desires of life had 
 sprung up in her, now her glances sought love, and 
 now — now they gave her the part of that woman 
 who had been able to say that she would have dashed 
 her infant's brain out when it smiled upon her. 
 What could she do with all this? To be sure. Wig- 
 ram had told that each age might bring to art its 
 own interpretation, and that especially the greatest 
 poets in whom the soul of the world speaks most 
 clearly carry its own meaning to every age. But 
 how could a woman, in this age that yearns for peace, 
 speak words that had been uttered in an iron day, 
 within sight of rack and wheel, in the cold fury of 
 the North Sea storms. 
 
 But while, confused, frightened, dissatisfied, she 
 played with the idea of the book, Wigram came 
 
 61 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 along. Either he himself had wanted to sit 
 in his wonted niche, or he had come to find Elisa- 
 beth. She called to him as he turned the vine-clad 
 comer: 
 
 " Come over here, Cyrus, and help me ! " 
 
 " What is it ? " he asked, coming toward her and 
 standing still. 
 
 " I am to play Lady Macbeth." 
 
 « Ah, that's fine ! " 
 
 " Ah, but, Wigram, I'm all woman, and Goethe 
 has rightly called this dreadful creature a super- 
 witch." 
 
 " Not rightly," Wigram said quietly. 
 
 "Why not.?" 
 
 " Don't you feel how she exaggerates all her state- 
 ments monstrously, how she must do so to move the 
 heavy nature of her husband.'' Don't you see what 
 deep breaths she draws to force herself to each of 
 these tremendous pronouncements.'' Shuddering and 
 with eyes desperately closed, she staggers to her own 
 terrible words and deeds. She was a woman, weak as 
 any, but she had loved her husband so deeply that 
 she had learned to throw her womanhood into the 
 breach of his shortcomings. Look for the woman in 
 the part. Unless she is forced directly to feign, 
 you will find her such in every one of the longer 
 speeches. And when her words are few, each word 
 quivers with fear and agony. Give me the book. — 
 Isn't there a deep tenderness in that reproach to her 
 husband : 
 
 62 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 'Yet do I fear thy nature; 
 It is too full o' the milk of human kindness. . . 
 
 What thou wouldst highly. 
 That wouldst thou holily.' 
 
 Isn't that tenderly said? Why, next, must she call 
 upon the ' murdering ministers ' who ' wait on na- 
 ture's mischief,' if she were not full of fear? And 
 it is this terror that you must throw into the words : 
 
 ' Stop up the access and passage to remorse. 
 That no compunctious visitings of nature 
 Shake my fell purpose nor keep peace between 
 The effect and it.' 
 
 Yes, pity and sympathy and peace are in her soul: it 
 is the strain of an absorbing love that drives her. 
 See how she suffers : 
 
 ' That my keen knife see not the wound it makes, 
 Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark. 
 To cry, "Hold, hold!"' 
 
 Gladly would she have known nothing of all tha.t 
 horror : 
 
 'What beast was't then 
 That made you break this enterprise to me?'" 
 
 " Very well," said Elisabeth, " but read on : 
 
 ' I have given suck, and know 
 How tender 'tis to love the babe that milks me: 
 I would, while it was smiling in my face, 
 Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums. 
 And dashed the brains out, had I sworn as you 
 Have done to this.' 
 
 Isn't that terrible? " 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 "Yes," said Wigram; "just there you see the 
 strain, the exaggeration into which she lashes her- 
 self. You must speak those words as if you your- 
 self shuddered at them. Deep under your voice there 
 must lie and resound a quivering: It is too much, too 
 much ! And soon enough she breaks down. She had 
 to drink to keep her courage up, and yet every sound 
 makes her wince. And how ineflFably sad and 
 agonized are her words : 
 
 ' It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman 
 Which gives the stern'st good-night.' 
 
 Is that not full of soul, Elisabeth? " 
 
 " Yes," Elisabeth answered, " and here, indeed, she 
 utters words which show that she was not truly 
 capable of the crime, words that sound a note of 
 throbbing pity and love: 
 
 ' Had he not resembled 
 My father as he slept, I had done 't.' " 
 
 " Do you see it, Elisabeth.? " he asked eagerly. 
 " And note, too," he went on, " how her heart echoes 
 and quivers when she repeats the words of her hus- 
 band: 
 
 'A foolish thought, to say a sorry sight?' 
 
 See how the cold shivers shake her when she im- 
 plores : 
 
 ' Consider it not so deeply ! ' 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 And finally don't miss the full expression of her 
 
 heart's most intimate terror : 
 
 'These deeds must not be thought 
 After these ways: so, it will make us mad.' 
 
 A little farther down she loses grip utterly and stam- 
 mers, ' what do you mean? ' And then for the last 
 time she gathers all the strength of her weakness. 
 Trembling, weeping with rage at her own weakness, 
 she performs the dreadful necessary acts. Her suc- 
 ceeding hypocrisy doesn't strain her so. Rather does 
 the womanly acting instinct give her a chance to draw 
 breath. But when she is alone, in the night-walking 
 scene! Surely you can play that, Elisabeth, the 
 agony of a poor, weak, broken heart." 
 
 " Oh, yes, now I can ! " 
 
 " Consider, Elisabeth, that crime is human, too, 
 and so strive to portray the woman humanly. Where 
 that old time spoke in terms of tough sinews, do you 
 speak in terms of nerves, and you will make all souls 
 tremble and sin and repent with you. There is no 
 part that should not compel the hearer's love, in 
 whose heart the actor must be able to evoke sym- 
 pathy, even for the criminal. For in the last analysis, 
 Elisabeth, it is the great, dire Worm of the World 
 that incites all these things, that crawls and quivers 
 and twitches in all hearts." He took a deep breath. 
 " And now I will go, Elisabeth, and write concerning 
 the manner of the death of Macbeth and Lady Mac- 
 beth, for that belongs in my book — my great work." 
 
 " What great work.'' " 
 
 65 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " It's hard to define it yet. But it will be a com- 
 plete philosophy of life. Good-by, most beautiful 
 friend, and be wholly — a woman." 
 
 Elisabeth leaned back when she was alone, and let 
 all the sweetness and significance which the poet's 
 creation had gained, stream through her. She 
 would play with Eppelin. Did she love him, she won- 
 dered ! Why did her thoughts revert to the vivacious 
 young Hiller, the hero not of the day, but of the 
 jour fixe, not of the deep hour of twilight, but of the 
 five o'clock tea? She felt a certain tenderness for 
 both, for Eppelin in her capacity of artist and 
 woman. And for Hiller, in what capacity .!" Well, 
 Wigram had once told her that anyone who can 
 serve us soon grows to be congenial. Did she al- 
 ready possess that secret gift of the actress to con- 
 ceive passion under the stimulus of an ability to own 
 motor-cars ? " What's the use of boring into one's 
 consciousness ? " she said to herself. " All those 
 must love me who follow my acting with sympathy, 
 terror, and joy. Even Wigram counsels me to be 
 all woman." 
 
 " And now I am to play the part of Eppelin's 
 wife! Ah, I can do that wonderfully. For in him- 
 self will then arise the yearning to possess such a 
 woman." 
 
 And she read on and on, striving to read into the 
 various passages all that there was in them of varied 
 love, terror, repression, weariness, or remorse. These 
 things she would make all men feel. 
 
 66 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 A few days later Eppelin came to her and showed 
 her with quiet self-satisfaction a couple of cut-rate 
 tickets to Vienna that he had procured. 
 
 " What are those for? " she asked. 
 
 " They are going to play Macbeth in the Burg- 
 theater," he said in a happy voice. "We can go 
 there and study great methods." 
 
 Elisabeth sprang up. 
 
 " I won't go, not I ! I'm full of tones and pictures. 
 Do you want me to mix all that, to make it turbid.'' " 
 
 " Do come," he implored ; " one shouldn't ever be 
 above learning something." 
 
 " Even if I feel that, in this matter, I'm capable 
 of giving instruction ? " 
 
 " And what if that instruction is all wrong? " 
 
 " It's mine, at all events. I have to act with my 
 voice, with my lips, eyes, hands, with my own heart ! " 
 
 " You are too arrogant, Elisabeth ! " 
 
 " And you too timid, Eppelin ! " 
 
 He was hurt and offered the second ticket to Wi- 
 gram, who took it gladly. 
 
 But she felt suddenly that Eppelin and herself were 
 not children of the same spirit. 
 
 67 
 
VII 
 
 So Eppelin and Wigram journeyed to Vienna, in 
 order to see the Hofburg performance of Macbeth. 
 And Eppelin was fortunate. He learned all there 
 was to be learned and, in addition, took to heart what 
 Wigram told him. The latter argued that Macbeth 
 was still much misunderstood, that the majority of 
 actors looked upon the play as one of mere horrors, 
 and that even the best modern performance can but 
 succeed in teaching you what not to do. 
 
 In Vienna the part of Macbeth himself was taken 
 by an actor who might have played well, for he was a 
 secretive individual with a subdued voice. But he 
 pitched his voice too high, not reflecting that medita- 
 tions cannot be so uttered. The part of Lady Mac- 
 beth was taken by one of the most nervously restless 
 actresses of the day. Had she brought only a meas- 
 ure of true insight to her interpretation of the part, 
 all might have been well. The same was true of the 
 man. But, on the contrary, he jumped, stormed, 
 cried out in terror till the rafters rang and clattered 
 as much as possible with the metal plates of his armor. 
 Similarly the woman shrilled and hissed, spat and 
 shrieked, so that finally there wasn't a shred of hu- 
 man nature left in the whole performance. The 
 witches shrieked in bedlamite fashion, instead of 
 
 68 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 speaking in the ominous whispers of the desolate 
 moor itself. At the prophetical moment (" All hail, 
 Macbeth; that shall be king hereafter!"), Macbeth 
 in order to mark his emotional state, struck his breast- 
 plate with his mailed fist. A clatter went across the 
 scene, in which Banquo should next have whispered so 
 significantly : 
 
 " Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear 
 Things that do sound so fair? " 
 
 And thus it went on from scene to scene. Every- 
 where the true mood of the play, its master-note, of 
 dim presentiment and awestruck silence, was coarsely 
 torn to tatters. And, at the end, where Macbeth, in 
 the terrible relief of his utter desperateness, casts 
 himself almost deliberately into the arms of doom and 
 death — even here the voice, triumphant and unfet- 
 tered, of life itself, was turned into the hollow mouth- 
 ing of the stage. 
 
 Eppelin and Wigram looked at each other. The 
 former was still in doubt and hardly knew what to say. 
 Wigram did not become talkative until the perform- 
 ance was over, and they were on their long walk to 
 their lodgings. 
 
 " Heavens ! " he exclaimed, " I don't envy the man- 
 ager or the actors the puzzled state of mind with 
 which they must have attacked their notion of the 
 play. It's incredible. Macbeth is an undiscovered 
 play. Because if it isn't understood at the Burg- 
 theater, which is probably still the first of all Ger- 
 
 69 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 man stages — ^where are you to expect understand- 
 ing?" 
 
 " It may be," Eppelin said nervously, " and I want 
 to hear all you've got to say. But do you suppose 
 for a moment that we, in our bit of a provincial bam, 
 can surpass the achievement of this famous institu- 
 tion?" 
 
 " Not as far as the ensemble goes, of course, but in 
 a flexible, vigorous, and open-eyed interpretation of 
 individual passages, without doubt. For instance: 
 Macbeth ought never to be loud-voiced; he ought 
 never to be permitted to appear with the seal of crime 
 already upon him. He is a man fulfilled of faith and 
 courage, but an incorrigible dreamer. Look at the 
 play itself. Isn't he described there as dreaming, 
 meditating. How is he spoken to : ' Look, how our 
 partner's rapt,' or ' Your face is as a book where men 
 may read strange matters.' Does he not himself 
 speak of his ' dull brain '."* He is a man of dreams 
 to whom nothing is but that which is not. In the 
 light of these things we must inquire into Macbeth's 
 life before the opening of the play. He was a man, 
 evidently, of fantastic dreams and of silence. 
 Throughout half the play the achievement of silence 
 is his aim; his words are wrung from him against 
 his will. He hesitates, he ponders, but always in the 
 secret chambers of his soul. He is a man of tortur- 
 ing reserve, and even when he speaks out, his utter- 
 ances are oracular and dreamful. There's something 
 of the sonmambulist in his whole being. There you 
 
 70 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 have the key-note to your interpretation. The part 
 must be played with infinite repression ; his voice must 
 be like the sound of a muffled drum. Only at the last, 
 when he conceals nothing more, there must be a peal 
 as of brazen clarions. 
 
 " Thus, to take a specific instance, the scene with 
 Banquo's ghost is to be played with repression and 
 with but little external movement. Again, both be- 
 fore and after his bloody deed, he is, as it were, petri- 
 fied. Only after the second prophecy of the witches 
 does he put shame aside. Now he desires to be a mur- 
 derer. Hitherto he has been driven : now his own mo- 
 mentum bears him on. Until this change in him 
 takes place, he only strains after the magnitude of 
 crime. Never is he utterly devoid of soul and 
 warmth. How gently he speaks of Duncan, how 
 greatly of Banquo, how tenderly of his wife ! As 
 long as he hesitates — true to his real self — he loves 
 her, and she knows that he needs her. For that rea- 
 son she strains to monstrosity the powers of her na- 
 ture. Not till he is hurried along, alone, to the 
 grimness of his fate, does an impatient word concern- 
 ing her death escape him. Nay, until then he is all 
 love and tenderness and care. She is not to learn of 
 Banquo's death, for her conscience is sufficiently 
 burdened already. And on the sheer brink of his own 
 doom his slow, deep, thoughtful words are still of 
 her. 
 
 'Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased, 
 Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, 
 
 71 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Raze out the written troubles of the brain. 
 And with some sweet, oblivious antidote 
 Cleanse the stuff'd bosom of that perilous stuff 
 Which weighs upon the heart? ' 
 
 Not till every hope has abandoned him does he fall 
 into that mad haste which makes his fall like the 
 thunder of an avalanche. And yet his last words are 
 for her, though in his voice a nervous haste should 
 now have replaced the old meditative tone. And even 
 a moment before his fall, how deeply felt are his 
 words to Macduff: 
 
 'Of all men else I have avoided thee: 
 But get thee back; my soul is too much charged 
 With blood of thine already.' 
 
 " And when, finally, death is at hand, an iron, 
 laconic matter-of-factness masters his words. In the 
 face of doom all his true heroism breaks forth. If 
 the horror of his soul and the love he bears his wife 
 have heretofore reconciled one to him, that office is 
 now performed by his stubborn heroism, the relief at 
 his redemption. 
 
 'They have tied me to a stake; I cannot fly. 
 But, bear-like, I must fight the course.' 
 
 And, Eppelin, I would that the archangel Michael 
 might lend you the magnificent thunder of his voice 
 for those words of death : 
 
 ' Before my body 
 I throw my war-like shield: lay on, Macduff!' 
 
 72 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Then come the last words, hacked by the hacking of 
 the swords: 
 
 ' And damn'd be him that first cries, Hold ! enough ! ' 
 
 Wigram's voice dropped to silence as a flame 
 smolders. He had experienced anew the deepest of 
 all tragedies. Now, for the first time, he glared at 
 the man beside him. 
 
 " What are you doing, Eppelin.? " 
 
 " Making notes. What you say is worth thinking 
 about. I'll see whether it's possible to read the 
 lines as you suggest. You demand a great deal. 
 Nevertheless . . ." 
 
 Elisabeth was relieved when she heard that Wigram 
 had persuaded her partner to represent Macbeth more 
 humanly and more soulfuUy. 
 
 At rehearsal Eppelin acted as if he had given the 
 play its new soul. But in this matter he was quite 
 unconscious. For he was the clever, thoughtful, in- 
 dustrious actor of our day, who carries to his art, 
 often enough, a futile excellence of intention, but 
 who is, in the end, a creature of his reading and his 
 instruction. He simply arranges what he has 
 learned. Whether from Wigram or from a book: it 
 hardly mattered. And, after all, the deed itself, the 
 acting, was his own. And here, where a heavy, slow- 
 breathing mood was to be indicated, his nerves under- 
 stood their task, and actor and manager worked in 
 happy unison. 
 
 The performance itself was like the adumbration of 
 
 73 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 a new era in art. As long as the play was kept on, 
 it was a sacred kind of terror to all listeners, and a 
 source of scandal to all those who bring to art only 
 the dulled, dimmed eyes with which they are wont to 
 regard life. 
 
 Macbeth is not a long play, and portions of the 
 witches' scenes had been wisely cut. Hence the tempo 
 of the acting could be in accord with that trembling 
 hesitation of events which seem to rise into the field 
 of consciousness like dreams. Every being who 
 played his part upon this scene was, as it were, 
 shaken by a secret terror: every word was like the 
 ring of fate, cast with soft sound into the golden 
 balance. It was all done significantly, with infitnite 
 care and suggestive power. 
 
 The night scenes were like the tallow-dip by the 
 castle gate. The light flickered fearfully ; now it 
 glowed red, now it turned blue in the wind, which 
 hissed and moaned through the ancient walls. One 
 didn't know, at any given moment, whether Macbeth 
 sighed or the night wind complained in the chimney. 
 Everything was suppressed to the level of one soul — 
 the dark stones of the castle, night, terror, the 
 draught which the wind without drove through the 
 crevices in the walls, and the grim suffering of the 
 deeds within. 
 
 " 'Twas a rough night." 
 
 And when Macbeth stretched out his bloody hands 
 and moaned : 
 
 "This is a sorry sight," 
 
 74 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 all hearts moaned with him and participated in the 
 terror of his deed, for, indeed, no less than he could 
 they have resisted this Lady Macbeth, who flattered 
 her hero like a great, beautiful cat. Even in re- 
 proach her voice was vibrant with love, and she seemed 
 afraid of the harshness of her own words. 
 
 Whispering, breathing upon him, maddening him 
 by the magic of her person — thus she fought for 
 and with him. They embraced so often that in the 
 intimate interchange of speech they seemed a single 
 being with two souls. She implored, she flattered, she 
 sang, almost, the suggestion of those horrors, and 
 the ecstatic desire, the glowing hope softened the 
 bloody awe of her words. She was more like a spoiled 
 and willful child who, in ignorant petulance, insists 
 upon evil, than like a heartless criminal. 
 
 Lovingly, caressingly, like a sister cooling a 
 brother's fevered brow, thus she tried to dispel, to 
 laugh softly away his horror at the apparition of 
 Banquo's ghost. Even the words, " Fy, for shame ! " 
 came from her gently and reproachfully. 
 
 But what, finally, was one to say of the scene in 
 which all the brokenness and the agony of her heart 
 expresses itself in her somnambulistic state .'' She 
 came on the stage like a frightened child, barefoot, 
 and clad in a night-shift — a tortured, wretched, con- 
 fused child, whom the will to evil had maddened, but 
 who was weak and sorrowful. 
 
 There's a cruel folk-tale of a child sent to buy 
 bread. But the farthing rolled from the tiny sin- 
 
 75 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 ner's hands straight into a crack of the flooring. A 
 hot fever took the poor little creature off, and now, 
 in the moonlight, you may see the child in its little 
 shroud tear and scratch the floor and seek and wail: 
 " Ah, the farthing, the farthing ! " 
 
 And what, in eternity, is Duncan's kingly crown? 
 And what the lost farthing? And which misdeed was 
 the heavier? 
 
 And she was this agonized baby: she wailed in 
 lovely, pitiful tones, and, like the song of the wind, 
 her voice vibrated through the house. 
 
 " Yet here's a spot ! " And then she sobbed out 
 brokenly, bitterly. " Yet who would have thought 
 the old man to have had so much blood ! " And a 
 heartrending lamentation accompanied the words : 
 " The thane of Fife had a wife : where is she now ? " 
 And her " Oh, oh, oh," a little farther on, moaned 
 axid broke like the wailing of a dying fire in a 
 draughty chimney. The audience shivered and ex- 
 perienced all the exceeding piteousness of the sight. 
 She looked so forlorn, so utterly helpless in her 
 straight little shift that fell, foldless, from her throat 
 to her ankles. . . . 
 
 If Eppelin had been able to express as passion- 
 ately the redemptory function of doom and death 
 at the end of the play, as she had expressed the heart- 
 rending tone of its ineffable woe, the performance (in 
 spite of the mediocrity of the support) would have 
 been a truly great one. He, however, didn't quite 
 achieve his own intention. He did achieve this much : 
 
 76 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 that toward the end of the play all men felt death 
 to be a wave of the free winds of the eternal heavens, 
 a consoler and redeemer who came to break the ban 
 of those evil dreams which here were Ufe. The few 
 hearts who were ripe for this artistic revelation left 
 the theater exalted, touching eternity, reaching be- 
 yond time. Even the many hundred ciphers felt a 
 stirring in their rudimentary souls. . . . 
 
 The news next day whirred in the streets and in 
 the cafes. The fact was fought over and discussed: 
 the actors had been bold enough to render those his- 
 toric criminals humanly, to infuse souls into those 
 tigerish beings, to temper terror with pity! 
 
 The moralists raised their warning shrieks, and 
 even the press contented itself with acknowledging 
 that the performance had been bold, thoughtful, and 
 deeply moving. It begged to submit, though, that 
 Shakespeare was somebody, too. 
 
 Wigram consoled Elisabeth, who was half-desper- 
 ate, half intoxicated, with her own achievement. 
 
 " The great classics," he said, " would die soon 
 after their own age, if every age did not infuse into 
 them its classical spirit. How long had Homer been 
 truly dead because a school of rhetors encrusted his 
 warm, r'.weet, lovely life ! " 
 
 Elisabeth, in truth, had become the sensation of 
 the hour. All those who consider death a deep wrong 
 done them rather than a deliverance and a redemp- 
 tion — all those did not speak of the agony of Lady 
 Macbeth, but of Elisabeth Koett. They, whom the 
 
 77 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 austere nobility of suffering had never touched, cared 
 nothing for that sorrow, for those sighs. Elisabeth 
 Koett in a mere night-shift! — here was their sensa- 
 tion. Had it been pretty steep? How had she 
 looked.'' Had she had on a corset underneath, or 
 tights.'' Was she thin or stout.? How about her 
 arms.'' How was her hair dressed.'' Had the stage 
 been well-lit? Did she walk rapidly? Noi" — That 
 was a pity ! Wouldn't the censor put an end to such 
 scandal? And the Koett, of all people! Ah, well, 
 deep waters. . . . 
 
 Macbeth had to be repeated six times. The first 
 time the house quivered with terror and with the 
 presentiment of approaching fate: the other times 
 with sensationalism. And ninety per cent, of the 
 audience went away disappointed. If this was the 
 whole show ! Why, it wasn't really bold. 
 
 All the young bloods of the town ran to the theater 
 and fell in love with Elisabeth by the dozen. Of 
 each dozen one fell in love with her lamenting soul, 
 with the ineffable sweetness of her art; the other 
 eleven with — ^her night-shift. . . . 
 
 78 
 
VIII 
 
 Now life began! 
 
 Flowers came and letters and invitations. The em- 
 barrassed congratulations of her colleagues of the 
 other sex, the respect of the manager, the avoidance 
 and secret grimness of her fellow-actresses — all these 
 things showed Elisabeth that she was somebody now. 
 
 Eppelin played Macbeth nightly with more sor- 
 rowful passion, with more humanity, with more of 
 somber piteousness. And when he took Lady Mac- 
 beth into his arms he ventured a shy pressure. She 
 knew well that this pressure was not part of his act- 
 ing, and the sensation ran like pearly drops down her 
 skin. She was fond of him in a way, but she could 
 not look up to him as heretofore. She knew her- 
 self superior to him, and that sense of eagle-like 
 superiority gave her an intimate ecstasy. She 
 wrought upon him with her magic until he fell into 
 that sort of fever in which the gifted soul emits in- 
 spiration as an electric wire emits sparks. 
 
 Thus these two held their art in the joy of a 
 mighty interplay and equilibrium. They compelled 
 all hearts. But finally Elisabeth tore herself loose 
 and emerged in lonely greatness and power. 
 
 And when the fifteen hundred people at her feet 
 were enthusiastic, nay, jubilant, her heart laughed 
 
 .79 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 within her and she bit her lips in the piercing sweet- 
 ness of the sense of seeing everyone intoxicated, con- 
 secrated, maddened ! She played Eppelin into a flame 
 of all the senses, she whirled young Hiller, whom she 
 liked well, into a state of headless passion, she turned 
 the brains of the most worthless and the most 
 worthy men, and pierced all women with a raging 
 desire to imitate the resistless glory of her magic. 
 
 The young men sent her flowers, good and bad 
 verses, offers of marriage, assurances of love, threats 
 of death, notices of suicide. Her heart quivered with 
 a grim delight. It was all grist to her mill : it was all 
 delightful. Eppelin begged for her love. 
 
 " Wait till you're madder still about me," she 
 laughed. 
 
 Now her full beauty unfolded, and old Gundenau 
 radiated pride. He trebled her allowance. She 
 didn't want to accept his kindness, saying: 
 
 " I can give you nothing in return." 
 
 " What ! " cried the old gentleman. " And my 
 joy in seeing you develop so, and my pride, isn't that 
 anything.? And how about my jealousy.'' " 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " Yes," he assured her. " You see, I must give 
 you a large allowance, otherwise you'd be forced to 
 take money from others. Pretty soon you'll have to 
 take modern parts — ^to every part half a dozen 
 gowns. D'you want to earn that in the — usual 
 way? " 
 
 " Not unless I loved the giver." 
 80 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Exactly, Elisabeth," the old gentleman said. 
 " We can speak freely, and I want you to promise me 
 one thing " 
 
 " Dearest friend," she interrupted him, " I'll take 
 no lovers that I don't truly love. Was that it ? " 
 
 " Yes." He looked sadly at his withered, bony, 
 old hands. " And when you've found one whom you 
 love most dearly, tell him the queer fact that old 
 Gundenau gave you your first start without so such 
 as a pour-boire, and drink the health of the old fellow 
 who got nothing " 
 
 " But a kiss," she laughed, put her arms about the 
 old gentleman, and kissed him heartily on both cheeks. 
 " I give you my promise." 
 
 She rushed off. 
 
 But the old gentleman was restless as a brook in 
 spate. 
 
 He laughed and cried and would have given all his 
 Ionian coins for one little sip of the elixir of youth. 
 Now he was in love with her, too, to the best of his 
 ability. 
 
 Ehsabeth had a diable au corps. She changed com- 
 pletely. A young woman whose acquaintance she had 
 made, and who was beautiful enough not to be jeal- 
 ous, had introduced to her a Viennese dressmaker. 
 The latter came especially to Graz to study Elisa- 
 beth's face, figure, gait, and coloring. The conse- 
 quence was that, henceforth, Elisabeth was gowned 
 with a noble and yet subtle simplicity, with a sug- 
 gestion of purity and austere grace. She looked 
 
 81 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 with positive respect at her own image in the 
 mirror. 
 
 But she was still self-distrustful at this period, and 
 went to rehearsal in one of the new gowns not with- 
 out perturbation. But the admiring exclamations, 
 evidently sincere, of her acquaintances, reassured her. 
 Hiller waited for her at the stage entrance, and was 
 beside himself with delight. Not until now had she 
 seemed complete to him. She observed it in his whole 
 bearing, which was full of a new reverence and chiv- 
 ah-y. 
 
 He begged her to change her dwelling. She 
 couldn't possibly stay in that mean suburb. He 
 asked whether he might venture to furnish an apart- 
 ment for her. She gave him her hand and smiled : 
 
 " That's nice of you." 
 
 She gave him no other thanks, and yet he felt as 
 though he had received a favor. 
 
 At the next rehearsal biting comment was not lack- 
 ing. A fellow-actress, who was obliged to take 
 elderly parts, asked whether such costumes could be 
 bought out of Miss Koett's slender salary. 
 
 " No," said Elisabeth and smiled, " my lover pays 
 for them : tell yours to go and do likewise." 
 
 " I haven't any ! " the lady screamed righteously. 
 " Don't you know that I've been married for years ? " 
 
 " Ah," said Elisabeth, " that was prudent in you." 
 
 She didn't associate with any of her colleagues to 
 whom acting was either a mere business or a mere 
 profession. She sedulously avoided anyone in whom 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 it was apparent that he played to earn his salary and 
 was careless of the poets who were to be interpreted on 
 the stage. If, in consequence, evil speaking came to 
 her ears, she had her gift of incisive repartee. 
 
 There was one woman at the theater who had, until 
 now, played the parts of great ladies or great demi- 
 mondaines. From this actress Elisabeth appropri- 
 ated whatever parts seemed to her desirable. Parts 
 that others had spoiled and dehumanized — these were 
 the ones that she especially affected. With nervous 
 passion she threw herself into such studies, let her 
 imaginative insight reconstruct the previous life and 
 the soul-history of a given character, and then she 
 played the part with piteousness, sweetness, and ex- 
 quisite charm. She wanted now to please, to charm, 
 to allure. If she didn't get a part that gave her such 
 scope, there was a crisis. The galleries howled, Elis- 
 abeth made melancholy farewell bows, and — ^next day 
 she had the desired part. If need were, she was pre- 
 pared to break her contract. When the whole city 
 was at her feet, she heard an inner voice : " Oh, dear 
 little town! And yet I must go farther, climb 
 higher ! " 
 
 Eppelin felt his whole nature changed with passion 
 for this moody girl, who would now and then let him 
 kiss her once and then say : " Good-by, I have to hurry 
 off now." He suffered terribly, and when, on the 
 stage, he had to play the part of her lover, all hear- 
 ers were in a state of feverish delight, for it was 
 known how she let him thirst and squirm. . . . 
 
 83 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 It was not long before she had young Hiller where 
 she had Eppelin. He implored in vain. He wasn't 
 even permitted to kiss her mouth. She gave him only 
 her hands, and he had hours of joy and of heart- 
 rending misery. He kissed her beautiful, nervous, 
 twilight-pale hands madly. He turned them in and 
 out, kissed her wrist, sought resting-places for his 
 lips between her fingers, pressed his cheeks and fore- 
 head against them, and avidly inhaled their subtle 
 fragrance. . . . She sat or lay still, gave him now 
 one hand, now the other, felt his bitter passion run 
 through her, and dreamed, dreamed, wondering whom 
 she would, some day, love ! 
 
 He implored her to marry him. " No," she said, 
 " I might be faithless to you. I like to feel such 
 madness as yours. And then, there's my career. I 
 must rise higher, higher ! " 
 
 " What am I to do.'' " he complained. " You see 
 how this mad passion is corroding my whole life ! I 
 must have you. What do you want.? " 
 
 She sat up, suddenly serious. 
 
 " I'll give you a promise. On the day that you 
 get me a first-rate engagement on a metropolitan 
 stage, on that day I will kiss you all you please . . ." 
 
 " How in the world am I to manage that ? I sup- 
 pose that nothing less than the Burgtheater would 
 do.?" 
 
 " Not necessarily. But the public in question 
 must be cultivated, influential, and rich, and I must 
 hold the first place." 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 From that day on the half-maddened boy made 
 weekly trips to Vienna, sought society of various 
 kinds, made the acquaintance of the thousand and one 
 parasites — all having their price — of the metropol- 
 itan stage. He observed that it was not the public 
 taste of the great city that dragged down the reper- 
 tory of its stage. It was the disgraceful competi- 
 tion of theater with theater that caused the exploit- 
 ing of ever lower and lower instincts across the foot- 
 lights, in order to drag the much-desired masses to 
 the box office. And he also discovered that one could 
 make the sparks of success fly upward easily enough 
 if the fuel used was paper — money. 
 
 He succeeded in engaging the interest of agents 
 and managers. Thus it happened that one and an- 
 other manager came to Graz and watched Elisabeth's 
 playing and its magical eifect and drawing capacity. 
 Immediately a competition for her services began, 
 and she ended by accepting an offer that seemed to 
 her most favorable. 
 
 Hiller quietly paid the fine which she incurred 
 for breaking her contract in Graz, and shyly, trem- 
 bling in every limb, brought her at the season's end, 
 her liberation, black on white. 
 
 " What a fool I am," he said sadly. " I'm helping 
 you to separate yourself from me forever. Unless, 
 indeed, you permit me to follow you to Vienna." 
 
 Elisabeth was anxious and serious. She had sold 
 herself, not for money, but for ambition. And now 
 remorse hammered in all her veins. 
 
 85 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 The young man did not dare to approach her : she 
 did not move. 
 
 " Elisabeth," he said gently. 
 
 She looked down. There was a long and terrible 
 silence between these two, who were ashamed of their 
 ugly compact which neither felt free to break. At 
 last Elisabeth pulled herself together. 
 
 " I'll suggest a plan," she said to him, who was 
 now her master. " The vacation is coming. Let's 
 go on a long and beautiful journey. Let us go to 
 Paris, and you must teach me French. It is said 
 that one easily learns to love one's teacher. Don't 
 think that I'm not fond of you now. Only diflfer- 
 ently, only. . . . Let's think of nothing yet but our 
 lovely trip. . . ." 
 
 Her lips trembled, and about her mouth quivered a 
 childlike helplessness, that same helplessness with 
 which she had played Lady Macbeth and which 
 had made of her the fool of her own glowing 
 desires. 
 
 " Of our trip," she went on, " to some country 
 where people have less — conscience — ^than here." 
 
 And she cried like a girl whom pirates have sold 
 into slavery. 
 
 But upon this day Hiller was tender and broth- 
 erly, and comforted her as best he could. It was his 
 good fortune that he was so, and did not frighten 
 her. . . . 
 
 Then they went off on their trip, and Elisabeth 
 Koett was the mistress of a wealthy young man, quite 
 
 86 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 in accord with the methods of other poor young 
 girls who enter the dramatic art — the earthiest 
 and most physical of all the arts, but the only 
 one in which a woman may rise to the height of 
 genius. 
 
 87 
 
IX 
 
 Ain> so this lovely woman had fallen a prey to a 
 provincial leader of fashion and of opinion, who, ac- 
 cording to the use of such persons, journeyed thrice 
 a year to Vienna to gain a knowledge of the sea- 
 son's regnant fads and fancies. Meanwhile the three 
 young men whom Elisabeth had left behind her were 
 fulfilled of grief and rage, and had to fight for their 
 very souls. Eppelin worked, read, and developed 
 himself in his clever way, and only the red-rimmed 
 lids of his cool, gray eyes betrayed the fact that he 
 used the nights for study rather than watch through 
 their endless hours over the cruelty of his grief. 
 
 Rasmus went to Vienna and introduced himself to 
 young Ziebern. The latter was a scion of one of the 
 oldest families of the Austrian nobility. He was tall, 
 a little bent, slender, well-bred, good-looking, of mel- 
 ancholy temper, and so mild and weak that he could 
 not even escape the curse of lasting boredom. He 
 seemed to have a perpetual cold; his nose and lips 
 were soft and full, and looked as though they were 
 slightly swollen. His voice was of feminine gentle- 
 ness. 
 
 The Ziebems had, for centuries, given good sol- 
 diers to the State ; first cavalry men strong with their 
 lances, then admirable adjutants and generals, and, 
 
 88 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 at last, diplomats. Thus they had passed from the 
 sword, as it were, to the fineness of the needle, and the 
 race was tired, tired. 
 
 Severin von Ziebern gave a rest-cure to the nerves 
 of all his ancestors. Not that he was without abil- 
 ities. He rode and fenced tolerably, played the 
 piano tolerably, conversed tolerably, was on fair 
 terms with all men, represented the dignity 
 of his family passably, and would have made 
 a fair enough figure in life itself if others 
 hadn't been stronger. But these others tempted him 
 and he took to sports and to gambling. Three or 
 four times he had come, in a confused state of mind, 
 to his father, to rid him of rather high debts. Hence 
 the old gentleman was on the look-out for a com- 
 panion, secretary, friend; in short, for someone who 
 could exert a bit of influence in the direction of a 
 truer and more serious life. 
 
 Gundenau told him one day of the companionable 
 Rasmus who, on demand, could be a thorough man 
 of the world. The suggestion was taken up. Ras- 
 mus demanded unlimited credit at a tailor's, and a 
 fair salary. He was first engaged on trial in the 
 capacity of courier for the Summer months. When, 
 at the beginning of the Winter, he made a motion to 
 leave, two great tears came into the handsome, gentle, 
 brown eyes of Severin. 
 
 " Oh, how bored I'd be without you this season ! 
 Can you treat me so badly just as I've become used 
 to you? " 
 
 89 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 And so the entertaining Theodore remained. 
 
 Rasmus was of the opinion that anyone whose 
 spiritual equilibrium is imperfect should have some 
 aim upon which to fix the otherwise vague yearning of 
 his soul, even though that aim be unattainable. 
 Hence he inoculated the empty heart of the Count 
 Severin with his own yearning for Elisabeth Koett. 
 That proved pleasant and useful at once. He could 
 speak of the thing which filled his own heart, he 
 could tell wonderful tales of this alluring woman, 
 he could lie to his heart's content, and Ziebern wasn't 
 bored, because the talk was all — of a woman. Ras- 
 mus painted Elisabeth to him in the colors of his 
 own great yearning. He spoke of her golden-brown 
 hair curling over her brow and nape like the fine 
 bronze wires of an antique instrument, of her slender 
 erect figure, of her seriousness, of her sweet silence — 
 like the aroma of unspoken dreams — dreams that 
 communicated themselves to the beholder and were 
 broken by no empty babbling. Just she, this was the 
 wonderful thing, whose soul was full of significant 
 depths, she loved silence. And then he told how this 
 simple girl had one fine day put on the most ex- 
 quisite garb and had become in all her walk and con- 
 versation a great lady. 
 
 " I ought to ask you to stop," said Ziebern, " for 
 I like too well to hear of her, and I am beginning to 
 fall in love with her. Tell me, though, what you 
 know of her more intimate life." 
 
 Then Rasmus told him of the passion of many men 
 90 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 that had floated about Elisabeth, how now she would 
 stimulate it, and now turn it to despair. He told of 
 her wonderful acting of Lady Macbeth, of Eppelin's 
 misery, and Killer's wooing, and, since he had repre- 
 sented her as so pure a woman, he dared not confess 
 that his flowers had been futile and Killer's wealth 
 victorious. Hence he said : 
 
 " Finally, but most unwillingly, she gave Killer a 
 promise of marriage. But she does not love him. 
 He knows it ; I know it ; she has said so herself." 
 
 Then Severin said with a shy remnant of the spirit 
 of his ancestral robber-barons : 
 
 " One ought to take her away from him ! " 
 
 " It's possible," Rasmus assured him, " for she's 
 coming to Vienna." 
 
 " To which theater.? " cried Ziebem. " Do get us 
 a box for the season, and one near the stage." 
 
 From now on they both dreamed passionately how 
 Elisabeth was to be conquered. Ziebern bought her 
 picture and, like the traditional prince in the fairy- 
 tale, fell violently in love with it. Rasmus wrote an 
 account of all these doings to Elisabeth, and his let- 
 ters were exquisitely entertaining to her. . . . 
 
 Only Wigram suffered without relief and beyond 
 measure. 
 
 Hitherto, in the fullness of his work, he had hardly 
 been conscious of woman as an active factor in life. 
 Kis friendship he had given only where he had been 
 met by the highest intelligence. He had loved beauty 
 with a breathless wonder, but he had not desired it. 
 
 91 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 No other lovely woman, however, had ever sat so near 
 him in the magic twilight as Elisabeth had done that 
 one immortal evening; he had never before felt the 
 throbbing of a woman's heart, the trembling of her 
 arm, the fragrance of her hair. 
 
 Now he would gladly have given his life for one 
 hour in which to cover with his kisses her nervous, 
 exquisite hands, as her lover had so often done, before 
 he had ensnared aU the glory of her body in the net 
 of her own ambition. 
 
 Work! work! He cried these words to himself in 
 vain. In his fevered restlessness all books seemed 
 long and tedious. Hence he would take up his paper 
 in the morning and let his mind bite into politics, or 
 the corruption of society, or the records of the courts, 
 and he thought of how all this ugliness had had to 
 arise. Had to — so much he felt sure of. Even crime 
 was necessitated. Man is like a floating leaf: wind 
 and wave are his circumstances. Was there a way 
 out of this reasoning."* 
 
 He thought of slaying Ehsabeth. . . . Would 
 that be necessitated, too.'' 
 
 His days were like soured wine — strong but useless, 
 turbid and intolerably disgustful. And now she was 
 going to Vienna.? And then? And then. . . .? 
 
 He thought of some way out of the spiritual tangle 
 of his life. " You love her," he said to himself, " and 
 that is your fate. There's no escape. But you de- 
 sire to learn and think and write a great work. Very 
 welL Study her, seek the hidden wellsprings of her 
 
 92 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 life. Make her spirit's flame, her ambition, her erring 
 walk the subjects of your contemplation, and she wiU 
 be more truly yours than theirs who hold her flexible 
 body in their arms, and think that they possess her 
 wholly. Follow her life and learn to read the ex- 
 pression in the face of her fate." 
 
 His heart became lighter. He wrote to Rasmus, 
 asking whether that friend could procure him a small 
 position in Vienna, one that might pay but little ; only 
 it must leave plenty of leisure. 
 
 As it happened, Rasmus found him such an open- 
 ing as he desired. It was the librarianship of a 
 workingmen's library. It paid little — only ninety 
 crowns a month — but it was meant to employ only 
 the Sundays and the evenings of its incumbent. 
 Wigram accepted the place joyfully and went to 
 Vienna. 
 
 There he discovered at once, during the Summer 
 vacation, that Rasmus was living two lives. In one 
 of these lives he bore the stamp of the finished gentle- 
 man, and bore himself with the utter conventionality 
 which society demands. He differed from other men 
 only in being known as a charmingly fantastic racon- 
 teur. At present, however, he took a short vacation 
 from all that, since Severin was in his father's keep- 
 ing in a world-forgotten country-seat, where he could 
 take no harm. And so Rasmus had a chance to re- 
 cover from all the galling proprieties. He wore soft 
 shirts and collars and a cap. He carried a Spanish 
 cane, and was to be seen in the most distant Bo- 
 
 93 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 hernias of Vienna, associating with young fellows who 
 still vacillated between the art school and life. 
 
 In the first days of his stay at Vienna Wigram, 
 still without a lodging, was distraught and irritable. 
 Hence, when he was not looking for quarters, Ras- 
 mus persuaded him to visit a studio which five young 
 friends of his had, at great sacrifice, rented in a 
 suburb. The rent of fifteen crowns was distributed 
 among the five. Of furnishings they hadn't much 
 beyond an iron stove and five easels. The place was 
 as bare as a Japanese tea-house. They had a lamp, 
 in addition, a guitar, and a few old rugs. They con- 
 versed and dined, reclining on the floor, like the gods 
 of Greece. They were forced finally, however, to 
 buy a couch — second-hand, of course — since the mod- 
 els who came in were unfortunately exacting. 
 
 Wigram was rather timid about making the sud- 
 den acquaintance of these five disciples of art. But 
 Rasmus told him that four of them were in the coun- 
 try. One of them, however, loved the hot summer 
 of the city, that breeder of glowing thoughts. " So 
 he sits in the studio," Rasmus laughed, " tortured by 
 his ideas, and hurls them upon canvas so that the very 
 paint squirts." 
 
 " Aha ! " said Wigram, " I wouldn't mind seeing 
 him." 
 
 They entered. A pale young man with a huge 
 shock of reddish blond hair came to meet them. His 
 eyes seemed asurge with spiritual oceans. He was a 
 kind of astral being, and led them up to an easel 
 
 94 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 on which stood the beginning of a great Crucifixion, 
 painted with that cruel insistence upon harrowing 
 detail which those use upon whom life has stamped 
 its iron heel. 
 
 One of the three crucified ones had already been 
 colored. He looked like a subject just fetched from 
 an anatomical laboratory, but one who had died of 
 hunger previous to dissection. Arms as thin as 
 spears seemed to pierce the deadly clouds above, the 
 storm tore at the tattered rags scarce covering the 
 wolfish leanness of the loins ; the head was raised high 
 with an expression of infinitely sordid agony, but the 
 chin fell, and the white teeth gleamed through the 
 picture's gloom. The drawing of the thin and tor- 
 tured body was magnificent, but the ugliness of death 
 was dragged from the subject with incomparable 
 ruthlessness. 
 
 " Ah," said Wigram, deeply moved. " I call this 
 a complete representation of that death which is en- 
 during — the compelling murderer of mankind." 
 
 " It is not death," said the ghostly voice of the 
 pitiless artist behind him, " it is the Saviour." 
 
 But because the talent displayed here was in truth 
 wonderful, and because only the hatred and the bit- 
 terness of poverty and oppression had wreaked upon 
 this picture the angry misery of its image of the 
 world — because these things were so, Wigram set 
 about discussing the matter with the young artist. 
 
 Feebler and more feeble became the arguments and 
 imprecations of the unfortunate youth, mightier and 
 
 95 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 more sonorous the voice of Wigram, who proclaimed 
 and preached — while the bronze floods of sunset 
 streamed through a western window — the gospel of 
 the eternal artist — ^Love ! 
 
 " He who contemplates the appearances of the uni- 
 verse with loving insight, can no longer create the 
 frightful or shocking. Do you, for instance, hate 
 any human being? Very well. Then discover how 
 that human being came to be and grew up. Consider 
 how life deceived him, how he deceives himself, and 
 how he is the mere marionette of the circumstances 
 of the world ! And then he will seem no more worthy 
 of your hate than a scarecrow in the fields, which 
 angers the raven, but which the passer-by considers a 
 merry addition to the landscape. And, finally, if 
 your insight into these matters is complete, you 
 will regard that human being whom you have 
 hated not only with understanding, but with 
 sympathy." 
 
 The young painter and Rasmus were both silent. 
 Wigram considered the inner meaning of his own 
 speech, and the deep light of the departing sun made 
 three divine images of them. 
 
 " However,'.' Wigram added at last, " if in the 
 place of your indignation you can't put an equal 
 glow of love — why, work with your indignation. I'm 
 afraid I don't get beyond that often, either." 
 
 The three arose in order to take a stroll in the 
 street. When they got there, Rasmus began : 
 
 " I know how he could be converted to a love of 
 96 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the happy, the healthy, the rich, and the beautiful. 
 It is the love of woman that could teach him." 
 
 Wigram winced, for he felt himself reminded of 
 one whom his heart would gladly have forgotten. 
 Nevertheless, he began to persuade the young artist 
 that the subject was one not unworthy of his thought. 
 And he was soon deep in one of his favorite theses: 
 namely, that in our day, a new human kind had arisen 
 in the shape of woman: a human being with two 
 aspects. From one point of view still ready to play 
 the old, teasing game at love, but, on the other hand, 
 often serious, strong, aglow, open-hearted, and happy 
 in achievement; filled with a yearning sorrow over 
 man, eternally seeking, loving, disappointed. 
 
 And here, too, the seed fell upon good ground. 
 
 Once before had Cyrus Wigram stirred in Elisabeth 
 Koett the ambition to depict these erring children of 
 an old romance, who wear upon their bodies all the 
 insignia of an age of competition: the mannish col- 
 lar, hat, shoes, coat; who tread the ground firmly, 
 and have forgotten the dallying little hands of their 
 mothers, but in whose hearts still ring the chimes of 
 immemorial dreams, and of the old, unforgettable, 
 impossible desires. 
 
 Now, in this young painter, too, welled up the de- 
 sire to depict the beautiful women of our two-souled 
 time, this time full of wealth and arrogance, whose 
 mirror their proud figures are, this time of futile 
 yearning after the goods of the spirit, of yearning 
 after the man ready to lose his life in order to 
 
 97 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 gain it, this time with the unappeased woe in its eyes ; 
 this time whose ears are listening for the lost chimes 
 of a sabbath of the soul — these days of strife and 
 peacelessness and woe. 
 
 But what a picture was that which the streets pre- 
 sented! The Summer still brooded upon them, and 
 only since the sun had flared out in the deep rose of 
 sunset, had the odors of traffic, dust, and asphalt 
 faded from the air. From the open doors of the 
 inns came the fragrance of fresh food, the beer 
 foamed within, and even though everyone seemed out 
 of doors, while these three passed from the oppressive- 
 ness of the day into the blessedness of evening, yet 
 was there no noise or turmoil upon the streets. No 
 one pushed or pressed against another. There was 
 peace in the glow of the dying day, the peace of even- 
 ing. 
 
 " How beautiful is the great city in Summer," Ras- 
 mus said to his friends. " It is almost as if the heavy 
 air restored to men their lost equilibrium. At ninety 
 degrees the greedy city turns into the castle of the 
 Sleeping Beauty. We pass a baker adream in his 
 doorway, the clerks of the great shop yonder tease 
 each other in the happiness of their daily liberation. 
 You look about you and declare suddenly: here are 
 the good old times." 
 
 Wigram, who rarely smiled, looked with an un- 
 accustomed cheerfulness up and down the street. 
 
 " What you say is true, Rasmus. All those rest- 
 less ones, those earners of money, those maws of 
 
 98 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 greed, are gone now. The Fools of Life continue, 
 at the lakes, to play their endless comedy. They do 
 not hear the murmuring of the waves, but deafen it 
 with the noise of their festivities. That furious haste 
 which drove them from the city has gone with them, 
 and only those people have remained who for all their 
 business live quietly and thoughtfully. And so, as 
 in the good old times, business and trade and traffic 
 pursue a quiet course. And everyone is happy. And 
 the yearning after the refreshing coolth of unseen 
 woodlands is better and blesseder than their joy whose 
 realization of all wishes includes boating and tennis 
 and all frivolities. I'm glad to be able to walk 
 here." 
 
 " Look at the evening sky," said the young artist. 
 
 They had come to the Elisabeth Bridge, and the 
 blood of the wounded sky drenched all the western 
 heavens. It was the mighty sunset of the great 
 city — a burnished, reddish gold streaming across the 
 firmament. Below this glow was a yellow edge melt- 
 ing, in the zenith, into a tender green. If you turned 
 your back to the sunset you saw a sky of soft laven- 
 der, but the houses under it were tipped with gold 
 as though crowned, and in their windows great jewels 
 burned to death. Toward the sunset, however, no 
 house could be distinguished from another. They 
 blended into a mighty, purple wall, only the towers 
 pointing upward into the golden fires. There was 
 about them a simplicity of form and tint, something 
 that melted all these giant shapes together into a 
 
 99 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 single mass — ^mighty and ruthless as the life of our 
 age. 
 
 And of this life, which is given us without our 
 will, so cruel, complex, and unconquerable, but which 
 we are to recreate and to fill with music and with 
 reconciliation — of this life these three friends spoke, 
 wandering through the streets in which only a rare 
 vehicle rattled, and which were so empty that the 
 great, red cars of the tramway hardly sounded their 
 brazen gongs. 
 
 From windows blinded with the heavens' glory the 
 palaces of the mighty, locked and screened, stared 
 upon these glowing souls who nodded at them not 
 without love. 
 
 100 
 
Elisabeth was in Paris, that happy city which 
 the neighborhood of a great, cool, flowing river keeps 
 hospitably beautiful even in Summer. She belonged 
 to her lover, but in an absent-minded kind of 
 way. Her heart, her eyes, sought near and far, 
 but always outwardly. Of her own soul she was 
 afraid. 
 
 She learned many things. She learned to imitate 
 the wavelike, gurgling laughter of the Frenchwomen, 
 their swift, light walk, the sudden, perplexed halting 
 and scarce perceptible glance. She learned the 
 proper way of sitting down in the restaurants and 
 cafes, the art of talking charmingly of nothing, of 
 lightly carrying parasol and train, and keeping lace 
 and linen in a state of cloudlike purity. She learned 
 the strange art of seeming a trifle intoxicated without 
 having taken anything, and of keeping perfectly 
 sober even when the champagne flowed freely. She 
 acquired the proper method of sitting in carriage or 
 auto, of all the social and daily subtleties of human 
 contact. Above all, she knew how to adapt, with ex- 
 quisite appropriateness, the form and color of her 
 garb to the peculiar exigencies of her beauty. 
 
 When she returned home she was irritated by the 
 people of the little town, who knew neither the art 
 
 101 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 of urban life nor of rural repose, and she desired in- 
 tensely the larger and more vital atmosphere of 
 Vienna. 
 
 Hiller started out with her in a small car. His 
 mood was elegiac. 
 
 " Why didn't you take the great touring-car.'' " 
 she asked. " Why this slow little car. I'm in a 
 hurry. I need to hear the rushing of the streams of 
 life ! " 
 
 " Be content with this little car," he plead, " it 
 keeps us close together — ^like a bridal couple. Let 
 my farewell be at least a bit of an idyll. For I sup- 
 pose I'll get my conge now.? " 
 
 " Not at all, dear friend," she said ; " we are at a 
 point where satiety is impossible. I was once in love 
 with you, and I feel to-day just as when you used 
 to kiss my hands for hours. I like you, and I'll let 
 you love me still. En revanche, you fulfill aU my 
 wishes. As often as you come to Vienna, you may 
 come to me. But you mustn't take up your perma- 
 nent dwelling in the city, where I must be free to 
 grow. That would lead to a frightful rupture. And 
 now, get up speed, speed ! " 
 
 They flitted by the valley of the Mur and of the 
 Murz. The mountains opened their arms to receive 
 them, but held nothing in their empty clasp. They 
 towered above the road, but they could not hold this 
 woman, who was fleeing from her home. Elisabeth's 
 eyes sought the distance beyond the fir-forests. 
 
 " In what direction does Vienna lie.'' " He showed 
 102 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 her, and she sighed. " Ah, this criss-crossing of the 
 roads ! " 
 
 As they were climbing a long inclined plain that 
 leads to the Semmering Pass, the water in the motor 
 cooler became so hot that the car had to stop a long 
 time. Hiller sought a brook and carefully refilled 
 the tank. But still the machine worked imperfectly, 
 and Elisabeth's impatience filled him with rancor 
 against the car. But thus, at least, the woe of part- 
 ing was alleviated for him. On the rest of the way to 
 Vienna he considered with himself what make of car 
 to buy next, and weighed against each other the ad- 
 vantages of the different makes. Elisabeth was al- 
 most forgotten. 
 
 In Vienna he installed her in a pleasant apartment 
 which he had long held in readiness for her, rented 
 space in a nearby garage for the handsome little car 
 which he presented to Elisabeth, and prepaid six 
 months' rent. Then he lost himself in the life of the 
 city, obeying the urgency of his new mood. . . . 
 
 Elisabeth was quite alone. She didn't, at any time, 
 easily make friends with her colleagues, and so she 
 had many bitter hours, for she had ceased to be ac- 
 customed to loneliness. The manager's reception was 
 cool. After her own engagement he had taken on a 
 magnificent, brilliantly blond person, whose repertory 
 coincided to some extent with Elisabeth's. Moreover, 
 the woman in question was well known in the world 
 of fashionable men, and weighed thirty pounds more 
 than the slender Elisabeth. Now he simply wanted 
 
 103 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 to find out which of the two would render the other 
 superfluous. 
 
 Of her fellow actors there was but one who inter- 
 ested her at all. He had been attached to the same 
 theater as long as anyone could remember. He had 
 gray hair, very red cheeks, was a giant in size and 
 vocal power, and his name was Horst Wullenweber. 
 He was an actor of the old, dashing school, who didn't 
 consider a part carefully or think it out closely. Un- 
 fortunately, he didn't even learn it very well. He 
 was inordinately proud of his voice, which sounded 
 like a great gong, and vibrated throughout the lar- 
 gest auditorium. He told the beautiful silent woman, 
 whom he liked at once, his whole history, and how he 
 had come into possession of his voice. 
 
 " Even when I was a boy," he told her, " I liked 
 to raise my voice. I liked to roar as long as there 
 was breath in my body. That's the reason I loved 
 the country and the mountains. They gave me space, 
 and I didn't annoy anybody." 
 
 Any part that was assigned to him he at once 
 searched through for its possibilities in regard to the 
 expenditure of vocal energy. If it gave him a chance 
 to roar it was a good part, and made him proud 
 and happy. 
 
 He helped Elisabeth over the helplessness of her 
 first weeks in the great city. He took her to the 
 Prater, and persuaded her to drink one glass of foam- 
 ing Pilsener after another, until she grew gently 
 cheerful and began to flirt mildly with the people in 
 
 104 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the garden. He himself seemed to have a hot stone 
 in his inner economy. He poured beer on it till it 
 seemed to hiss. The steins followed each other in- 
 effectually. 
 
 He drank mightily, monstrously, and then in the 
 evening took her home with an uncertain sailor's gait. 
 "The scenery," he roared, "is truly rural! Aha! 
 I can still say it. That means another pint at the 
 Rathskeller." 
 
 And he thundered away down the silent street. 
 
 Next afternoon he turned up again and praised the 
 nature, size, and quality of his katxen jammer in a 
 voice like the roaring of mighty storm-bells. 
 
 "Ho!" he cried, "that was a jag — notable, pri- 
 mal, ichthyosaurian ! My skull felt like the great 
 kettle-drum at the opera during a Meyerbeer orgy. 
 But I have conquered, I and a gallon of water and a 
 goulasch with eighty per cent, paprika, so that the 
 sweat broke out from aU my pores ! " 
 
 " And now I feel well," he would add. " Where 
 do we souse to-day.'' " 
 
 Elisabeth would laugh heartily. The old fellow- 
 seemed to refresh her. He had light-gray eyes with 
 vivid gleams in them, a thick neck, red as a lobster, 
 and thick, red ears, such as are rarely seen in men of 
 his age. 
 
 " Heavens ! " she said, " if there were a play in 
 which we two could cooperate — that would be delight- 
 ful." 
 
 " There is one," he trumpeted. " The Cotmt of 
 
 105 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Urschcmeck, or The Sinful Nun! The nun, you un- 
 derstand, comes to the Count in the form of an in- 
 satiable ghost by way of a subterranean passage, and 
 they have a magnificent night-affair. But she is 
 caught and immured alive. He discovers it all, and 
 beats down the wall with his mailed fist. Grand, I tell 
 you, grand ! Why, when I played that in the year 
 sixty- three the bricks just flew about in the 
 auditorium, and the people fled, wildly applauding, 
 to the exits. But this weak-kneed generation has 
 thrown the old chivalrous plays on the dung-hill. 
 Nothing like that now. . . ." 
 
 His last words were melancholy. 
 
 Elisabeth laughed again. 
 
 " Never mind. Some day we'll play Goethe's 
 Goetz! " she said, and was happy to have found a 
 human being who seemed to act as the proper back- 
 ground to her own nerves. He himself simply hadn't 
 any. 
 
 " I'll take the part of Adelhelt," she went on, " and 
 you that of the Knight with the Iron Hand." 
 
 " Agreed ! " he cried merrily. " Why, we've got 
 to put on some classic piece every Thursday, any- 
 how. I'll get busy with the manager at once. He's 
 got to let you do Adelheit." 
 
 He didn't come back out of sheer embarrassment. 
 For the manager had given all the great and grateful 
 parts of the immediate future to the beautiful Helen 
 Kalmen, with her mighty, white shoulders. Thus 
 Elisabeth Koett had leisure enough. The manager 
 
 106 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 was saving her for the great women of old-fashioned 
 tragedy. It was a matter of distinct discomfort to 
 him that it was thought the duty of every distin- 
 guished manager to put on occasionally unknown 
 pieces by the great masters. He had chosen Ibsen's 
 Expedition to the North, and Elisabeth was to do 
 what she could with the part of Hjordis. He was 
 still very skeptical as to her power over the nerves ^ 
 of an audience. After all, she ^>,-as a provincial. 
 
 And so the lonely actress made up her mind to visit 
 Wigram, of whose move to Vienna she had heard 
 with mixed feelings. Still, curiosity pricked her. 
 Did he do i": for her sake.!" 
 
 In the neighborhood of Schonbrunn, in the top 
 floor of a tall house, Wigram had rented a cheap 
 little room. The house stood in an inaccessible quar- 
 ter, swarming with poor people. Few wanted to 
 climb to the fourth floor, and, moreover, his window 
 gave on the West, the windy side of the city. But 
 all these circumstances really ministered to Wigram's 
 content. He looked out across the tiles, which ab- 
 sorbed all light and rested the eye with their grayish 
 red, straight to the green trees of Schonbrunn. On 
 the roofs, the grave and graceful cats took their con- 
 stitutionals ; in the courtyards fluttered the merrily 
 colored clothes ; wide open over him curved the sky. 
 Here he could watch the multiform movement of the 
 heavens in rain and sun and storm. The clouds of 
 the mountains were his ; the storm-winds blew, like 
 the trumpets of the Day of Doom, through all his 
 
 107 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 window-cracks. When the wind howled and moaned 
 and whined, his landlady would say : " The poor souls 
 are crying." 
 
 He had been in luck when he found this woman. 
 She saw that he was poor, and took care of him in 
 many ways. She was a tall, humorous person. Her 
 husband was a railroad hand with a thirst. But she 
 was stronger than he, so that she managed to secure 
 from him, in vigorous but merrily recurrent battle, 
 three-fourths of his weekly wage. The remaining 
 fourth he left on Saturday night in the tap-room. 
 Hence Frau Polle's Sunday excursions were made at 
 the window, with eyes and dreams. Now Wigram also 
 spent a good deal of his time at the window, and so, 
 across the narrow court, these two made friends with 
 each other. He told her of the colors, struggles, 
 fates of cloud and wind, and she mended holes in his 
 philosophically ancient shirts. 
 
 Elisabeth was a bit malicious. Hiller had taught 
 her how to manage a motor-car, and so, defiant and 
 in grand style, she now rode to Wigram with the 
 intention of taking the poor fellow for a ride in the 
 car of her prosperity. She left the car at the door 
 in care of the janitor, who, full of respectful aston- 
 ishment, gave her the number of Wigram's room. 
 She climbed up, knocked, and stepped into her bitter 
 old friend's little cave of the winds. 
 
 Wigram had recognized her step and knock, and 
 the thought. It is Elisabeth! shivered through him. 
 But when she rustled in, all silk and feathers, some- 
 
 108 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 thing in him grew cold, and he thought : " All the 
 insignia of harlotry. But she's lovely for all that." 
 
 " You expect me to recognize you, Elisabeth? " 
 he said. " You oflFer a sharp contrast to this place ! " 
 
 She stood still, hesitating. She had come up in a 
 victorious frame of mind, and had knocked wan- 
 tonly. Now it came suddenly into her mind that, 
 since she had seen him, she had burdened her soul 
 with guilt, and had, as yet, made no atonement 
 through her art. Wigram, on the other hand, had 
 remained pure, as always. She thought, too, that 
 her immediate situation was really anything but 
 splendid. And so she spoke humbly enough: 
 
 " Be good, dear friend ! I get bitter words enough 
 from others, and these few rags and trinkets I buy at 
 the price of many evil hours. If you can't say some- 
 thing dear and kind to me, at least tell me about 
 yourself. May I sit down ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said good-naturedly, " do sit down, 
 Elisabeth." He pointed to the divan, and himself sat 
 down in the window-seat. 
 
 "How do you get along here.?" she asked. 
 
 " Well enough." 
 
 " Have you a good salary? " 
 
 " Ninety crowns a month." 
 
 " Cyrus ! " she cried, " for the love of God ! " 
 
 " Oh, it's a good deal," he hastened to assure her. 
 " I pay fifteen crowns a month for this little hole, 
 five a month suffice for light and heat even in the 
 coldest Winter. The little iron stove conquers these 
 
 109 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 few square-yards thoroughly. Ten crowns a month 
 go toward clothes, laundry, and books. So that 
 leaves me a gulden a day for food." 
 
 " But a breakfast at an inn costs that much ! " 
 
 " I don't go to an inn. Mornings and afternoons 
 I have half a quart of milk with bread. At midday 
 I cook beans with lard, or else my landlady fetches 
 me sixty heller worth of beef with vegetables. That 
 leaves a crown for night, when I have sausage and 
 bread and butter and tea in plenty. One gulden a 
 week I put aside for a Sunday excursion." 
 
 " And tobacco, of which you were so fond.'' " 
 
 " I've given up the habit." 
 
 " But, Cyrus, you always said that your best ideas 
 rode on the blue clouds of smoke." 
 
 " I have a better mount for them now." 
 
 "And that is.?" 
 
 " The wind, Elisabeth, the storm-wind, that crashes 
 over these roofs, and makes me happy even in my 
 sleep. In three days this very wind taught me to 
 love Vienna." 
 
 Elisabeth told him that she hated the storm. It 
 made the wearing of a handsome coiffure, of an 
 elaborate hat, or a full garment all but impossible. It 
 tore at everything. 
 
 " I love the wind more than a brother," said Wig- 
 ram, full of enthusiasm. " When the wind doesn't 
 blow, nature is silent, and God seems dead. He 
 speaks in the storm. Then are the heavens full of 
 motion and beauty, even when the cloud masses are 
 
 110 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 very gray. I would not exchange any master's im- 
 mortal music for the storms of the forest against this 
 window, for the wailing in the chimney, the crashing 
 on the roof, the roaring in aerial heights, the won- 
 derful song of the trees yonder in Schonbrunn. The 
 very thought of it all trickles like a living ecstasy 
 through all my veins. That is the weather of my 
 mood, Elisabeth, in which I seek the open. Last 
 night I walked about the streets while the storm 
 thundered and the bricks crashed. While all the other 
 sleepy people lay in their beds, I saw the lights turn 
 blue, and heard them hiss between life and death. I 
 passed Schonbrunn, and there Satan seemed to be 
 astride the wind ; there was a crying and roaring and 
 blaring like that of the Specter Huntsman's horn. 
 And all that liberated my soul, for it showed me that 
 the soul of the universe was like to mine — as stormily 
 harmonious, as threatening, and as home-like, as 
 happy in the consciousness of strife. I felt that I 
 was God's child, Elisabeth, God's child ! " 
 
 Elisabeth sat still, lost in thought and melancholy. 
 
 " You are happy, and your happiness costs the 
 price of neither money nor honor, but rather in- 
 creases your faith in yourself. Ah, Cyrus, and I am 
 so spotted by the world ! " 
 
 " You are not spotted if you are serving in a great 
 cause." 
 
 " Ah," she sighed, " if I were serving in a great 
 cause! But the greater my actual success, the 
 smaller the — cause seems to become." 
 Ill 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " I know, I know," said Wigram, " that's because 
 you didn't remain lonely . . ." 
 
 "Did you?" 
 
 " Not wholly," Wigram smiled. " But in your 
 sense, yes ! What I do is to remain within hearing- 
 distance of the immature, the aspirers, the learners. 
 Do you hear those light leaps on the stairs.'' There 
 comes one of my young friends, three steps at a 
 time. I wonder if he'll conquer life in the same 
 tempo." 
 
 The young painter to whom Rasmus had taken Wi- 
 gram stepped in. He saw Elisabeth, and stood tim- 
 idly still. 
 
 " That is young Furscher," Wigram said, intro- 
 ducing him. " And this is Elisabeth Koett, of whom 
 you've heard a good deal — more than was good for 
 you anyhow. Keep your seat, Elisabeth, and you, 
 Furscher, look at her well. She is such an one as 
 you would like to paint. 
 
 " Yes, she is such an one," said Furscher, lost in 
 the contemplation of her. 
 
 " Well, then, paint her ! " 
 
 " Yes ... if I may ! " 
 
 " Surely," cried Elisabeth, and sprang up. " I've 
 never been painted. How are you going to pose 
 me?" 
 
 She looked about for a mirror. There was one 
 — almost a superfluity for Wigram — ^by the window. 
 
 " Hold ! " cried Wigram. " Stay just as you are, 
 Elisabeth, with your hands on your hair. Furscher ! " 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Yes, yes ! " the young man assented. 
 
 " There," said Wigram, " is the woman of to-day. 
 Behind her a whole sky full of harvest-time clouds — 
 the sunshine of September, the melancholy of the dy- 
 ing year. And the woman herself stands before the 
 mirror and, with a gentle anxiety, regards herself. 
 Furscher, get out your colors ! " 
 
 " I haven't any but landscape colors and a brown 
 sketch." 
 
 " That will be admirable ground-work. Paint 
 over it; make just a sketch. And quickly, or the 
 clouds will shift and she will get tired. Paint the 
 mood of the sky to-day, and throw in Elisabeth at 
 the window in mere outline. She'll come back : won't 
 you, Elisabeth.'' But the clouds float about in 
 eternity, and will never again be the apotheosized 
 bundles of veils that they are to-day." 
 
 And Furscher painted. Wigram, in the mean- 
 time, entertained Elisabeth with what she liked best, 
 conversation on those poets who have known the heart 
 of woman. But Elisabeth dreamed of her picture, 
 and hoped that a whole world's young strength might 
 stand before its magic and feel the stirring of infinite 
 desires. . . . 
 
 Elisabeth came often. 
 
 Now at least these young people who began here 
 the march of their fate had happy hours. Rasmus 
 often joined them, and exhorted Furscher with his 
 melancholy, homiletic voice : 
 
 " Note, Furscher, the deep, thoughtful, bluish- 
 113 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 white of her eyes. They're gleaming too brightly. 
 There must be a veil over them — a veil of desires and 
 of dreams." 
 
 Or else: 
 
 " The shoulders are a shade higher. They lie in 
 wait, a trifle cat-like. Gracious, Elisabeth, I've never 
 seen such slender and flexible shoulders. You're like 
 a leopard ! " 
 
 She laughed and thanked him for the compliment. 
 
 " Furscher," he said another time, " oughtn't the 
 bare arm which reaches up to the hair have a glazing 
 of asphalt or Van Dyck brown ? " 
 
 " I know what you mean," Furscher said. " I'm 
 coming to those depths of tinting, to, that sunny and 
 velvety loveliness." 
 
 It was a troubling, an alluring picture. Upon 
 those happy, far-faring clouds of the silvery-blue 
 September sky there seemed to travel a sigh, a wish. 
 . . . And Elisabeth, too, grew daily more strange and 
 spiritual. In the beginning it was the effect of a 
 gently gnawing sorrow over herself and her art and 
 her remorse. Thus Furscher drew a countenance full 
 of a deep humility. And in addition, Elisabeth, who 
 was permitted to read while the painter concentrated 
 his attention upon her features, had taken up a stray 
 sheet of the else carefully hidden writings of Wigram. 
 And she felt that these sorrowful words had been in- 
 spired by her. 
 
 In truth, Wigram had written a poem in terza rvma 
 in those days when all his being was permeated with 
 
 114 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 sorrow and yearning over the loss of her soul. And 
 Wigram often made his way to philosophical clear- 
 ness through the medium of verse which he loved 
 equally. The poem which Elisabeth had found went 
 thus: 
 
 " 'Tis this has given me sorrow's heritage 
 That on perfection I mine eyes had set. 
 And yet am spotted as life's common wage. 
 
 " But its remorse my heart could not forget, 
 And thus I kept me from their woeful fate 
 Who never knew the immortal passion's fret. 
 
 " O thou, to the world's wishes dedicate. 
 Seeking upon the highway what is born 
 Only within the secret soul's estate; 
 
 " There must I seek my wealth, deep and forlorn. 
 While from the loud mart where thy treasures be 
 Rings to me thine intolerable scorn. 
 
 "A different striving falls to thee and me: 
 
 The great command shall have my latest breath; 
 Life seekest thou and I Eternity, 
 
 " The while we both await an equal death." 
 
 " And it is thus that he thinks of me ? " Elisabeth 
 thought, and looked sadly at Wigram, who, lost 
 in thought, had not observed her find. " And why, 
 why does he always dwell on the thought of death. 
 Every other word is of annihilation, of passing into 
 the infinite. ... In him the riddle of Egypt of old is 
 embodied once again: to live for death. And to 
 what does it all lead him ? And is it true that I have 
 become so estranged from what he calls the inner life ? 
 
 'The while we both await an equal death. . . .' 
 115 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 I have a subtle fear in me without his admonitions, 
 and it may be that this life which I desire so much 
 will end in my downfall." 
 
 She was very subdued in those days. She had no 
 part assigned her, her extra funds were at an end, 
 and her tastes, which had been pampered and exag- 
 gerated by Hiller, were helpless before her mere 
 salr ry. 
 
 She didn't want to write to Hiller. Hitherto he 
 had considered it a favor to be permitted to make 
 her presents, in spite of which she felt that she had 
 to pay too high a price for his assistance. If she 
 would once condescend to ask for something, she 
 felt that she would thereby yield up all right to her 
 sustaining pride. And this pride seemed to her 
 more precious than her chastity which, in truth, 
 she had given up to him calmly. " No one 
 would have believed in my purity, anyhow," she 
 told herself bitterly, after the consummation of 
 her bargain. 
 
 And, as she sat there, put to shame by Wigram's 
 poem, which, though it was not a masterpiece, re- 
 vealed to her the struggling of a mighty soul — as she 
 sat there, half-confused by the sorrows and desires 
 of her life, and yet victorious over both through her 
 pride — Furscher painted her eyes. 
 
 When, at the end of the sitting, she saw her car 
 on the curb, she reflected that she had better sell it. 
 Her colleagues would deride her if she were known to 
 live in a poor way and yet keep an auto. 
 
 116 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 She managed the car so thoughtlessly in her dis- 
 traught condition that, near her house, she ran down 
 an old stage-hand, Christamentl, who had just 
 brought her the manuscript of a new part. The old 
 man fell heavily and bemoaned himself. A crowd 
 gathered, a policeman came up and asked questions, 
 but Elisabeth, almost weeping with shame, excitement, 
 and pity, supported the old man into the house, had 
 him carried upstairs, put in her bed, and then sent for 
 a doctor. A reporter, who had heard rumors of a 
 dangerous accident, came for an interview, and found 
 old Christamentl well provided with bandages without, 
 and port within, praising the excellent heart of Miss 
 Koett, and declaring that in three days he would 
 be back at his post. And the reporter was so 
 touched by the anxiety and helplessness of the 
 lovely, unknown actress that, next day, an admi- 
 rable Elisabeth Koett anecdote went through all the 
 papers. 
 
 " Heavens ! " the manager thought, as he read it, 
 and a happy thrill went down his spine. " She's got 
 an auto." 
 
 And his whole judgment of her changed. She 
 must be a good actress — a drawing-card, alluring 
 and fashionable. He sent for her this very morn- 
 ing. 
 
 Elisabeth was frightened, and thought she was to 
 be rebuked for causing so silly a disturbance in pub- 
 lic. " At all events," she reflected, " it will give me 
 the chance of making myself clear to him. I can't 
 
 in 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 be left to go to seed here. Happily the return to 
 Graz is free ! " 
 
 But the manager smiled most engagingly. 
 
 " You're a great sportswoman, and you get us 
 into nice messes ! Don't you know that the theater 
 can't get along without old Christamentl ? Ask him 
 himself. And you nearly killed him ! " 
 
 " I wish it had been you instead," said Elisabeth 
 dryly. 
 
 " Oho ! " 
 
 " The idea of sending me such a part," she went 
 on. " I hope it's a mistake. I am to be the gentle, 
 tame Mrs. Elvstedt, and Miss Kalmen is to be Hedda 
 Gabler ! Have I irritating hair that takes everyone's 
 attention.'' Am I the woman who would have given 
 a humble squeak when Hedda imperiously pinched 
 her arm.'* Do I look like a little fool, a dear little 
 fool who should have kept her little hands from 
 meddling with anyone's fate? Is that not rather a 
 picture of Miss Kalmen, who plays all her parts with 
 her fair hair and throat and shoulders ? " 
 
 " Oh, but listen to me " 
 
 " In short, I'm returning the part ; it mitst have 
 been exchanged for that of Hedda." 
 
 The manager noted with pleasure that Elisabeth 
 grew paler and paler, and observed the delicate quiv- 
 ering of her nostrils, which he liked not only in beau- 
 tiful horses. And he was adroit enough to ward off 
 the imminent storm. He interrupted her. 
 
 " I see a way of dispensing with all explanations. 
 118 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Did old Christamentl, who has been ill at your house, 
 confess to you that he made a mistake about the 
 parts ? Yes or no ? " 
 
 Elisabeth hesitated a moment. Then she caught 
 his drift and laughed merrily. 
 
 " Yes ! " 
 
 " Well, then, all you've got to do is to persuade the 
 old thickhead, so soon as he can walk, to go to Miss 
 Helen and beg her pardon for having exchanged the 
 parts." 
 
 " Ah, I think he'll do that." 
 
 " Very well. Memorize your part and " — ^he put 
 his hand on her shoulder in paternal admonition, -and 
 felt with delight the movement of the impatient 
 muscles under his grasp — " and see that you're a 
 credit to me, dearest lady. I expect great, very great 
 things of you ! " 
 
 She took her leave with a bow directly imported 
 from Paris. When she was on the stairs he called 
 out to her once more: 
 
 " One word, dear friend ! What make is your 
 car?" 
 
 " Mercedes," she lied, infinitely amused, and hurried 
 away. 
 
 The manager, however, leaned back in his arm- 
 chair. He was full of admiration. 
 
 "Well, I'll be . . . Mercedes! No doubt, she's 
 got brains. Mercedes . . . Well! ... I wonder 
 who gave it to her ! " 
 
 119 
 
XI 
 
 Elisabeth had arrived. Her playing of Hedda 
 Gabler wrought upon all the delicate nerves of the 
 great city. A poet of the nerves and the senses re- 
 viewed her acting in one of the leading papers. He 
 had watched her all evening, devoured her glowing 
 personality with eyes and ears, and, after the per- 
 formance, he had been permitted to kiss her hands. 
 All night the fragrance stayed with him. And so he 
 wrote : 
 
 " One has scarcely ever seen such subtle, watchful 
 flexibility of pose, such cool ingratiating cruelty, 
 such manifoldedness in laughter, such wonderful in- 
 terpretative power in color and quality of tone. 
 Sensuality so transmuted into alluring cruelty is like 
 the love of a Sphinx. In serious moments she as- 
 sumed a light tone, but in this very lightness quiv- 
 ered a presage of storms that brooded over this ter- 
 rible woman's soul. In this woman curiosity becomes 
 a deadly passion and love a game. Miss Koett is 
 highly complex, and yet again of striking simplicity. 
 She is great and proud, and yet utterly perverse. 
 She is sweet as a dream of love, yet full of somber 
 presage as death. When, as Hedda, she derides her 
 husband, when she derides him who would be her lover 
 
 120 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 in words of apparent assent, but ineffable irony, we 
 writhe under the sting of such cold superiority. And 
 when her voice allures and promises, our hearts rise 
 into our very throats, and our vitals tremble. How 
 she assumes an appearance of passion from mere 
 boredom! Hers is the love that kills. In her are 
 concentrated all the instincts of our exquisite, morbid, 
 self -deceived time, with its hopeless confusion and its 
 insatiable yearning. If Miss Koett does not, in 
 future performances, redeem the promise of last 
 night, it will be because in playing Hedda Gabler she 
 was playing herself. But we are not incHned to hold 
 this view. The woman who, last night, played love 
 and contempt and hatred in so subdued a key, and 
 revealed her full greatness only in depicting cold- 
 ness and cruelty — -this woman will, some day, be able 
 to utter the cry of an authentic passion, and then all 
 the world will stop to hear." 
 
 It was true. The more sweetly, purely, and as a 
 true woman. Miss Kalmen had played, the more cat- 
 like had been Elisabeth's strained suspense in the face 
 of her own utterances, with which she would then 
 spring forth, irresistibly alluring. 
 
 All the women in the audience quivered with the 
 desire to be such terrible creatures. The quiver 
 reached the topmost gallery, and otherwise sane- 
 minded students dreamed of the poignant bliss of 
 dying from the wounds inflicted by such a vampyre. 
 
 Wigram had made use of a ticket which she had 
 121 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 sent him, and suffered throughout the whole rich 
 evening. This woman tortured him to death ! She 
 didn't any longer play for the sake of greatness and 
 passion, as she had done in her small parts long ago ; 
 nor did she play in the service of a deep and terri- 
 fying humanity as she had done in her great and con- 
 secrated rendition of Lady Macbeth. Once upon a 
 time she had played the part of a lost child in a 
 mere shift. Now the one aim of every fold of her 
 dress, of every wave of her hair, of every shadow, 
 pose, or mirror, was seduction — nothing but that. 
 He had lost all power over her. But she had power 
 over him, and had poured poison into his stubborn 
 blood. 
 
 In a box to the right of the stage sat the two who 
 together were supposed to make a complete man: 
 Rasmus and Count Severin Ziebern. There was an 
 endless hunger in their eyes. Poor Severin was ut- 
 terly captivated by this brilliant snake. The desire 
 for this woman shook him like the horror of death. 
 
 To-night, after Elisabeth had rejected his boldest 
 overture in the form of an invitation, he and Ras- 
 mus sat over their champagne alone. Severin drank; 
 Rasmus dreamed ; both tried to picture the possibility 
 of laying violent hands upon her and wreaking their 
 desires upon her body. And when Severin was ut- 
 terly drunk he wanted to bet Rasmus that he would 
 get hold of her after all ! 
 
 " Never," chanted Rasmus, " never, never, never ! " 
 
 " And if I have to marry her ! " 
 122 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " She wouldn't be such a fool," laughed the cruel 
 Rasmus, " as to become a countess with a thousand 
 responsibilities. Now she's queen every night, and 
 she can rule and shake and terrify, and grasp with 
 those wonderful hands of hers all she wants." 
 
 Then Severin began to cry, and Rasmus had to 
 put him to bed. 
 
 " But I'd let her play, y'know, I'd let her play ! " 
 he stammered till he went to sleep. . . . 
 
 From that night on Elisabeth was made. She had 
 played the woman who rejects life upon any terms 
 but the most luxuriously magnificent ; she had played 
 that boredom which trifles with the lives of men, and 
 had played it for those whose whole aim is the search 
 of an external interest. 
 
 She was accepted at her own valuation, and over- 
 shadowed the province from which she came. It was 
 hoped on all sides that one would soon discover the 
 parts she played in her private life. 
 
 Her picture was finished. She had nothing more 
 to seek at Wigram's. The poem that, in the days 
 of her care and uncertainty, had depressed her and 
 made her thoughtful, now stirred her anger against 
 him. She sent him no word of farewell or thanks. 
 She took a bitter pleasure in the fact that from 
 now on he must glow for her from the vantage of the 
 highest gallery, or learn of her greatness from the 
 press. He was done with. She had warmed herself 
 at the flame of his spirit in the old raw days. Now 
 she was near the sun and needed him no longer. 
 
 123 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Her picture was exhibited. Naturally. Not only 
 because it had been painted with subtle allurement, 
 but because it was of her. She entered the drawing- 
 rooms of the city, and the picture shared her eleva- 
 tion. Furscher became famous; he had to paint 
 women, women, more women, and he nearly went to 
 pieces under the nervous rigors of his task. He 
 painted the restless, flighty, tensely beautiful tigresses 
 of society with as profound a consecration as though 
 he had been Rafael painting Madonnas. He became 
 the discoverer of the unsatisfied female eye. He 
 painted the complexion that showed the veil of noc- 
 turnal sighs and tears. He painted the mouth that 
 lies and lies, and desires to cry out the bitter truth. 
 He painted the glance which has gained assurance 
 by evaluing the things of the market-place, and de- 
 sires to test its power on the distance of dreams ; 
 and he painted the swimming eye of the impassioned 
 woman who clenches her hands in the certainty of ap- 
 proaching disillusion. And Furscher came to love 
 these throats and this hair as well as the gorgeous- 
 ness of pearls and silks. And he transfixed it all to 
 his canvas with the indignation of the socialist. This 
 he had in no wise lost, but it was less militant. 
 
 He revealed all the shabby aimlessness of the soul- 
 life of these members of society, their constant search 
 for the external fact, their pitiful borrowings from 
 the man of thought whom, openly, they deride. He 
 painted the disconsolateness of those who dwell with 
 the fulfillment of all desires, stirred the miserable 
 
 124. 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 trappings of their life, and yet loved the whole 
 pageant madly. He hated, he learned, he loved, and 
 grew to be a great painter. 
 
 Now and then he would accost Wigram, from 
 whom he had borrowed the spark that fired his genius, 
 and he would further increase his indebtedness. But 
 Elisabeth didn't cast one backward glance. She 
 flew. Wigram said that the devil had fetched her: 
 society considered that all the heavens had opened 
 to her. She herself felt dizzy. 
 
 For she had entered an entirely different class from 
 her own. She had entered the society of the heirs of 
 earth. The latter was an expression of Wigram's. 
 He knew nothing more detestable or pitiable than the 
 man who, in his pride, eats what he has not earned. 
 Naked comes man into the world, and his inner powers 
 and his mother's love are all the gifts that nature has 
 for him. And with these things alone he shall achieve 
 greatness : first in the shadow of parental care ; then 
 relying on himself alone. To develop oneself through 
 oneself — that seemed to him all the preciousness 
 of life. All other activity he held to be mere 
 diversion, a confession of the worthlessness of one's 
 time. The striving, battling, growing — these were 
 Wigram's men. 
 
 But Elisabeth now entered the ranks of ready-made 
 humanity. These people were merely heirs, not only 
 of their forebears' name and thrift and social order, 
 but takers of alms down to the minutest details of life. 
 Into the dimness of antiquity, perhaps to Greece it- 
 
 125 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 self, reaches the heritage of social life and manners, 
 and the corroding art of idleness. They had inher- 
 ited their style of dress, their tone, their very jests. 
 Their opinions, convictions, their very honor, had 
 been given them as a waiter is given a tip, and, like 
 the waiter, they had not regarded them, knowing the 
 current average of value. 
 
 And this was the society into which Elisabeth 
 stepped. She was no less an actress there than else- 
 where, but no one noted how she stretched out 
 spiritual and nervous feelers, how humbly and 
 ecstatically she learned and learned. For she be- 
 lieved she had now come to the world and the fullness 
 thereof, and she was intoxicated by this society, 
 which acted as though it were a sponge, thirsty to 
 suck up human greatness where it was to be found. 
 
 When its door opened to the next mere sensation 
 of the season, it seemed equally athirst. But Elis- 
 abeth, having already formed her intimate circle be- 
 yond which she didn't look, noticed nothing .of this 
 fact. 
 
 Whether Elisabeth had first entered the society of 
 the great by the grace of an ambassador or a min- 
 ister of state, a brewer, a coal merchant, or a spec- 
 ulator in grain — this, too, was a moot question, which 
 the papers, however, succeeded in solving. 
 
 And so Elisabeth was no longer with those who 
 question fate and agonize over their souls. She was 
 with the folk of ready-made opinions and tailor-made 
 garments. And yet, even here, she instinctively 
 
 126 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 sought men — real men — and found a few. For in- 
 stance, she made the, at first, deceptive acquaintance 
 of George Hameler. 
 
 When the young man whose toilet was, most ob- 
 viously, a difficult and elaborate work of art, was 
 introduced to her, he bowed to Elisabeth, but, even 
 a moment before, waved his hand lightly toward his 
 hostess. 
 
 " If you please, dear lady, don't you with your 
 feeling for rhythm, for music, forget the exceeding 
 importance of the e's in my name : George Hameler ! " 
 
 Elisabeth was interested. 
 
 " Why George Hameler and not Georg Hamler.? " 
 
 " Because Georg Hamler," answered the young ex- 
 quisite, " might equally well be the name of a dealer 
 in mutton, and because my nature is deliberate, dis- 
 criminating, inclined to harmony and thoughtful- 
 ness." 
 
 " I think I understand you," she replied. 
 
 " Since there's but one life to be Uved," he went on, 
 " one should, at least, develop in one's personality 
 and life a stylistic note that is all one's own. In some 
 such sense I apprehend the ' Know thyself ' of 
 Socrates. We are all too much alike, and we should 
 insist on the fine distinction, the delicate shade. I'm 
 averse to a difference that roars." 
 
 His speech was as deliberate as his toilet. His 
 words came from him elaborately, as though he were 
 handing out jewels. To Elisabeth they seemed 
 equally precious. 
 
 127 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " You see," Hameler explained, " I don't usually 
 care to know any lady who isn't indubitably of the 
 great world. You come to Vienna, no one knows how, 
 but in an auto. You play Hedda, and prove your 
 superiority to us all. I am astonished, hesitant, per- 
 turbed. Well, here I am. I don't ask where you 
 come from or whence you have this nature which can 
 only be inherited, only inherited " 
 
 " Is that so.? " Elisabeth asked defiantly. Hameler 
 evidently desired to know something of the janitorial 
 paternal roof, and the proletarian in her was irritated. 
 " So all these confidence-men and parvenus, who de- 
 ceive your circles so successfully, they, too, I sup- 
 pose, have inherited that masterly delicacy of 
 tone.? " 
 
 " Confidence-men ? " Hameler asked calmly. " Yes ; 
 they are geniuses in the realm of manners, just as 
 geniuses, in the real sense, are confidence-men in the 
 realm of the intellect. You don't belong here, you 
 weren't brought up to it, and yet you under- 
 stand. . . ." 
 
 " Very well," said Ehsabeth, " I'm a parverm. But 
 do introduce me to that young fellow over there 
 who has sought me all evening. I'd like to hear a few 
 less sophisticated compliments." 
 
 Hameler looked around. 
 
 " I see three aspirants," and before she knew it he 
 had introduced a youth to her whom she had not seen 
 hitherto : " Herr Syrup, banker. Am I right? " He 
 spoke with infinite condescension. 
 
 128 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Bank clerk for the present," said Syrup, beaming 
 with so moist a joy as though he were covered with 
 the substance that his name signified. He gave Elis- 
 abeth a slippery but piteously timid and trembling 
 hand. No king ever saw such enthusiasm blossom 
 beneath his glance as Elisabeth saw in Herr Syrup, 
 and while he stammered a commonplace she knew that 
 she was a divinity in his heart. It pleased her, and 
 she went on between the self-contained Hameler and 
 Syrup, from whose very pores a cloud of fear and 
 happiness, of pride and humility, fidelity, enthusi- 
 asm and timidity, seemed to exude. 
 
 " In reality," Elisabeth said softly to Hameler, " I 
 meant that gentleman ; " and she pointed to a good- 
 looking fellow who regarded her as though she were 
 a fallen star. 
 
 " Ah yes," Hameler smiled. " That's better, but 
 still weak, weak. . . ." 
 
 "Who.? "she asked. 
 
 " The gentleman in question." 
 
 The young man came up with his great, round 
 eyes, apparently remonstrating with someone who 
 was pushing him on. Before Hameler could say an- 
 other word, however, Rasmus emerged and introduced 
 Count Severin von Ziebern. Elisabeth laughed and 
 Ziebem gained courage enough to offer his arm. 
 
 Rasmus shook her free hand. 
 
 " Let me look at you," she said to him. " Why, 
 Rasmus, you're as fine as you can be." 
 
 " Oh yes," said Rasmus triumphantly. " I have 
 129 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 that art, too. Does the suit fit the man, Herr 
 Hameler? " 
 
 " This suit this man ? " Hameler echoed in gentle 
 derision. " Admirably, and that's the main thing." 
 
 Rasmus managed to draw Hameler and Syrup 
 aside. He wanted to help his ward who, in the mean- 
 time, was insisting to her of his love in a way at once 
 touching and impudent. 
 
 " Listen, my friend," said Elisabeth, as he pressed 
 her arm. " Anyone who doesn't regard me as a lady 
 is a vulgarian. With that warning you may describe 
 your love." 
 
 He became subdued at once, elegant and respectful. 
 She discussed his passion with him, and his prayers 
 seemed to run, like a shower, down her skin. She was 
 tingling with delight when, fifteen minutes later, she 
 forced him to abandon his post to other admirers. 
 In his eyes she saw the look of a faithful hound 
 who had been told to stay at home. 
 
 " It's all an inherited instinct," Wigram would 
 have said, " the instinct which makes these people live 
 for nothing but to be the dogs of women — ^lap-dogs, 
 hunting-dogs, promenade-dogs — ^what you will." 
 
 But Elisabeth was happy, nor was she untouched 
 by the fact that even young counts fell victims to 
 her charms. She looked about her: who next.'' 
 
 They came. A whole army full of admiration, and 
 she drank in her happiness through every pore. 
 
 She picked out for special notice a critic who was 
 known to oppose the Viennese cult of the individual. 
 
 ISO 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " You're the one who envy us our bit of pleas- 
 ure in regarding the world from above ! " she 
 said. 
 
 " Ah," he answered, " don't you know the much 
 higher joy of creating greatness for oneself, to be 
 carried on the wings of a spiritual success ? " 
 
 " Such a joy may be native to the study," she said. 
 " But I see well that you've never felt that passion of 
 power which I experience when my glances, my 
 gestures, my voice master the thousand-hearted 
 crater of the pit, when in all this field of pallid, 
 human flowers, my passion throbs; when I am the 
 source of all power ! " 
 
 The critic looked at her with pleasure. 
 
 " I don't blame you. I blame the people who run 
 to the theater not for the poet's but for the actor's 
 sake. I'm depressed because ninety out of a hundred 
 avoid a performance of Lear and run after the 
 stupidest stuff if one of their idols appears in 
 it." 
 
 " You see," Elisabeth said, laughing, " they're the 
 people who haven't it in them to have true gods. 
 You'd better be pleased that they worship us poor 
 idols. Else they might all be deflected to musical 
 comedy. They do desire to adore something, and 
 that's a fine trait. It's a kind of seeking of the ideal, 
 after all. Their admiration does develop them. 
 Power is communicable and, in the moments of their 
 highest enthusiasm, they become my equals. This 
 feeling of oneness quivers through the public, and 
 131 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 through myself. I give them the privilege of soar- 
 ing, and they love me for it. And they — these thou- 
 sand hearts — cry out : ' We cannot be great. You 
 are what we can never be. But we are grate- 
 ful for the chance of being lost in your great- 
 ness." 
 
 She went on after a moment. 
 
 " And this power that I have gives me a wild and 
 magnificent pleasure — a large and impersonal ecstasy. 
 It is infinite in joy and afiirmation. I feel, at such 
 moments, as if I were more than an individual, as if 
 I were almost identical with the All." 
 
 " Almost the cosmic passion of the pantheist," said 
 the clever critic. " Perhaps you are right. The 
 many do, for a moment, yield up their own souls to 
 a great soul, and, at that moment, they live through 
 you. I observe, too," he went on, " that our public 
 has a certain instinct in such matters. It never fol- 
 lows mere intellect, or mere deliberate art, however ex- 
 quisite and subtle, but always those impassioned tem- 
 peraments who have a threefold energy of life. Fine 
 execution in art alone doesn't appeal to the Viennese, 
 nor the weary talent that is satisfied with execution, 
 that isn't lashed into the arena by some new vision. 
 No, our people desire to be transported." 
 
 The journalist went, although Elisabeth asked him 
 to stay a little longer. 
 
 " I don't feel at ease here," he confessed. " And 
 now that I have a thought, I'd like to follow it out 
 on the streets." 
 
 132 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 And so the only human being there who might have 
 helped her, who was not utterly satisfied with himself, 
 took flight. Only the ready-made people remained, 
 with their ready-made fashions, opinions, manners, 
 souls. To these Elisabeth Belonged henceforth. 
 
XII 
 
 A FEW weeks later Elisabeth sat with her dress- 
 maker, carefully thinking out costumes. Even so 
 she had once sat with Wigram over the creations of 
 the great poets. In addition to her part she dis- 
 played at least one new costume to every act. And 
 these externals were a matter of instinct with her, and 
 had been so ever since she was an obscure super. With 
 every step, with every fold of her dress, with a shawl 
 or a hat-band, with a bit of silk, with all these things 
 she strove to evoke the rapture of passion that was 
 her end and aim. 
 
 She was thoroughly conscious of the fact that the 
 great city primarily demanded of her something other 
 than the re-creation of the characters of great poets. 
 She was still anxious for a good repertory, but in this 
 respect she met the opposition of the manager. Once 
 when she had taken it into her head to play Cleopatra, 
 the permission was refused her even when she con- 
 sented to be satisfied with the so-called classical 
 Thursday evenings, which had fallen into disuse for 
 some time. 
 
 " Shakespeare is a luxury that's only fit for the 
 subsidized Burgtheater," the manager had insisted. 
 " The public doesn't want tragedies in the grand 
 
 134( 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 style or historical plays. There hasn't been a war 
 in long, and there's little seriousness left." 
 
 And so Elisabeth began to accustom herself to 
 study those parts which her most famous fellow- 
 actresses like to play: first Magda, then gradually 
 shallower parts, until finally she took up plays in 
 which the playwright had not sought to depict men 
 and women, joy and terror, but simply affaires 
 d'amour. But in these very ephemeral plays she felt 
 the passion of her own power most keenly. For 
 though she felt the utter emptiness of these fables 
 and their puppets, she had the true creative joy in 
 clothing these puppets in flesh and blood, and in 
 feeling that they owed all to her. And thus, in in- 
 creasing measure, she used plays that were written 
 for the day only. Even Magda became too " clas- 
 sical " for her taste. It was a part, in brief, for 
 which the author had done too much; it could owe 
 her too little. She looked for plays that were over- 
 shadowed by a single female character of the most 
 modem type, the other characters being mere pawns 
 in this woman's game. Thus she played poor plays 
 for the weary public. And these plays seemed mag- 
 nificent, for she put into them the significance, the 
 glow, the passions, and presentiments of her own 
 soul. In other words : she played herself in the guise 
 of these mighty women of the day. 
 
 But even her zeal for poor plays didn't last 
 long. 
 
 In the meantime, however, she had become a mir- 
 135 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 ror of fashion for all Viennese society. People be- 
 gan even to imitate the modulation of her voice and 
 her way of sitting down. But she remained in- 
 satiable in her study of that very society. It was 
 her all in all, for she nursed the dream that in it she 
 might find her hero whom alone, in her soul, she loved, 
 the great, impassioned, aspiring Man ! 
 
 She began to take an interest in the turf. She ac- 
 quired the timid, elegantly hesitant manner of the 
 aristocrat when he finds himself in the exclusive so- 
 ciety of commoners, no matter how intelligent. And 
 she also learned to sound the precise note of the 
 aristocrats among themselves. 
 
 A good deal she learned from Hameler. Once she 
 had taken from Wigram the spiritual timbre of an ab- 
 sorption in great thoughts; Hiller had taught her 
 the ease and grace and carelessness of social life; 
 Gundenau a meditative quietude ; Rasmus the glory of 
 the impassioned pose, and Eppelin the exquisite hes- 
 itancy of the hyper-cultured will. But Hameler 
 taught her his own art of impressing upon all man- 
 kind the sovereignty of his own significance. 
 
 " One must know how to act one's own character," 
 he told her in that deliberate, superior, precious tone 
 of his which she had imitated in a part in Suder- 
 mann's Battle of Butterflies. " One must simply," 
 he continued, " take a sufficient interest in oneself 
 and have a sufficient respect for oneself. And why 
 shouldn't one.? Isn't each individual really, so to 
 Speak, the curator of himself.'' To force the human 
 
 136 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 material of one's own soul and personality to an 
 ultimate perfection — that is true culture." 
 
 She liked him exceedingly. He was the most ex- 
 quisite of them all. And then he had a great deal 
 of money, and she needed a great deal. Hence the 
 least of his slow words was interesting to her. 
 
 " Why don't I call myself Jorg, as so many do ? " 
 he said. " Because that form of the name has the 
 savor of ancient armor and mailed fists. George — 
 that's like a quiescent exquisitely groomed hand. And 
 this feeling for one's individual style must permeate 
 the minutest details of life. The result of such train- 
 ing will be an aristocrat, a much more genuine one 
 than young Ziebern, for instance, who has so little 
 confidence in nothing as in himself. Culture raised 
 to the nth power and aristocracy: the two are one." 
 
 Such speeches pleased her. For she felt it keenly 
 that, while she was simulating countesses and 
 duchesses on the stage, the real countesses and 
 duchesses leaned back in their boxes and waved their 
 fans. This contrast made her restless, and only 
 Hameler could soothe her by pointing out that these 
 aristocratic persons were weak enough, and that 
 they were really imitating her — Elisabeth Koett. 
 
 " What do you do with yourself? " she asked him 
 once. 
 
 " I'm an artist." 
 
 " An artist ; but I never read anything about you 
 in the papers." 
 
 " I'm not an artist for the benefit either of the pa- 
 187 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 pers or for the innumerable failures of mankind, but 
 for myself and my friends. Now and then I Invite 
 the best artists to test their judgment on my work. 
 Of course, these things do sicker through to public 
 notice, and, some day, I may be famous against my 
 will." 
 
 " What do you work at? " 
 
 " I model." 
 
 " In clay." " 
 
 " Only in wax. I like to work with the most del- 
 icate material. I go on delightful trips in search of 
 ivory and rare marbles and colored stone. Why don't 
 you come to see me.-" I'd love to make a bust of you. 
 And I'll make something different of you from 
 Furscher's performance. In his picture you are a 
 demon with whom one would fear — I beg your par- 
 don — to share one's couch. I see in you that vic- 
 torious and exquisite beauty that wrings itself free 
 from the depths of the people. And of that I should 
 like to mold an image in Pentelican marble. I found 
 an entrancingly lovely block of it — the golden glints 
 of your skin are in the material — in the ruins of 
 Sybaris. It's enough for head and shoulders. Then 
 for the dress we might take the grayish matrix of 
 lapis-lazuli, or something greenish — verde antico — 
 or iridescent wood with a tendency to deep indigo. 
 Then, too, we will need something to balance the 
 splendor of your hair, which will be of Japanese 
 bronze. The dress, too, will be shot with metal, and 
 the eyes . . . the eyes. . . . Ah, Elisabeth, if you 
 
 138 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 look at me that way I won't be able to think of a 
 material worthy of your eyes." 
 
 But Elisabeth continued to let her eyes rest on his. 
 She was delighted with the exquisite manifestations of 
 his passion, and she thought : " Can't I dominate him 
 more wholly .'' " 
 
 " Elisabeth, you most beautiful being ; you are 
 now the object of all my thoughts. Won't you help 
 me, also, in my art .'' " 
 
 " Won't that require many hours ? " 
 
 " You will come, Elisabeth.? " 
 
 " I will come," she said with singular somberness of 
 tone, and a double promise lay in her words. 
 
 But George Hameler trembled in every limb. It 
 was almost devoid of style ! . . . 
 
 He had modeled the head in wax. He rather spent 
 hundreds of gulden for wax than use the sticky clay. 
 And Elisabeth's head required the most delicate kind 
 of wax. Now the amber-colored head was finished, 
 as exquisite as a piece of early Renaissance work- 
 manship. 
 
 Now came the shoulders, and he begged Elisabeth 
 to bare them a little, only just below the coller-bone. 
 She did it seriously and quietly, and he gazed at the 
 pallid skin of her slender form. He could nol work. 
 
 "Do start," she said, "I'm a little cool." She 
 moved her shoulders gently. 
 
 " Permit me to give you a certain pose," he 
 begged. 
 
 He got up, trembling, and laid his hands gentlj on 
 
 139 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the lovely shoulders, as if to bend them forward. 
 Tears came into his eyes. 
 
 " Oh, you are beautiful, Elisabeth ... I can't, 
 can't. . . ." 
 
 His lips sank upon her loveliness . . . she trem- 
 bled. 
 
 This man, more exquisite of nerves than even Ep- 
 pelin — she loved him. She knew what love was, at 
 last. Or didn't she, after all.'* It was too late for 
 reflection. . . . 
 
 Ah, yes, she loved him, more surely than she had 
 loved HiUer who, every time he came to Vienna, wrote 
 her desperate letters, and lit his passion anew with 
 the sight of her person and her playing. 
 
 But when she had been Hameler's mistress for a 
 few days only she began to reflect about herself and 
 him. And that terrible, endless warning, which was 
 her glory and her fate, stirred in her blood: farther, 
 farther ! 
 
 What was wrong with her.'' Why couldn't she love 
 with that utter self-surrender which, as an actress, 
 she knew how to depict so well. And the might of 
 her yearning for a great love was such that under its 
 influence she could play irresistibly all the rapture, 
 the surrender, the thirst of an immortal passion. Her 
 very eyes changed, and all men said : How that woman 
 must be able to love ! And hundreds dreamed a dream 
 of those pallid arms of hers, and would have given 
 their lives to know the glory of fire that consumed her. 
 
 But she herself grew more and more restless, and 
 140 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 thirsted ineffably after the love that she had never 
 known. If a man stood before her who pleased her, 
 her gift of herself — whether it was to Hiller or to 
 Hameler — was but a cheerful alms that had at heart 
 a sting of restlessness and dissatisfaction. And so 
 this richly gifted, utterly poor soul had hours of re- 
 morse because she had not kept herself unspotted for 
 him whom she would once love with all the tragic 
 strength of her being. Him she awaited, her cham- 
 pion of the soul, in whose eyes would shine the divine 
 woe over her own finite insufficiency, the great silent 
 man with a heart of fire. 
 
 Hameler, however, was impressed by her cool way 
 of taking the central passion of life. It seemed to 
 him highly distinguished. It is true that his vanity 
 was gently tortured by the thought that he couldn't 
 arouse in her a fiercer flame. But he considered that 
 so consuming a flame as hers would be, might bring 
 in its train terror and discomfort. Yet something 
 was always lacking to the culmination of his desires. 
 He remained athirst and but half -content. 
 
 He furnished her with endless money. That be- 
 longed to his style. A part of this she sent her par- 
 ents, the rest she spent for magnificent dresses. She 
 had saved nothing so far. She often wondered that 
 he didn't desire to appear in public with her to boast 
 of his possession. But he preserved a chivalrous 
 silence in regard to their relations and the nature of 
 them was unknown. 
 
 At their club Ziebem, who was half desperate, as- 
 141 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 sailed Hameler again and again with the question, 
 whether Elisabeth were accessible. The Count had 
 determined to challenge his friend if he discovered him 
 to be Elisabeth's lover. Hameler suspected as much 
 from Ziebem's pallor whenever he put the question. 
 And the handsome Count was always delighted to 
 hear the identical answer : " She is cold and heart- 
 less." 
 
 Once she read a poem that had been written on 
 Furscher's portrait of herself. And so, when 
 Hameler sat opposite her working at her bust, she 
 said to him: 
 
 " Isn't it nice to have one's picture and oneself 
 vie with each other in poetry .'' The poet asks the pic- 
 ture ten questions : ' Are you as yearning and as sad 
 as you seem.'' Are you as somber.? Are you as rest- 
 less, as reproachful of the world, as full of strange 
 presage, and as sweetly silent.'' O picture, J/ou are 
 silent : I dare not ask you, Elisabeth, to tell me your 
 secrets.' That's about his meaning. I must get you 
 the number of the magazine in which the poem ap- 
 peared. And, George, why don't you write about 
 me? You write such lovely poems, rhymeless, and 
 yet full of music." 
 
 He looked carefully at her exquisite nostril, whose 
 marble counterfeit he was delicately filing. He 
 sought to impart the nervous quiver of life to his 
 material. He loved intimately the wonderful golden 
 tones in the flesh-colored marble. At last he an- 
 swered Elisabeth's question. 
 
 142 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " All true art," he said, " is a love of the medium 
 of that art. I chisel my verses in lovely language, 
 even as I should like to chisel a face in ice. I handle 
 each word as though it were a jewel. Some of these 
 words are but semi-precious stone and, like milk- 
 quartz, need to be filed into beauty. But some glow 
 like rubies or have the lofty clearness of chrysolite. 
 There, for instance, is the word: meadow. All the 
 grasshoppers in the world tremble in it, and the grass 
 bends its spears in deep, velvety waves, and the dear 
 sunlight shines. ... I have nothing but contempt 
 for the poets of their own passions, the professional 
 exploiters of their own emotional life. If a woman 
 has made you happy, be grateful and — keep it to 
 yourself. If she won't accede to your desires you 
 need not, at least, throw your humiliation into the 
 market-place. A man of fine self-respect will make 
 public neither his joys nor his desires, and assuredly 
 not his humiliations." 
 
 And he continued chiseling: an image of graceful- 
 ness and delicacy. 
 
 Elisabeth looked thoughtfully upon the handsome, 
 thoroughly finished product of modem manhood be- 
 fore her. There was no strife in his soul; he had 
 reached the height of his own ideal. . . . He had 
 formed the delicate wax-model with his own hands. 
 The marble, however, he had given to an intelligent 
 Italian stone-cutter, who had cut away all super- 
 fluous material until the contours of the figure were 
 visible. Not until then had Hameler laid his own 
 143 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 elegant hands upon the statue. He scarcely used the 
 mallet, and only a little dwarf-chisel. He worked 
 largely with files, of all degrees of coarseness and 
 delicacy. He gnawed, nay, he whetted his way into 
 the marble. 
 
 And, involuntarily, Elisabeth had to think of an- 
 other worker in marble of whom the all but forgotten 
 Wigram had told her. A vision arose before her : the 
 many-columned Rome of the palaces of the Renais- 
 sance. Near the Tiber, by the marble-blocks that 
 lay before the Bocca della Verita, stood a bare and 
 lonely house. In a room, half-stable, half-bam, a 
 man stood at his work — a lean, sinewy, homely man, 
 with great, heavy, dark-brown eyes. The look in 
 those eyes would have been merely sad, had it not been 
 of so somber a magic. 
 
 The man looked with bitter reproach upon the sun, 
 which had reached the horizon's edge, and hurled 
 great balls of flame upon the cool white marble which 
 resounded under the master's blows. Hardly had 
 morning seemed to pass, and here was the night ! He 
 had forgotten the day, so wildly had he worked. He 
 had not eaten. And now he trembled with weakness 
 and with the ecstasy of creation, and with impatience 
 to work on. 
 
 Roughly he grasped a piece of dry bread that had 
 lain there since noon unseen. But even while he ate 
 his eyes did not leave his work, which was thrice as 
 large as himself. A gigantic head arose out of the 
 marble; its features were still half-adream in the 
 
 144i 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 stone's primal life, unfinished, growing, struggling 
 into spiritual birth. It was as if a drowsy god were 
 separating himself slowly from the crags of the uni- 
 verse. 
 
 The master drank with his bread the sour wine of 
 the Campagna and felt new strength in his veins. His 
 hand, on which the mighty resilience of his tools had 
 left great callouses, grasped the chisel. In his other 
 hand he took the hammer and beat upon the chisel in 
 rage and ardor and creative glow, and the great 
 chips flew under his impassioned strokes. Titan-like 
 he took by storm the divinity which he knew hidden 
 in the marble. He cried out upon the hard stone, 
 spoke words of cheer to the chisel, and far resounded 
 the echoing blows of the mallet. He burst the bark 
 upon the tree of Beauty. 
 
 And the dun evening came, but the great blows 
 resounded out into the falling night. The threaten- 
 ing clouds of a darkening heaven still saw him at 
 work, upon his head a helmet that bore a torch. The 
 torch nodded upon that daring head, strange gleams 
 of light shivered upon the reddish wall, and tirelessly 
 rose and descended the shadow of that mighty hand. 
 
 Blow upon blow broke from the consuming fires of 
 his soul. Through crags he hewed his way to im- 
 mortality, this stormer of art's fortress, this man of 
 woe, this incarnation of the strife of the world, this 
 man, greatest of all in somberness, in purity, in power 
 — Michael Angelo Buonarotti. 
 
 Elisabeth looked upon him who thought himself her 
 145 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 lover, called his life a work of art, and chiseled 
 around at it with — a nail-file. 
 
 A profound dissatisfaction assailed her. Did she, 
 the aspirant of an unknown life, did she do right to 
 live with those whose narrowness was so complete.'' 
 
 She thought of Wigram. He was such an one who 
 threw his life into the breach for an ideal, who was 
 always learning, and was never done: like a cloud 
 whose destiny is fulfilled only in its death. 
 
 He, too, was working, full of woe, at some great 
 masterpiece — she knew not what — ^like yonder man at 
 Rome. 
 
 Had ,she done right to eschew those who held them- 
 selves but tools in the hands of the Eternal Artist.'' 
 
 What was she seeking.'' Greatness through the 
 erring life of the world, or greatness through her own 
 erring soul.'' 
 
 For the sake of her art she had sold herself: but 
 her soul was no less athirst after all that is greatest 
 in all times. 
 
 Hameler interrupted her thoughts. 
 
 *' I'll have to stop now and wait till the hair comes 
 from the foundry. Then I'll chisel it so artistically 
 that one will imagine it possible to hold separately 
 each one of those incredible little curls which will 
 stand, old-gold, against the darker background of 
 your tresses. I have to give the hsiir this bronze tone 
 before I can determine the degree of pallor of the 
 skin under the eyes — ^those dear, night-shadowed eyes 
 which whisper the sweetness of your secret sins." 
 
 14.6 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " I don't find sin sweet," she said wildly. 
 
 He knew this sudden outburst of her mood and 
 feared the storm that would follow unless he could 
 deflect it. 
 
 " Come," he said, " let's go to the Kdrthnerstrasse 
 and visit the jewelers. You can buy whatever you 
 want until sin does seem sweet to you." 
 
 She looked at him with a gentle threat in her eyes. 
 
 "What if I ruin you?" 
 
 He smiled calmly. 
 
 " George Hameler would never lose his equilibrium 
 in so vulgar a fashion," he said. 
 
 She felt that this man was not wholly in her 
 power; hence she yielded and let herself sink to a 
 frivolous mood. For she loved precious stones, and 
 especially the pearls that had the pallid iridescence 
 of her own skin. 
 
 For a space she forgot him who hewed his rage 
 and woe into the clifF-side, and smiled delight upon the 
 art that polishes pebbles. 
 
 147 
 
\ 
 
 XIII 
 
 Theee were many whose souls sickened with long- 
 ing for that austere and beautiful Elisabeth Koett of 
 the days that were gone. 
 
 In the old home Gundenau, grown aged, found 
 little comfort in his loveliest Ionian coins. He wasn't 
 well, and couldn't get at the cause. The art of the 
 stage in Graz seemed to him poverty-stricken since 
 the one divinity of all nerves was gone. And so he 
 discovered that the greater art had been his greater 
 consoler, and that the coins were but the playthings 
 of worthless hours. He made up his mind that he 
 needed a change of air and went to Vienna. He per- 
 suaded himself that he went, also, to buy some lovely 
 coins of Alexander. But while his thoughts dwelled 
 on the noble profile of the conqueror of Asia, there 
 interposed the golden pallor of Elisabeth's face. . . . 
 
 He wanted to see what had become of her, and so 
 went to see her during Holy Week. 
 
 Elisabeth was bored as always when the weather 
 was fair and the theaters closed, and her admirers did 
 not drive time into the wave of some Lethean stream. 
 
 When Gundenau came she was at first ashamed be- 
 cause he couldn't help seeing all about the evidences 
 of wealth. Indeed, for a moment she was almost 
 angry. He and Wigram were the only beings to 
 
 148 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 whom she was bound by the tie of a pure gratitude. 
 But the old gentleman looked so tired, so timid, so 
 quenched, that a deep compassion at once got the 
 better of her. And this compassion gave her a mas- 
 tery over this pure-hearted gentleman whom she had 
 formerly respected with a measure of trepidation. 
 
 He stood helpless among her carpets, and she 
 hastened to him with an air of daughterly helpfulness. 
 She led him gently to a divan, placed pillows at his 
 back and under his feet, and a happy mood came over 
 her in playing the part of boundless gratitude. 
 
 She asked him a thousand questions, ranging from 
 the easy-chair in the garden meadow of his little 
 country-seat, and his antique coins, to his sciatica; 
 and from his box in the theater at Graz to the crutch 
 which he was now obliged to carry. He was happy, 
 confused, moved, and refreshed, and the more he 
 called her his treasure, his daughter, the more she 
 delighted in throwing herself into the part thus sug- 
 gested. 
 
 She made tea for him with her own hands, told him 
 of aU her parts, and asked him whether, at a certain 
 dramatic moment, she should grip her audience by 
 crying out or by keeping an ominous silence. 
 
 The bell rang while they were speaking. It was 
 Hameler, but she refused him admission. This was 
 not the day of Eros for her, who desired to be 
 Agape. 
 
 " Who is this Hameler.? " the Baron asked. 
 
 " A handsome, clever, cultivated artist," she said 
 149 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 carelessly and superficially ; " he's cutting my head 
 in Pentelican marble." 
 
 " Ah, I wish you had let him in. I like to meet 
 such people." 
 
 " No ! No ! " She stamped her foot. " I want you 
 alone ; I'm jealous." 
 
 And the old gentleman was as happy as a child. 
 
 He stayed till evening, letting himself be spoiled 
 and petted. Then he drove to his hotel, in a blessed 
 frame of mind, because there was still gratitude left 
 in the world. And he had found it — wonder of won- 
 ders — in the theatrical world. 
 
 He was quite intoxicated. 
 
 He remained in Vienna until Elisabeth returned to 
 the stage after Holy Week. On Easter Sunday he 
 saw her for a few scenes as Gretchen in Faust, in 
 which she played the confusion of a young girl ut- 
 terly in love with such bewildering magic that it 
 seemed to him as if all the airs of his lost youth blew 
 upon him. 
 
 But he had trouble with his cerebral circulation, 
 and didn't dare to stay the play out. The girl ex- 
 cited him too exquisitely, and such excitement he had 
 to avoid. 
 
 All during the night he grew worse; he fled home 
 with the morning express, but death, he knew, was 
 beating its shadowy wings over him. 
 
 In Graz he was more at ease, but terribly weak. 
 The end, he saw, was coming, slowly, perhaps, but 
 surely. 
 
 150 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 But above all the helplessness of these last, trem- 
 bling, but serene weeks hovered one joy — the memory 
 of Elisabeth's gratitude. The world seemed lovely 
 and good, and all its sins expiated by the miracle of 
 an actress's gratitude. One thing tortured him : that 
 he had given her so little. He had given her a mod- 
 est stipend, far too little to buy the superb costumes 
 necessary for playing the great lady upon the mod- 
 ern stage. And by such stinginess he had driven her 
 into the arms of a man to whom she had consciously 
 sold herself through the necessities of her ambition. 
 She had told him of that matter openly, and in her 
 clear cello-like voice there had been neither sadness 
 nor anger, only a deep thoughtfulness occasioned by 
 that necessity. Never again, he swore, should that 
 clear brow be shadowed by material care ; never again 
 should she be forced to give her love except — for 
 love. 
 
 And so he, the last childless descendant of his race, 
 framed a will making Elisabeth his sole heir. And in 
 the will he stated the reason for his action: 
 
 " By the greatness of her soul Elisabeth Koett 
 made my last days beautiful; she has drawn nearer 
 to me than a child through her gratitude. I gave 
 her scarcely the means of life, and purely and greatly, 
 without my farther help, she attained the height of 
 her ambition. And for the bits of copper which my 
 niggardliness spared her she gave me in return the 
 pure gold of a virtue in whose existence on earth I 
 
 151 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 did not believe until my last days revealed it to me 
 through her. 
 
 " Elisabeth was good and true to me as though 
 I had been the father of her blood and of her rich 
 heart. And therefore I will do for her what a 
 dying father can do for his child. She brightened 
 my last hours, and once more made the world seem 
 fair . . ." 
 
 He died, and Elisabeth was a rich woman. 
 
 The charming passage in Gundenau's will which 
 concerned Elisabeth soon made the rounds of the 
 daily papers, and when, in her next great part, she 
 appeared on the stage in a magnificent robe of black 
 lace, such a storm of love, enthusiasm, pity, and 
 jubilation greeted her that even the sophisticated 
 skeptics of the Vienna pit, whose insight into life is 
 morbidly keen, were moved. 
 
 Gundenau's splendid collection of coins was auc- 
 tioned off at a memorable sale, and dispersed to the 
 four winds of heaven. And that evening, after the 
 performance, Elisabeth spoke to Hameler. Her face 
 was pale and unmoved. 
 
 " The bust of me is done. Are you going to ex- 
 hibit it." " 
 
 " Never. It's my best intimate possession — to be 
 a solace of my lonely hours." 
 
 " Don't be a fool ! Exhibit it ! " 
 
 "Never!" 
 
 " Then keep it — instead of me — for your lonely 
 162 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 hours," she said coolly. " I'm sick of your insipid 
 talk. And I've sold myself for the last time! By 
 God, for the last time ! Good-by." 
 
 So George Hameler got his ticket-of-leave, in a 
 chill, highly individual way. . . . 
 
 Elisabeth was free. She was beloved, desired, 
 mighty in her influence over the souls of men, and 
 withal so wealthy that her word was law at the 
 theater. For long she had felt the sting of 
 restlessness and impatience in her blood. The 
 actress in her desired change and travel, and 
 every quarter she tortured the manager to release 
 her. 
 
 " It's ridiculous how I have to gild empty false- 
 hoods on this stage," she reproached the manager. 
 " My soul cries out after human souls, and I have 
 to play pawns and dummies ! I've a perfect horror 
 of myself; I've grown as empty as the characters 
 with which you stuff the maw of your shallow public. 
 Why don't you put on Troilus and Cressida? That 
 would create a great stir! I'll play a Cressida for 
 you that will frighten myself. But once, just once, 
 let me live with a true poet. Otherwise I'll go to 
 Berlin. I've been offered thirty thousand marks 
 there. And look at the repertory; Sophocles, 
 Shakespeare, Moliere, Goethe! That's what the 
 maligned, uncultured Berlin public wants ! " 
 
 " I'll get a suitable play by Oscar Wilde for you," 
 the manager consoled her. 
 
 Rage took hold of her. 
 
 153 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " I want to play human beings, poor, weak, pas- 
 sionate, wild men and women — ^not machines who 
 turn out clever talk." 
 
 " Well, then, I'll write to Bernard Shaw and try 
 to get something for you. He's modem and humanly 
 possible! Eh?" 
 
 She quieted down, although she didn't like this 
 theater, at which she had no friends except old Wul- 
 lenweber, and the serving-man, Christamentl, over 
 whose old bones she had ridden to glory. Christa- 
 mentl, to be sure, kept her informed of all the in- 
 trigues of her colleagues, so that she always captured 
 the best parts. But her restlessness did not abate, 
 and she looked on all sides for that better world 
 which she longed for so passionately. She would 
 have liked to ask Wullenweber concerning his experi- 
 ence with traveling troupes. But every morning, be- 
 fore and after rehearsal, he sat over his beer. Then 
 he slept till twilight, took up his beery station again 
 till the time of the performance, and afterward re- 
 turned to it till the stroke of two. Since she could 
 not live up to this programme, the information she 
 got was slender, and led to no decision. Nevertheless, 
 his resolute tongue took her part against the other 
 women of the theater, and even against those who 
 were not her enemies, but who reproached her with 
 her want of solidarity and comradeship. 
 
 But just this reserve and silence surrounded her 
 with a halo of legend. People knew little of her ; she 
 never spoke of herself, and now she was rich. If a 
 
 164 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 colleague borrowed money of her, she gave it without 
 friendliness, but also without humiliating the 
 recipient. She never asked for repayment. This 
 icy way of giving saved her from being unduly ex- 
 ploited. Not until all other sources had been ex- 
 hausted would anyone approach her. It was even 
 thought that, thus, she desired to place everyone in 
 a position of dependence upon her, that some day she 
 would assert the power so gained, and, perhaps, de- 
 sire to undertake the management of the theater her- 
 self. 
 
 And, in truth, she had changed in many ways. 
 
 She didn't, for instance, expend a particle of 
 nervous energy on the rehearsals. She felt that in 
 the practice of such art as this the springs of her 
 temperament would run dry, and she became sparing 
 of it. Also, she despised her fellow-actresses, and 
 would not throw herself into her work under their 
 coldly watchful eyes. Hence manager and stage 
 manager, as well as the other actors, lived in a state 
 of scarce tolerable suspense before the putting on 
 of any new play. Because they could not judge her 
 work by the rehearsals. She was distraught, care- 
 less, indiflFerent. But when night came she com- 
 pelled the audience with her old power ; the manager's 
 anxiety changed to jubilation; the box-receipts rose 
 and fell in proportion to the frequency of her ap- 
 pearance. She became indispensable, and could do 
 as she pleased. 
 
 But in eternal search for something more she 
 155 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 looked about her. What now? Whither now? 
 " Farther," the voice within her cried, " farther ! " 
 
 Should she join the Biirgtheater? The manage- 
 ment there was not disinclined to engage her, but 
 her violence, her pride, and her shifting moods were 
 feared. She wanted to play the best of everything, 
 and she had, therefore, the ladies of the court-theater 
 in solid phalanx against her. Occasionally she 
 thought that she would like to break this phalanx. 
 If she were to marry a member of the high aris- 
 tocracy, they couldn't help taking her there. But 
 the highborn gentlemen all wanted a magnificent 
 mistress. Even Ziebem, young and silly as he was, 
 still hoped to get her on his own terms. To be sure, 
 now that she was rich, matters were somewhat dif- 
 ferent. Now she was a good match, and might be 
 taken to replace the pearls in some count's coronet 
 that was ready to take its way to the pawnbroker's. 
 
 If only she could have loved — ^with a hot, foolish, 
 unreasoning passion, full of tears and laughter! 
 Once she had thought that art was stealing her 
 power of human passion. But now she was dis- 
 gusted with her own performances. And it never 
 occurred to her that this was due to her lack of 
 reverence for the works that she interpreted. 
 
 She was bored to extinction. 
 
 For a time she invited a great deal of company. 
 Even Hameler could appear there as a mere friend, 
 even Hiller the desperate came to light there from 
 time to time. And there Furscher sat devouring with 
 
 156 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 his eyes her face and throat and shoulders. He 
 would like to have painted her once more, with a tragic 
 motif this time — naked, a queen cast into a tower of 
 serpents, mastering the fanged and writhing beasts 
 with mighty incantations. Thus he dreamed of sym- 
 bolizing the daemonic power of her art. Once, 
 touched with wine, he made her the monstrous proposi- 
 tion of standing for him in this guise. She looked 
 at him and softly turned her head from side to side: 
 
 " When you are one of the world's masters ; when 
 the hearts of men tremble at the sound of your name 
 as at the sound of Lionardo's or Buonarotti's or Ti- 
 tian's — then ask again." 
 
 He didn't himself believe in the possibility of such 
 greatness, this clever painter of lovely women, who 
 grew more and more into the smoothness of the draw- 
 ing-room. 
 
 Rasmus was present at the incident, and sighed over 
 her Philistinism ; Ziebern, on the other hand, felt the 
 impulse to horsewhip Furscher. Pale with excite- 
 ment he approached the artist, but seeing the lat- 
 ter's calm, care-free face, he offered him a cigarette 
 instead. 
 
 Opposite them at the table sat Herr Syrup, his 
 glowing face, like the sun at a wood's edge, full of 
 a sense of devoutness. He was utterly lost in his 
 adoration of Elisabeth. 
 
 And this faithful admiration that asked little 
 pleased her. Syrup was always among her guests, 
 and always had his place in the pit. He lived wholly 
 
 167 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 through her art, and an incomparable happiness 
 flooded his days since she had come to Vienna. He 
 asked for nothing, he didn't approach her with any 
 intimacy; he circled about her as the moon does 
 about the sun. 
 
 For a time she had made friends with that critic 
 who was so opposed to the Viennese cult of person- 
 ality. But since the publication of Gundenau's will, 
 he, too, overflowed with unmixed admiration and ap- 
 proval. Like Gundenau, he was an optimist, and be- 
 lieved heartily in the greatness and goodness of Elis- 
 abeth Koett. He sang her praises so persistently 
 that she thirsted for criticism and contradiction. 
 
 Thrice she invited Wigram to join her circle, and 
 thrice he refused. Then her heart grew wild, angry, 
 and obdurate. For the first time in her life there was 
 someone for whom she was not good enough ; for the 
 first time a man would have nothing to do with her. 
 
 And once, when the others vied in singing her 
 praises, she cried out : " Stop, you fools ! I am 
 neither good nor noble nor gentle nor great-hearted. 
 I am ungrateful. I am great, perhaps ; great enough 
 to commit a murder. I hunger after evil. I would 
 like to feed these Viennese and their press with hor- 
 rors." 
 
 " Bravo," said the critic. " You have the heart 
 of a great artist. Without this wild lust for the 
 dasmonic you could not be a tragic actress." 
 
 But her soul was torn by disgust and with wild eyes 
 she measured her two former lovers, those conquerors 
 
 158 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 by the grace of banknotes. She would like to have 
 goaded them at each other, so that one might slash 
 the other with a sword. 
 
 These were her moods at the height of her fame 
 and wealth and good fortune, when the keen envy of 
 all competitors beat upon her like a fierce light, and 
 the adoration of a passionate, lighthearted people 
 covered her with its glory. Only the 'evenings 
 brought relief. For then she played her heart clean 
 — clean of disgust and rage and yearning and the 
 thirst of love. She who had now no lover felt in 
 such hours as though she was the beloved of human- 
 ity itself, and that was a blessed mood. But the 
 night came with its loneliness and its agony. 
 
 169 
 
XIV 
 
 In the meantime the soul of Wigram suffered as 
 if it had to expiate not only its own sins, but those 
 of the lost heart of Elisabeth. In heavy mood he 
 had seen her ascent, which was more and more in the 
 direction of worldly goods ; his tortured vision had 
 to note that which he held genius in woman — after 
 one brief heavenward flare — go the way of the world 
 and the flesh. 
 
 He despaired of woman, and of the whole race of 
 German Austria. For this seemed to him the touch- 
 stone of a people's worth — the production of men 
 and women who, forgetful of self, can throw their 
 lives into the arena for a great cause. Instead, he 
 saw rabid party politicians, from motives of basest 
 self-seeking, goad gifted races ^ into an intensity 
 of hatred and sell themselves for the sake of some 
 pitiful advantage. He saw the chiefs of science use 
 the sacred universities as alms-houses merely for them- 
 selves and their families, and hence he saw truly 
 productive scholarship repressed in the ranks of the 
 laity and almost smothered. In the highest circles he 
 
 ' The author refers here, as often afterward, to the struggle 
 between the Slavic nationalities and the Germans in the Aus- 
 trian monarchy. The fight has been both cultural and political 
 and has grown sharper in recent years. — Tramlator, 
 
 160 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 saw an unworthy thoughtlessness mock the difficulty 
 and seriousness of the time, and where the sacred 
 and eternal laurel of earnestness should have put 
 forth its leaves, he found it barren. 
 
 The whole public life of Austria, in truth, seemed 
 to him like a swamp in which only bubbles rise to the 
 surface. And he would have been in utter despair 
 had he not seen the flower of German youth burn in 
 rage and shame concerning these things. But he 
 looked upon life and upon the ways of these youths : 
 and he saw them in the grasp of their professions, in 
 the struggle over bread and brood, and saw the 
 sighs after the greatness of the ideal fade from them. 
 He saw them wither in unbelief and hopelessness, and 
 abandon the destiny of a people whose greatest souls 
 shook their heads in doubt. He saw them sink in the 
 morass of party, bribed into those accursed organi- 
 zations, and, from being deceived, grow into active 
 dishonor. A few there were always who grew into the 
 light. But these were lonely souls. Rarely did they 
 teach at the once so illustrious universities of Austria ; 
 their work was poor in external reward. Working 
 privately, they sacrificed life and happiness for some 
 idea : one gave himself to the study of those diseases 
 which ravage mankind most cruelly: another worked 
 in barrenness and silence in order to give the world 
 an unprejudiced history of the Austrians since those 
 fateful times when they were forced from the Ger- 
 man federation. And no reward was his except the 
 gratitude of that new Austria, sorrowing still and 
 
 161 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 growing, but not likely to forget him forever. And 
 thus hundreds worked and suffered in Vienna. The 
 city mediocrities swarmed together. But these great 
 spirits toiled in a divine and terrible loneliness. They 
 hewed their way through mountains of indifference. 
 
 Never were the lofty spirits of Austria so lofty, 
 never her great minds so great, as in those last 
 decades of the nineteenth century, when they labored 
 without reward. 
 
 These are the things that Wigram saw, these the 
 things that inspired him. With the great silent ones 
 he fought, hoped, glowed for a great day that was 
 to come. 
 
 But he could not cease watching Elisabeth with the 
 agonizing question in his heart: Does she not hear, 
 above the noise of the market-place, the voice of the 
 new time? Do not her nerves feel once the immortal 
 gleams of the dawn that is upon us.'' Is she lost in 
 whom once burned so great a golden flame.'' 
 
 But she adventured farther and farther into the 
 realms of " good society." . There she sought such 
 human beings as she was once, despite her sins and 
 errors. And so she presented to Wigram the picture 
 of genius lost in the sandy shallows of life. The 
 picture hurt him, but it was with him in all his 
 hours, however he sought to put it from him. 
 
 Once he fared out into the plains in order to ex- 
 perience again the mighty harmony of the bell of 
 heaven, that harmony which had once raised his soul 
 upon the Styrian hills. He wandered along the im- 
 
 162 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 perial road near Trieste, and the wind blew from pop- 
 lar to poplar, as though the trees were strings upon 
 a harp. The snow-capped mountains were like a far 
 blue wall of all this sunny world. There Wigram 
 stood and thought : " It is Sunday. And up yonder 
 a thousand human ants crawl amid the snows of 
 eternity — the snows that stay aloft and never flow 
 downward." He thought of Elisabeth, who had once, 
 as proudly as the snow, pinnacled her soul upon 
 divine heights, and who now lay under the mill- 
 wheels of the world's common uses. He sat down 
 by the wayside. The people who passed in motor- 
 cars saw a tramp taking his noonday rest. But Wig- 
 ram wrote: 
 
 " O youth, so full of yearning after woe, 
 A stream that storms unsatiated by. 
 Thundering toward life, and deeming far to fly — 
 Life curbs thee that thou into use may'st grow. 
 
 " Differently thou, O cloud, striv'st from below. 
 On wind-sung, everlasting heights to lie 
 With the eternal snow-cap silently. 
 And fruitless to the far herd wandering slow. 
 
 " Into the coolth, o'er mountain wall, thy gleam 
 Lures many restless wanderers along 
 Who consecrate them in thy sacred beam 
 
 " One little hour. Then, in them, earth grows strong; 
 Daleward they turn, glad, after briefest dream. 
 To mingle with the old, accustomed throng." 
 
 This Sunday crowd in whom no spark of passion 
 can ever glow into greatness, this crowd which jumps 
 163 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 into life as boys jump into a swimming-pool, was 
 to Wigram a constant source of sorrowful thought. 
 Out there on the plains he went about for days, 
 seeking to ease his moaning heart by a creative ef- 
 fort. It was a strange thing to undertake in these 
 days of noise and haste, this striving after a divine 
 idea. He desired clarity in the eternally obscure. 
 For the divine birth-pangs must inhere as mystery in 
 the least of transitory things. Vainly and agoniz- 
 edly this strong and sorrowful heart sought ideal 
 ends, almost forgotten in our time. 
 
 "Our childhood's faith from us has passed away, 
 We are left fatherless, but nowise strong. 
 And know not how, our flesh's desires among. 
 Our deeper happiness we can essay. 
 
 " Silent we stand and ask in deep dismay 
 For whom our hearts shall soar, our dreams shall long? 
 Great in our desolation, us the wrong 
 Corrodes of life's unblessed, too brief way. 
 
 " That which seems truth discerned to ye, O wise. 
 Only to sacred dreamers may yc speak! 
 Your lofty thoughts will be the fool's blind lies. 
 
 " On him that earnestness you cannot wreak. 
 The noble resignation that denies 
 God, and yet glows a height divine to seek.'' 
 
 "Sorrowing that the strength I do not bear 
 To be as my own yearning great and pure, 
 I pray to Him, and bitter tears endure. 
 To whom my faith to look up does not dare, 
 
 164 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " And Him of dark reproach I cannot spare 
 Who cast me in this mystery's strange lure. 
 And hurls me back when I am most secure 
 To my own soul and says: Thy guilt lies there! 
 
 "Oh, that no Spirit pure illumes our dark. 
 To whom against that fray we cry by night 
 Which steeps in common day our yearning's spark t 
 
 "Oh, many prayers assault the empty light 
 Above which dwells no Mercy strong to mark 
 Our fires and quench them with eternal might. 
 
 "And yet I feel Him! If I gaze ahead. 
 And see afar the ineifable bright ways, 
 And mountains blue soar in noon's radiant haze, 
 I pray not — yet my arms in worship spread. 
 
 " My pulses throb, my heart aches to be led 
 Across Time's chasm unto the Lord of Days, 
 He who the pure of soul to him shall raise 
 And quench this battle between joy and dread. 
 
 " It cannot be that thought is ours alone. 
 In us creation's end; it cannot be 
 That we will pass like any dust or stone, 
 
 "That this wild flux, blind, mad, is all we see; 
 That aU our yearning shall with winds be blown 
 Ah, what a, child is thine. Eternity ! " 
 
 These were the aspects of Wigram's most difficult 
 hours. In the days during which Elisabeth suffered 
 from the life of the great world, he suffered from in- 
 finity. They were far, far apart. . . . 
 
 From the tone of Elisabeth's thrice-repeated sum- 
 mons he recognized the purpose for which she had 
 165 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 called him. He was to see the glitter in which she 
 lived, he was to admit the value of the glory of this 
 world. She desired him either to recall his first re- 
 fusal or to punish him with the fires which her eyes 
 had lit in his heart. For he still loved those eyes of 
 hers, which were sorrowful and without peace. But 
 what would he have done in that uniformed social 
 world.'* Should he have gone to have himself derided.'' 
 
 Rasmus alone came to him from time to time, and 
 heard his jeremiads with a pleasing sensation of woe. 
 For this man, who entertained no hint of tragic 
 depths, could experience self-reproach, doubts of 
 his own human worth, unhappy love — emotions 
 which nearly slew Wigram — as so many rather 
 stimulating narcotics. He played with rage and 
 grief. He liked their sensation. And when he 
 had been Wigram's guest for some hours, he 
 went back to the society which he frequented, 
 and brought thither with him a few wretched 
 reflections of Wigram's glow and rage. But these 
 feeble sparks seemed very wonderful to the friends 
 of Rasmus, and gained him the reputation of a God- 
 seeker, a world-contemner, a profound thinker. 
 
 Wigram suffered greatly under Elisabeth's call. 
 In secret he had not ceased hoping for her im- 
 passioned soul. Some day, he thought, when worldly 
 success had given her satiety, or even brought her 
 sorrow, some day the great conversion would take 
 place. 
 
 The great conversion? His faith in it was not 
 
 166 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 strong. But he suffered for her as some earnest 
 angel of the Most High may suffer over a soul erring 
 upon the paths of destruction. 
 
 He returned to his work. Since all his sources of 
 happiness had run dry, and all hope of active philo- 
 sophical influence had been abandoned, he definitely 
 turned to the thoughts of a farther shore, and gave 
 himself up to metaphysical speculations. 
 
 He loved the plain of the South, whose immeas- 
 urable blue filled him with a foretaste of eternity and 
 consoled him with its clouds. There in the realm of 
 clouds was enduring, never-ending loveliness in never- 
 ending change. And gradually he learned to look 
 upon the fate of the woman he loved, and of the State 
 and of humanity itself, under the symbol of this cloud- 
 life. If a cloud changed and grew into another, 
 what difference was there in the eternal economy? 
 And if the Austrian Empire itself were to change and 
 disappear like a cloud, the foundations of the imi- 
 verse would not be shaken. And the clouds, and the 
 trees in the valleys that stood by pool and weir — 
 all responded to his feeling for the oneness of nature. 
 
 Once, during such hours, he saw Elisabeth face to 
 face. A wind was blowing in the valley, and the 
 valley stirred and the wind played with the leaves of 
 the willow and the silver-poplars, and a silveriness ran 
 through the world. He was thinking whether Elis- 
 abeth would feel the loveliness about him, when, sud- 
 denly, a huge touring-car whizzed up the road, in 
 which sat Elisabeth by the side of Ziebem. She did 
 
 167 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 not recognize him, although she saw him. She took 
 him for a tramp, and while he looked after her, full 
 of terror and grief, the car thundered off. And yet 
 she had thought of him that very morning. 
 
 It had come about in this way: In her impatience 
 to discover some source of true joy, she had rpmem- 
 bered a saying of Wigram's. She had once asked 
 him what gave man the highest happiness. He had 
 answered : " A life wholly dedicated to a great cause." 
 " I have my art," she had answered, " and what comes 
 next ? " He had smiled and had said : " The blue 
 distance: the far horizon." 
 
 She did not suspect the ironical meaning in his 
 words, and thought quite simply that Wigram knew 
 no happier hours than those spent in communion 
 with meadow, tree, and cloud. And so she wanted to 
 go and discover nature for herself. Perhaps there 
 was something, after all, in these inactive, unim- 
 passioned bushes and mountains whose language was 
 so obscure to her. And so she set out in a motor- 
 car. Before her lay a silvery fragrance, and into 
 this she rode. Then emerged far, transfigured 
 groves like happy islands, and these, too, were taken 
 by storm. She saw little in the whole affair. On- 
 ward, onward! At the far edge of the plain the 
 mountains glittered like opalescent milk-glass. These, 
 too, she wanted to reach, and so she devoured the 
 blessed distance with no aim but to conquer it, and see 
 the essential emptiness of all these things. But the 
 swiftness was glorious. In the mountains she en- 
 
 168 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 joyed herself least of all. In the distance they had 
 looked so colorful and changeful. Now their echo- 
 ing walls shut out her view. 
 
 Out and back — ^that was all. 
 
 They took their afternoon coffee quickly. It was 
 a weekday before the holidays, and only a few quiet 
 people were there: no members of the great world. 
 So there wasn't much to be seen or noted. But the 
 forest-silence eased her nerves, and she sat longer in 
 the sunshine than she had intended to. 
 
 But before the coming of twilight she felt the urge 
 to go back — back to the city, which was more full of 
 bloom to her than nature. It was full twilight when 
 she drove through the new quarters of Vienna. In 
 the rain-pools by the wayside the frogs croaked in 
 concert. Behind the little gardeners' houses an 
 orchestrelle was playing, and many-colored lanterns 
 hung about. Elisabeth was curious and drove nearer. 
 There was a stage, erected of rough laths, and a 
 piece of stage-scenery with cracking colors. Ob- 
 viously a company of barn-stormers would perform 
 here to-night. 
 
 Elisabeth asked the name of to-night's piece, and 
 the manager, with an air of shabby elegance, named 
 a French play full of crass effects concentrated in a 
 single part, that of a plebeian girl who makes a great 
 marriage, and has to struggle hard in her new en- 
 vironment. Elisabeth knew the lines, 
 
 " When do you begin.'' " she asked. 
 
 " In about an hour." 
 
 169 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 She mentioned her name and told him she would 
 take the part for the benefit of his company. The 
 man saw his game, and didn't hesitate for a moment. 
 He declaimed to her all the speeches of gratitude in 
 all the plays he knew, and Elisabeth, who recognized 
 his quotations, shouted with laughter. Then he sent 
 for his whole troupe, and set them to writing cir- 
 culars. 
 
 UNPARALLELED OFFERING! 
 
 Under the Bihnhelbel Management! 
 
 First, Last, and Only Appearance of the famous tbagedienne 
 
 ELISABETH KOETT 
 
 For the Company's Benefit. 
 
 Innumerable boys to carry the circulars out were 
 soon at hand, and the manager gave them their di- 
 rections : " You've got to hand people the circulars 
 as if they contained an important message. They'll 
 be grateful to you after a glance at the contents. 
 It's a first-class ad. And yes, I almost forgot, go 
 to the corso and give circulars to all the gentlemen in 
 top-hats ! " 
 
 The boys rushed off and, while Elisabeth, full of 
 blended excitement, pity, and disgust, held a re- 
 hearsal with these strolling actors, the space in front 
 of the stage filled itself slowly. Ziebem looked on 
 from the wings. 
 
 The art-lovers, students, philistines, girls and of- 
 ficers, gossips and drummers, who had assembled, 
 felt pretty sure at first that the whole thing was an 
 
 170 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 impudent hoax of the manager, which would result 
 in an exciting bit of scandal. But the manager 
 pointed to the auto. Then a tingling, whispering ex- 
 citement went through the audience. And, when 
 the curtain rose, a number of commercial travelers 
 from Vienna recognized Elisabeth as the genuine 
 article and greeted her with wild applause. Others 
 who had seen her in Vienna joined in, and in a mo- 
 ment the whole crowd broke out in jubilation. 
 
 And Elisabeth played the part as she had never 
 played it before. There was much in the part for 
 her — all her yearning for the culture, the glitter, the 
 ease of the great world, all that she, a child of the 
 people, adored and longed for — all was in it, and she 
 played it all. The audience on the sward trembled 
 with poignant sympathy. And the applause was 
 more than applause: it was a howl, a thunder as of 
 battle, a crashing as of torrents. It echoed from 
 one end of the city to another. The manager kissed 
 her hands again and again; the actors blessed her 
 for the enormous pecuniary success, and swore to 
 carry the story of her magnanimity to the farthest 
 comers of the earth. Nine special policemen were 
 ordered out to manage the crowd. 
 
 The car rolled slowly through the thundering 
 masses. Ziebern drove, for Elisabeth's arms were 
 full of flowers, most of which her enthusiastic ad- 
 mirers had stolen from the gardeners in the neighbor- 
 hood. She bowed, the actors sobbed, the people 
 howled. Then the flaming car passed out into the 
 
 171 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 night. One moment more the receding wave of 
 human voices drowned the cough of the motor. Then 
 the crowning of the queen of passions was over, and 
 the cool night air rushed past the heated car. EHs- 
 abeth pulled a mask over her face to protect her del- 
 icate skin. 
 
 She was happy, happy as she had not been for long, 
 and moved to tears. She raised her arms high; her 
 flowers whirled in the night air, and it seemed to her 
 that she held — for one moment — all that she longed 
 for to her breast. It was a love of the whole world 
 that she felt, and the soft, billowy air seemed full 
 of impalpable, happy forms. Her art, her great, 
 strong art, had raised her again. Ah, if she could 
 only have, night after night, an excited, surprised 
 public, could always come in the guise of an unex- 
 pected gift, and always give the best that it was hers 
 to give ! 
 
 Ziebem was as intoxicated as herself. To-morrow 
 or the next day all papers would again be full of the 
 angelic goodness of Elisabeth, the heroine of all 
 hearts, the well-beloved, who, with her exquisite hands, 
 could shake and break him, too. And in this hour 
 she was his. He had been able to carry her away 
 from the jubilation of the crowd. He felt that he 
 must lead her on and on — through life: lead her 
 away from the crowd which stretched out yearning 
 arms after her, and have her for his own. 
 
 Until now the car had sped along swiftly. Ziebem 
 touched a lever, and it went slowly, slowly. Elis- 
 
 172 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 abeth, lost in her dreams, did not notice it. She was 
 once more rich and happy in her soul. 
 
 Then the car stopped. 
 
 " Is anything wrong ? " she asked in a tone so 
 friendly and carefree as if nothing untoward could 
 possibly assail her. 
 
 " Yes," he said, his voice hoarse with passion, 
 " something is breaking." 
 
 "What is it.?" 
 
 " My heart," he said, and believed the climax 
 worthy of a poet. 
 
 She kept still ; she rather liked this tone in him. 
 
 " Elisabeth, I'm going to the devil if I have to 
 take you back to Vienna again to-day, and see you 
 leave this car and submerge yourself in a crowd of 
 strangers, as you like to do. Either you promise to 
 marry me, or we'll stay right here. I'll jump out of 
 the car and run into the night till I burst my head 
 open against something. I can't stand the monoto- 
 nous chime in it any longer: Elisabeth, Ehsabeth, 
 Elisabeth. . . ." 
 
 " And I suppose you think it a wonderful thing 
 to offer to make a countess of me," she said 
 thoughtfully and coolly. 
 
 " No," he cried, " I don't. I want you to be my 
 wife. It would be just the same if I were a com- 
 mon workingman. If I had taken holy orders, as 
 my mother desired, I would have torn off my priestly 
 robes and denied my faith for your sake. God for- 
 give me, but it is true." 
 
 173 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 She felt him tremble, and her thoughts became con- 
 fused. His passion, the secrets of the dark night in 
 which she saw only his silhouette — these things weak- 
 ened her. 
 
 " Do say something, Elisabeth ! Am I absolutely 
 nothing to you? " 
 
 " No," she said, " I'm quite fond of you." 
 
 " And you will be my wife ? " 
 
 " Perhaps it would be best." 
 
 He tore off his cap and goggles, stretched out his 
 hands in the darkness, tore off her mask, and sought 
 her mouth with his lips. The touch of these hot, 
 boyish lips made her tremble, a slight feeling of 
 passion came over her, and she returned his kisses. 
 
 The car stood like a patient monster of the under- 
 world, throwing fiery beams from its nozzle on the 
 dim street. Nothing was visible, not even those two 
 whose thirst was but growing with their kisses. The 
 dark, moonless night covered everything. 
 
 At last Elisabeth pushed him away. " Start the 
 car," she said. " You have had more of my kisses 
 than any other man. We must go on. Yonder rises 
 the smoke of the city." 
 
 She pointed northwest, where glowing smoke hung 
 in the heavens like a cloud. She loved this reflection 
 of the giant city, and regarded it tenderly. What 
 a life, that could set the very heavens aglow! 
 
 But he did not follow her glance. His knees were 
 trembling. For this spoiled boy thought that the 
 end of all desire would be his this very night. Twice, 
 
 174 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 thrice, he tried to start the car. But his trembling 
 hands refused their service. Laughingly she took his 
 place. The motor roared, the car trembled and 
 whirred off. In the darkness he put his arm about 
 her. But she called out above the rattle of the car: 
 
 " One thing I tell you, little Severin. It is I who 
 am doing you a favor by becoming Countess Ziebem. 
 And you needn't try to bother me with your high 
 and mighty folks. I make no visits. Whoever comes 
 to me is welcome; the others ! . . ." 
 
 Severin was supremely happy and humble. He 
 promised her everything she asked, even that their 
 betrothal was to be a secret till their wedding-day. 
 Elisabeth feared opposition from that great world in 
 which she wanted so much to take her place. Zie- 
 bern's father, however, didn't object. The figure of 
 her fortune satisfied him. Only, to prove the reality 
 of his fickle son's love, he insisted on a delay until 
 the coming Shrove-tide. 
 
 176 
 
XV 
 
 In the Autumn season of this year Elisabeth 
 played only ladies of rank, and did it with pride, re- 
 straint, and finesse. More than ever she delighted in 
 setting the pace for that world whose enmity she 
 feared. 
 
 In these days when only asters bloomed in the gar- 
 dens and flowers were becoming expensive, Elisabeth 
 found regularly amid the. expensive gifts of her 
 wealthy friends a little bunch of mignonette. It was 
 poor and plain, and couldn't have cost more than ten 
 kreuzer. It had the odor of childhood memories 
 and the joys of simple folk. 
 
 But this little bunch of flowers that reappeared 
 in her dressing-room every evening became dear to 
 her. It was the last farewell of that rich world of 
 poverty from which she, too, had come. Who could 
 the giver be, she wondered. Some poor student who 
 stood in the topmost gallery and listened, with all his 
 impassioned soul, to her acting? She was about to 
 assume a name that would complete the disguise, and 
 change her, the poor child of despised people, into one 
 of the great world's victors. And so these poor 
 flowers gave her a deep nostalgia for her own past, 
 for that fourth gallery which thirsts after the bless- 
 
 176 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 edness of an intellectual heaven, and does not know 
 the sacredness of its own desire. 
 
 And more and more frequently, at last daily, the 
 flowers were accompanied by a few rhymed words. 
 These verses were wholly different from the brocaded 
 lines of the fashionable poets. For in those years all 
 the cultured youth of Vienna wrote verse as musical, 
 as lovely, and as severe in form as the Florentine gen- 
 tlemen of the cmquecento. 
 
 But with these poor, simple-hearted flowers, came 
 hovering to her such verses as these : 
 
 "O happy floweret 
 That near to thee. 
 Not in a vessel set. 
 Blessed may be. 
 Let its poor blossom 
 Die on thy bosom, 
 Near — near to thee. ..." 
 
 But in these rhymes, out at elbows and heels per- 
 haps, Elisabeth felt the trembling of a warm, tender, 
 shy soul, and its young love. He who sent the 
 verses must have felt a peculiar magic in the migno- 
 nettes. For he never sent cheap violets instead. 
 With one little bunch came this poem: 
 
 " Flowers I give thee 
 That are the loveliest. 
 Poor as my life they be, 
 Yet in the rose's tree 
 No sweeter odors rest. 
 
 177 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 "I do not strive for thee; 
 A chQd I stand confest. 
 Yet what would roses be 
 To flowers I give to thee 
 That are the loveliest." 
 
 Sometimes he threw words on paper which were 
 scarcely verses. It was more of a letter, a sigh: 
 
 "Thy world lies a-dawning, 
 I count the clouds for thee; 
 For thee the dew-wind sings, 
 And the storm cries for me. 
 Thou swayest in life and motion. 
 All things leave me alone. 
 Like a stone on a lonely barren 
 In the light of a lifeless sun." 
 
 One Sunday he was at Greifenstein, and from there 
 he sent her an illustrated postcard. He must have 
 been in a lofty mood that day, for he wrote: 
 
 "The heaven is azure. 
 The dancing waves beam; 
 My heart is thy true heart 
 My happy eyes gleam. 
 Lilacs in all gardens 
 And shadowy rest 
 Are thine, like the lyrtos 
 That sing in my breast. 
 And if thou shouldst hate me 
 As noonday hates night, 
 I could not believe it — 
 Too golden the light." 
 
 178 
 
'Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Next day he had returned to Vienna, and had seen 
 her at the theater. So he called out to her : 
 
 "AU the day, aU the night 
 I am with thee. 
 Of thee my dreams are bright 
 Though far I be. 
 Laughter and tears one breatb 
 Are when I hear thee; 
 Ah, I awake from death 
 When I am near thee." 
 
 The verses were childish, but they were so full of 
 love. 
 
 At that time the visit of the young Queen of Hol- 
 land was fresh in the memory of all the Viennese. He 
 caught up its suggestiveness : 
 
 " If thou wert of the Lowlands 
 The beautiful young queen. 
 My glory and my ardor 
 For thee the same had been. 
 The world must be my captive 
 Else 1 can know no rest. 
 And the whole world's dear queen shall be 
 The ending of my quest." 
 
 If for some days she did not appear, and he could 
 not see her, he would take the time to write more fin- 
 ished verses. She gathered them all and loved them. 
 When her mail was brought in she sought first the 
 envelope of cheap paper with his unformed hand- 
 writing on it. And his song would complain of the 
 days on which he had not been able to see her: 
 
 179 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Thou knowest not the dreariness 
 Without thee to awalie: 
 Then is my soul companionless. 
 Peace cannot come to sooth or bless 
 My heart's unending ache. 
 
 "Laughter and sunshine, though so fair. 
 My life to weeping turn. 
 And the dear birds in the blue air 
 With singing make my heart aware 
 Of how a heart can yearn. 
 
 " If I could, like the black-bird, fly, 
 I'd sing an evensong 
 Above thee where the shadows lie. 
 Till thou shouldst weep as bitterly 
 As I, from love's dear wrong." 
 
 And so it went on, and the warmth and vitality and 
 naturalness of the boy were so infectious that Elis- 
 abeth began to wonder how he would look. Surely 
 he was half a child. But then again he expressed a 
 depthless melancholy which changed her image of 
 him: 
 
 "Forlornness all about me here; 
 My heart's cry sounds too late. 
 Like a bird's piping in the drear 
 Snow forest disconsolate. 
 
 " In field and wood I am alone. 
 Alone at every tide, 
 Is there in all the world no one 
 Who would with me abide? 
 
 "My soul is still and gray is the sky. 
 No other soul will heed my cry. 
 My heart is buried, senseless and still. 
 Because there is one may not do my will 
 
 180 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 "Past is the Lord's day, 
 Monday flies away — 
 , Time passes on and on — 
 Work brings no pain, 
 Joy brings no gain. 
 For the want of one ... of one. . . ." 
 
 He must be a mechanic, she thought, a joyless 
 worker with a deep heart full of love. For this poem 
 was a folk-song. 
 
 She would have liked to see him and talk to him, 
 but she was a little afraid. What was she to do with 
 the poor fellow.'' His love was touching: hers would 
 have been ridiculous. And Heaven forbid that she 
 play the part of destructive fate in his poor, op- 
 pressed life. That was all very well with her smooth 
 gentlemen, who were far too cool and sophisticated 
 to let anything be a matter of life and death. 
 
 One evening, however, she went out into the open 
 before the beginning of the performance, and a young 
 fellow, carrying a little bunch of mignonette, ran 
 into her. He was so taken aback, so ashamed and 
 frightened at having been discovered, that she had 
 to speak to him to save him from utter wretchedness. 
 
 To be quite sure she asked : 
 
 " Are those my flowers .'' " 
 
 " Yes," he said hastily, and held them out to her 
 like a boy who is in a hurry, like a breathless child. 
 
 " And you have no poem for me.'' " 
 
 " Yes, yes. . ." and he took the paper from the 
 pocket over his heart. 
 
 She walked on, reading the verses. He went half 
 181 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 beside, half behind her, his hat devoutly in his hands, 
 like a poor suppliant. 
 
 " Because I gpeak In song 
 Less true it cannot be. 
 That I to thee belong 
 Unchangeably. 
 
 " Naught is in me but woos thee, — 
 My sorrow and my sighs; 
 There is no little flower 
 But for thee dies. 
 
 "Passes no single day 
 But my heart dreams to stay; 
 With thee and mourns alway. 
 
 "Long ere the dawn is here 
 I weep a bitter tear 
 For thy sake, dear. 
 
 " Soon so far, late so far 
 Till my joy lost must be; 
 Morning-star, evening-star; 
 Were I with thee!" 
 
 " Well," «he said gently, " so we have met. Did 
 you think it this morning? " 
 
 " Oh no, never ! " 
 
 "And noT introduce yourself to me, won't you.!" " 
 
 " Yes, of course. I am Peter Strehl, and my name 
 is engraver ... I mean. . . . My name is Peter 
 Strehl." 
 
 " Peter Strehl? " she said kindly and looked' at 
 him. 
 
 He was worth looking at, to be sure, with his hand- 
 some, wild young face, and simply combed hair. The 
 
 182 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 faithful eyes stood under finely shaped brows; the 
 nose projected boldly. He was beardless and had 
 something of the defiance of boyhood in his ex- 
 pression. He couldn't have been over twenty. 
 
 " But you're a poet, too ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes, that too," he said, confused, for he was not 
 accustomed to be addressed by such titles. " But 
 one can't live on that." 
 
 " And do you like to engrave.'' " 
 
 " Oh, well enough." 
 
 " And what do you prefer to engrave.^ " 
 
 " Ah, gracious lady," he said simply, " your 
 name." 
 
 " Ah," she warned him, " such things you may 
 only write. But wait: if you are indeed a poet, 
 chance shall not have arranged this meeting in vain. 
 Do you think you could write something acceptable 
 for the stage .? " 
 
 " Yes, oh yes," he cried happily. 
 
 " I must go to the theater now," she said. " But 
 you might come to see me some Sunday about the 
 noon hour, aft«r rehearsal. Perhaps you have some- 
 thing already." 
 
 " I don't know yet . . ." he hesitated. 
 
 "But you're coming.''" 
 
 " Ah ye*, with all my heart ! " 
 
 " WcU, thea, good-by. Let me see : your name is 
 Peter Strehl. That's a name that ought to sound 
 well. Good-by, dear poet." 
 
 She w«it to the theater, and poor Peter ran 
 183 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 through lonely streets. He sobbed, he sighed, he 
 cried out, he composed a drama and two lyrics in 
 fragments before the performance began. 
 
 He stood again in his high station and looked 
 down to where Elisabeth waved her glittering fan, 
 ruled over the stage, and feigned, with so compelling 
 a magic, love and unfaith and sin. And his soul 
 stormed about the theater like a haughty bird : " I am 
 nearer to her than all you others who adore her." 
 
 At the end of each act she bowed five or six times 
 toward the boxes in recognition of the resonant ap- 
 plause. But once she raised her beautiful, happy 
 eyes to the gallery, which at once thundered and 
 rattled under their glory. 
 
 But Peter Strehl stood like one apotheosized. 
 
 " She looked up here for my sake. While the 
 stormy love of a thousand hearts assailed her, she 
 thought of me ... of me ! thou greatest, loveli- 
 est, sweetest Elisabeth. . . ." 
 
 The very next Sunday he called on her. Since his 
 great desire to be a creative artist had not yet been 
 wholly realized, he contented himself for the moment 
 with the purchase of a broad-brimmed plush hat of 
 such size that he had to hold it constantly lest the 
 wind seize it. Its flapping brim and a flowing artist's 
 tie stood him, for the time, in lieu of fame. And, 
 indeed, he carried these two bits of apparel to Elis- 
 abeth with much greater assurance than himself and 
 his talent. 
 
 Elisabeth had him ushered into her reception-room. 
 184 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 The furnishings of this room were radically different 
 from his preconceived notion of the looks of such a 
 place. Nothing was to be seen here of the usual ar- 
 ray of little follies. that actresses are wont to have. 
 The walls were draped in light-blue silk, and even the 
 whiteness of the ceiling had a bluish tinge. The fur- 
 niture was of golden-brown, polished wood — severely 
 simple in form. One wall was taken up along its 
 whole extent by a bench-like divan, and over it hung 
 the portraits of the immortal dead. Elisabeth had 
 thought of keeping herself strong and pure by the 
 contemplation of the features of Dante, Shakespeare, 
 Beethoven, Goethe — men who had permitted nothing 
 to deflect them from their earnest service of art. 
 
 But gradually, as Elisabeth found more and more 
 pleasure in the goods of the fleeting day, she tried 
 to justify this taste in herself as partaking also, in a 
 measure, of the unalterable good of life. She scarcely 
 glanced at the great pictures on the other wall. The 
 three remaining ones were covered with the presents 
 of the passing hour. There were pictures of arch- 
 dukes, of ministers of state, of the bearers of noble 
 names or heavy purses. There were sketches in oil, in 
 water-color, in pastel, whose only value lay in the 
 names signed in one corner. 
 
 Strehl, who had come in trembling with trepidation, 
 looked about him, and then turned instinctively from 
 the three walls of gew-gaws toward the pictures of 
 the eternal masters, who exalted and humbled him at 
 once. When Elisabeth entered he was already 
 
 185 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 strengthened, his knees trembled no longer, although 
 he made her a deep bow. 
 
 With quiet friendliness she invited him to take a 
 seat beside her on the sofa, and he took his seat near 
 the glimmering folds of her silk dress, like a soul 
 fresh come to heaven and benumbed with happiness. 
 
 " So you have plays there.'' But, Heavens, Peter 
 Strehl, so many. Hm ! Brutus : five acts ; Caligula : 
 a prologue and six acts. Don't you know that nowa- 
 days classical subjects are confined to the contempla- 
 tion of college students.? And this.? Ah yes — ■ 
 The Distiller t/ Strike! And it's not a comedy 
 either? " 
 
 " No," said the young engraver timidly, " it is a 
 social tragedy. In it the devil of drink breaks 
 down all the elements of nobiKty and greatness in the 
 striking workers." 
 
 " And haven't you anything for me? " 
 
 " Oh," he said, and his eyes gleamed, " I'll write 
 something special for you, something deep, glowing, 
 sweet, and wicked — ^like yourself." 
 
 She smiled and ran her eyes over the plays, read- 
 ing bits here and there. Silent with anxiety and 
 love he sat beside her and dared hardly to look his 
 fill upon hair and throat and profile. His happiness 
 chimed in him like the sound of bells, and he held 
 himself as erect as a church-spire. He almost crushed 
 his beautiful hat with his twitching hands. 
 
 " Ah, Peter Strehl," she said suddenly, " winning 
 as your honesty and naivete are in lyric work, they 
 
 186 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 will help you little here. Everything here is far 
 too plain and simple. The modern dramatist must 
 be sophisticated, repressed ! You have no idea how 
 subtle our public is. Have you read the better 
 French dramatists.'' Or Ibsen? He, as a Teuton, 
 would be nearer you in spirit." 
 
 " Ibsen ? I haven't read him. But I've seen you 
 as Hedda and Nora." 
 
 " Ah, then read him. And read as suspiciously as 
 a detective, consider each word as if you were a 
 diplomat, seek a hidden significance in every common- 
 place. You will then see the secretiveness of our 
 time. Here is my Ibsen. There are three or four 
 dramas in each of the volumes. Will you study these 
 volumes before you go at a play.-* " 
 
 " Oh, how gladly ! " 
 
 " And, in the meantime, can you tell me the plan 
 of your other play and what part there is in it for 
 me." 
 
 " Yes, to be sure. There is first " 
 
 " One moment," she interrupted him. " What 
 we're starting at now is a game: no more. In the 
 course of that game you are to learn to be a play- 
 wright. Do not hope that your first piece will be put 
 on. It will be wholly unadaptable. But you may 
 learn and succeed with your third or fourth. On the 
 condition, then, that I am at liberty to refuse any- 
 thing and everything, we may go to work together. 
 Do you agree ? " 
 
 " Yes," he said humbly, " I'm satisfied with every- 
 187 
 
'Elisabeth Koeit 
 
 thing, if only I can be near you, and may hope to 
 please you some day. But my new scenario is so 
 compelling that, perhaps " 
 
 " Well, Heaven grant it. Tell me about it ! " 
 
 " It is," said young Strehl, " the old legend of the 
 Singing Bone, of that song of lamentation played 
 upon a flute made of the bone of a murdered princess. 
 Two sisters, you see, love a certain prince. One of 
 the two is a deep soul, silent, passionate, and proud; 
 the other is sweet, yielding, cheerful. The prince 
 prefers the second girl. But the older sister is his 
 betrothed. She sees love and greatness fall before 
 the shamef ulness of being scorned. She slays her sis- 
 ter." 
 
 " Ah," said Elisabeth, " you would have to manage 
 that part of the action most subtly, in order to make 
 it socially possible, and not too coarse. There's 
 danger right there; but go on." 
 
 " It only takes up one act. It's really the ex- 
 position of previous happenings. The tragedy comes 
 later — ^the tragedy of an evil conscience. All the 
 other acts are filled with the fear of the discovery of 
 the crime. This strong woman fights against re- 
 morse and fear. But she grows wearier, sicker, more 
 pitiable. At last, wholly broken, she betrays her- 
 self." 
 
 " Ah," said Elisabeth, " that sounds promising. 
 But how does the Lamenting Song of the legend enter 
 your plot. For you don't seem to be planning a 
 fairy-play simply? " 
 
 188 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " The Lamenting Song is the eternally watchful 
 curiosity of a poor fool who loved the dead girl 
 dearly, who suspects the murder, and with that song 
 tortures the nerves of the victorious criminal. He it 
 is who always stings anew her fear, and her remorse, 
 and finally breaks down her will and her resistance." 
 
 " Yes, that is realistic," said Elisabeth. " Fear of 
 discovery is a strong dramatic motive. It makes of 
 the audience fellow-criminals. That, at least, is new. 
 I believe that, so far, no tragedy of evil conscience 
 and remorse has been written. Yes, you must try 
 that. Now go, for I'm expecting people. But you 
 must become a great, great poet." 
 
 She held out both hands to him, and the poor fel- 
 low, holding his hat in one hand and his manuscripts 
 in the other, pressed hers as best he could, and then 
 stumbled out. Not till he was on the stairs did his 
 heart cry out : " Oh, why didn't I kiss those exquisite 
 hands ? Oh, why didn't I drop everything and grasp 
 the glory that was offered me. Those divine hands 
 were held out to me to be kissed — and I, fool that I 
 am, didn't kiss them. Heaven stood open, and I 
 passed by its gate. For one moment her fragrance, 
 her pallor, her nerves, could have been mine, and I, 
 accursed fool, — ran away ! " 
 
 He hastened to his little room in order to work, but 
 it was a long time before he could begin. He would 
 have given a limb to have had that chance to kiss her 
 hands repeat itself. 
 
 Elisabeth, however, stood still in the middle of the 
 
 189 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 room whence she had dismissed him. She was really 
 expecting no one. She was deeply moved by the 
 awkwardness of this poor fellow — half-artist, half- 
 artisan — who could hide neither quality, and still less 
 the force of his unconquerable love. 
 
 She, to whom life presented itself in such smooth 
 and perfect guises, — she was strangely held by the 
 heartrending magic of the first awkward, helpless, 
 stormy love of a remarkable young life. She was 
 sorry that she had spoken to him with such coolness 
 and hardness and reserve. He was younger than her- 
 self, and paid a devout respect to her words. She 
 had driven him away like a frightened child, whom 
 she should rather have petted and consoled. 
 
 Angrily she turned on her heel. She thought of 
 Hameler and of the ironic drawl which would be his : 
 " Why, yes : birds of a feather ! She, after all, is a 
 child of the society of the celluloid collar. She has 
 a taste for plebeians. Eh ? " 
 
 And another thing: scarcely was she Ziebem's be- 
 trothed, but she had to be thinking of another man. 
 Where was that to end.'' 
 
 But the more anxiously she tried to root out of her 
 heart this " partiality for the fourth gallery," and 
 the more she derided herself, the greater grew her 
 secret tenderness for this poor boy, whose kingdom 
 was not of this world, and whose love of her made 
 him commit an action which no passion could have 
 wrung from her fine friends — it made him stumble 
 over his own feet ! She laughed at him, and thought 
 
 190 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 of him. Sometimes she was frightened. Would the 
 great love come to her from this source? That would 
 be shockingly inconvenient, nay, impossible. The 
 fourth gallery would have to be eliminated. 
 
 At the theater she didn't let her eyes follow her 
 heart. This often made Peter Strehl very unhappy, 
 but he consumed himself with work on his play. For 
 this play was, so he imagined, to reverse their parts. 
 Before its greatness she should know a sweet humility, 
 she would lose her head, and be timid. Thus would 
 he have her, and thus love her. 
 
 He read Ibsen with immense zeal. But he was 
 born of the hungry and positive soul of the people. 
 He wanted action: the great primitive passions of 
 love and hate and death-dealing revenge. Hence he 
 read the great Norseman's plays as though they were 
 reports of illness — symptom-sheets — and he could 
 take pleasure only in those passages where the fable 
 asserted its right. An Enemy of the People was 
 the only one of Ibsen's later plays that he cared. about : 
 his real liking he gave to the Crown Pretendants, 
 The Norland Expedition, and Lady Inger of 
 Ostrat. 
 
 " Ha," he thought to himself, " surely I can do bet- 
 ter than that ! " 
 
 And so he began to forge the action of his play. 
 The scene was to be an island or cape of the far 
 North, probably one of the Faroe islands. It would 
 look like the island realm of the king of Thule with 
 a mighty castle by the sea. The time of the action 
 
 191 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 would be the ninth century, which seemed to Strehl 
 an age rich in dim presages. The heroine's name was 
 Oddrun, her sister's Gyda, the prince was called Mag- 
 nus, and the passionate fool Olaf Hukkr. 
 
 On the very Sunday of his visit to Elisabeth he 
 began to work. He had the fool climb a steep emi- 
 nence behind the scene, upon the invisible side of the 
 castle, at whose foot surged the ice-gray sea. The 
 fool has descended from the awful cliffs with flowers 
 for Gyda. Thus the first human being who had risked 
 his life there had done it to gather a few forlorn 
 blossoms for a sweet young lass. 
 
 Monday, in the engraver's shop, the action of the 
 play brewed in Strehl's heart. It lay like a night- 
 mare upon him. His hand grasped thoughtlessly 
 the engraver's tool, but in him the thunderous mood 
 did not die out. Many times he took up his pencil 
 and wrote on scraps and edges of paper. And this 
 momentary work, taken from his employer's time, 
 had a strange sweetness, and there was no happiness 
 in all Vienna like the secretly intoxicating thought 
 of the young engraver. 
 
 He felt that his play would be Shakespearean in 
 quality — ^this play that he was etching upon bits of 
 paper. 
 
 Oddrun, for instance, who sees the amber gleam of 
 love flicker up between Magnus and Gyda, appears to 
 observe nothing. Apparently she was unfeeling, 
 stone-still, adream. Thus she passes by the growing 
 acts of unfaith, and not even Gyda's betrothed can 
 
 192 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 urge her wrath against the prince. " She is as void 
 of feeling, as indiiFerent, as water : she flows into any 
 vessel." Thus she is characterized at this point of 
 the action. 
 
 But dreadful things prepare themselves cumula- 
 tively in her. She is aware of the menaces in her own 
 soul, and shudders at them. She asks the huntsman 
 concerning the nature of slaughter. Whether he was 
 sorry for the first doe pierced by his spear? 
 Whether he had ever slain aught human? Whether 
 there be a difference in the end of beast and man? 
 Whether the dead return and live a dreadful life in the 
 consciousness of the living? . . . 
 
 With secret hesitation, slowly, murkily, she asks all 
 these questions, and her mounting hatred of Gyda 
 is scarce perceptible in an involuntary twitching of 
 the hands as she dresses her sister in festive array. 
 For her hatred comes like a cloud by night, visible 
 only to solitary watchers. 
 
 In the longest night of Summer, in an arbor upon 
 the topmost cliif, Gyda, softly singing, awaits her 
 prince. Oddrun appears and stares at her. Slowly 
 speaking, she forces the lass to the edge of the cliff, 
 slowly the flame of her hatred flares, and before fear 
 arises in Gyda's heart, the edge of doom holds but a 
 single figure. . . . Deep down the roaring of the 
 sea drowns one last cry. . . , The prince finds the 
 arbor empty. 
 
 No one knows how Gyda has come to her end. But 
 Oddrun's father beheves that Magnus has played 
 
 193 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 false, has betrayed Gyda, and driven her to her death. 
 He leaves the castle, a silent vengeance in his heart. 
 Oddrun remains with Magnus. She helps him bear 
 his sorrow, and becomes his wife, solitary, honored, 
 scarcely loved. Silently, quietly, she wears the blood- 
 flecked crown. 
 
 Only the fool suspects. From the waves of the sea 
 he has saved Gyda's little harp, which he keeps. He 
 sinks into depths of half -mad brooding. One thing 
 sustains his will: the waiting for any breath of be- 
 trayal on Oddrun's part. 
 
 Gyda is lost in the depths of the sea, but her harp 
 lives, and the songs that sounded sweetly upon her 
 lips, now float like wraiths from the mouth of the 
 fool through the moaning of the windy castle. And 
 these songs corrode the soul of Oddrun as, in the old 
 Norland legend, the iron worms gnaw at the Viking's 
 sword. Her soul grows brittle as wood that the ants 
 have attacked. One blow and it is dust. 
 
 The prince commands the fool to cease from his 
 dread singing. But the fool can still creep about 
 Oddrun and torture her with the crouching sorrow in 
 his eyes. And the prince was loth to destroy Gyda's 
 harp : he commands the fool to hide it. But the fool 
 places the harp upon the extreme height of a perilous 
 tower, whence none dare bring it down. Now the 
 wind of the sea sings in the harp, and in all silent 
 hours its strings moan like a crying child about the 
 tower. But in the storm-nights the harp cries, and 
 groans, and thunders like an angry soul. 
 
 194 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Oddrun listens and may not speak, for her hatred 
 of the harp would betray her hatred of Gyda. A 
 gnawing song destroys her soul; her nerves begin 
 to know strange quivers, and her brain acquires 
 strange powers: it sees externalized that which is 
 within. 
 
 And thus in the night time she drags herself to the 
 hall in which the crown is lying, and in the sharp, 
 thin moonlight sits Gyda's shadow, holding the crown. 
 Oddrun calls to the shadow, but it wavers and disap- 
 pears in a phosphorescent glow. She cries out for 
 the servants, for lights, for a hundred torches. No 
 column shall throw its shadow; she fears darkness 
 lurking in any spot. She has Gyda sought for. 
 There must be, she thinks, the trail of a drenched robe 
 to the table on which lies the crown. But nothing 
 is found, and at last she remains alone in the flaming 
 hall. And her agony towers to ineiFable heights 
 the while the hundred torches flare and quiver and 
 throw sparks as though the world were aflame. 
 
 She hurls herself down before the image of the 
 Crucified: she prays for grace, for peace in life or 
 death : " Give me a sign ! " she cries in the delirium 
 of her agony, " a sign, or I will break your out- 
 stretched arms." 
 
 But while her blasphemous arms approach the 
 arms of the Crucified, a bugle-tone shrills through 
 the hall. She sinks down, wearied to death. But 
 she breathes again. It is her father who has come 
 to set the crooked straight. 
 
 195 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 But the father comes to slay. Under the guise 
 of reconciliation he had disarmed the prince, and has 
 handed him a cup of poison. Now all she loved and 
 all she hated are dead. Then Oddrun approaches 
 with a sacred dignity the form of him she loved more 
 than his crown, and takes the poisoned cup into her 
 hand. Her voice sounds clear and sweet as she con- 
 fesses everything, and thus achieves the liberation of 
 her soul. More and more mightily swell the deep 
 tones of her voice as she proclaims the message of her 
 sin and her redemption. Hers is a song, jubilant 
 with guilt, crime, sorrow, expiation. The gray halls 
 resound as she drinks the draught of death. 
 
 Young Strehl had been bold enough to let Oddrun's 
 last utterance be a stormy " Ah ! " expressing the su- 
 preme moment of her soul's liberation. For Elisa- 
 beth had in her throat a cry that was also a song. 
 And with this cry she was to break down in death. 
 
 Such was his play. It was strong as youth, mighty 
 as his ambition, and full of genius. It was pro- 
 foundly moving, and, indeed, torturing: it was com- 
 pelling and redeeming in its effect. The action 
 either crouched in a horror of presentiment, or else it 
 roared and crashed. It was the strong note of an 
 earlier civilization, for Peter Strehl had not yet passed 
 though the nerve-racking school of modernity. Nor 
 did he seek to compare his work to the analytical 
 quiescence of those modern poets whom he con- 
 temned. He compared it to Shakespeare, to .lEschy- 
 lus, to Sophocles. 
 
 196 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 His happiness was as tameless as though he had 
 found the fountain of immortal thoughts. And 
 when, at night, in his Httle room, he had written the 
 last cry of Oddrun, he sank down and wept for joy. 
 For he believed that God had given him the im- 
 mortal voice of the great men of ancient days. Like 
 them, he was pure and strong and impassioned. The 
 quiver of their light sprang equally from the cloud of 
 his soul. And he was grateful. 
 
 Not until then did he think, with a streaming joy, 
 of Elisabeth, to whose full stature he had now grown. 
 Nothing now could make him less, and she could be 
 his : the great tragic actress could be the great poet's 
 equal wife. What a union, full of beauty and light, 
 She would make his works hve, she would carry his 
 name to the ends of the earth, and then she would 
 give him her hand in token of the double imion of 
 body and soul. How they would work together and 
 reach ever loftier heights. 
 
 Then he copied his work that had been written on so 
 many bits of paper, and from time to time cried out 
 because he had himself forgotten so many glorious 
 passages. And this beautiful, clear copy he brought 
 her, solemnly, like one enskied. 
 
 She took his work and was moved by the words of 
 love which, in the consciousness of his greatness, he 
 now dared to utter. . . . She listened to these words 
 as to music that one knows and loves. 
 
 " Ah," she smiled, " I may not love you." 
 
 " You may, Elisabeth. For I have entered the 
 197 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 realm of your greatness,. Do not say no. Wait, 
 wait ! When the first performance of this work has 
 flared up in a storm of all hearts — then say no, if 
 you can ! " 
 
 " Dear God, what a child you are, what a dreamy 
 child!" 
 
 She didn't know what to do with so much young, 
 blind faith. She saw his eyes gleam with the glory 
 of the future as he saw it, and the thought of the 
 dread agony which the shattering of these boyish 
 hopes would cause, made her desperate. 
 
 She sought to counsel a more prudent expectation. 
 He waved her advice aside. She spoke of megalo- 
 mania ; he said : " First read it ! " 
 
 She complained of how she, being fond of him, 
 would have to share the agony of his fall from 
 Heaven. 
 
 " The greater will be your reward, Elisabeth, when 
 you see the truth ! " 
 
 His childlikeness maddened her with a kind of di- 
 vine despair. 
 
 " Nothing will come true of all you dream," she 
 cried between tears and laughter ; " you will not be a 
 great poet for years and years, and perhaps never, 
 or only through the bitter learning of a thousand 
 lessons. You will be nothing, my poor boy, but the 
 little engraver with his wild yearning, and his big 
 hat and his boy's face in which I can't bear to see 
 suffering! Nothing will come true for you, myl 
 dreamer, except — my love." 
 
 198 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 She put her arms about him whom the wonder of 
 her unbelief and of his happiness made dizzy, and 
 kissed him on the lips. Then flamed up in him all the 
 tameless, waiting love, and he kissed all that beauty 
 for which, under the chandeliers of night, a thousand 
 lips yearned in vain. 
 
 " Hold me tight," he cried, " hold me that I may 
 feel your love is a reality." And he felt with wonder 
 how the sinews of her supple arms strained against 
 his body, and how her pallid fingers interlaced about 
 his throat. He waited till she had exerted all her 
 power. Then he pressed her until her breath failed 
 under his young strength. 
 
 They kissed each other from nightfall until dawn; 
 they struggled in the throes of their passion as with 
 death. And no satiety came to them who were in- 
 satiable of each other. 
 
 Morning came. Trembling with a thousand kisses, 
 he left her. She looked after him with tenderness 
 and sorrow. 
 
 " What a child he is, what a stormy, awkward, ten- 
 der child, full of devotion, of love, of health and 
 strength and youth ! And yet so ignorant and fool- 
 ish in all the ways of life. And so poor and ridic- 
 ulous, and of such low estate ! Ah, that I were able 
 to honor, to esteem him!" 
 
 And she burst out into ripples of merry laughter 
 at the thought of honoring poor little Peter Strehl! 
 
 Then she began to reflect and was dissatisfied, as al- 
 ways. Was this the great love of life.? And what 
 
 199 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 if he were right and were a genius? What if his 
 work did rise above the work of his contemporaries ? 
 
 She took up his manuscript, full of curiosity, and 
 looked into it. But after a moment she said wearily, 
 satiatedly : " Heavens, how silly ! That's just like him. 
 No wonder. Genius doesn't grow so easily in a fac- 
 tory. Ninth century! Why, hardly the biggest 
 men dare do such a thing to-day if they want more 
 than six performances for their stuff! I suppose 
 I'm to rig myself up like Isolde in the opera. And 
 the North, with its trite costuming. ' Her sister is 
 cast over a cliff into the sea.' What bosh ! I sup- 
 pose he thinks it highly tragic! And at the end a 
 general poison-party and corpse-parade, which the 
 public will feel very much like asking this one remain- 
 ing poet to join. Oh, Peter Strehl! Peter Strehl! " 
 
 She put the manuscript on a bookcase and 
 stretched out her arms. 
 
 " Moral katzenjammer! " 
 
 She threw a Ip.Et disgusted look at the pages, and 
 then dragged herself where they couldn't be seen. 
 " Requiescat. . . . Now I have to make the foolish 
 boy comprehend that he is a foolish boy. I don't 
 know who's more to be pitied: he or I. . . . 
 
 "Poor little fellow!" 
 
 200 
 
XVI 
 
 At the end of but three days Peter Strehl came, 
 in festive guise, to ask after his play. She said: 
 " A good thing takes time. . . ." She didn't have 
 the courage to tell him what she really thought, and, 
 furthermore, she intended to fortify her judgment 
 by that of one of her friends, say, Hameler. The 
 latter's opinion she intended then, with a nice sugar- 
 coat, to produce as her own. 
 
 He was hopeful and without any presentiment. 
 Although she confessed that she had looked into the 
 play and had found the time and place of the action 
 difficult and ungrateful, he was not to be shaken in 
 his wonderful confidence. He contradicted her flatly : 
 
 " The setting of a dim antiquity, the old, echoing 
 castle by the sea, serve to give the fable an even 
 higher significance." 
 
 So the conversation flagged. She kissed him a 
 few times out of sheer pity, and then considered how, 
 by some kindly method, she could get him to go, and, 
 indeed, could rid herself of him definitely. 
 
 In regard to lovers whom she desired to dismiss 
 and who might, conceivably, balk at their dismissal, 
 Elisabeth had invented two well-systematized methods 
 — the ether method and the insect method. 
 
 The ether method was gentle, and was meant for 
 201 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 sensitive souls, who were easily hurt. In applying 
 it she became, as far as the pursuer was concerned, 
 utterly invisible. She melted into thin air. She 
 wasn't at home; letters addressed to her might have 
 been written to a ghost. She ceased to exist. The 
 meaning of these tactics couldn't well be misunder- 
 stood. 
 
 But if the discarded gentleman was of an energetic 
 turn, if he penetrated her dwelling or awaited her on 
 the street, then, like the insect who feigns death, she 
 let him beg, threaten, rage, weep, and waited nothing 
 but an opportunity to slip away. Hiller had had 
 to receive the second and severer treatment. He had 
 been noisy as a hailstorm on glass-roofing. Hameler,- 
 on the other hand, though he didn't wish to believe in 
 the finality of his dismissal either, soon caught on to 
 the ether method and withdrew quietly until Elisa- 
 beth instated him as a mere friend, whom one couldn't 
 very well go on avoiding socially. 
 
 To-day it was easy enough to put off Peter Strehl 
 with a few excuses. He called her beloved and be- 
 trothed. The first epithet merely filled her with 
 sadness: she would like to have been that if only he 
 had been a more considerable personality. The word 
 " betrothed," on the other hand, made her twitch 
 nervously. Yes, yes: the ether system would have 
 to begin. In a short time the banns of her marriage 
 to Ziebern would be published, and this poor 
 mechanic's dplupion might give rise to a prettiy 
 scandal. 
 
 SOS 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 When he was gone she considered how the neces- 
 sary spiritual operation could be least painfully ef- 
 fected. There was no need really to give the play 
 to Hameler. She would only be losing time and gain- 
 ing a witness to her folly. Strehl would have to be- 
 come sensible quickly. So she would hand in the 
 play to her manager, and ask him in confidence to re- 
 turn it to Herr Strehl in the course of a month, with 
 some such note as this : " Although I find it extremely 
 painful to deny anything to our great artist Elis- 
 abeth Koett, I find, upon reading your play, that its 
 unmodem inscenation, etc., renders it totally unfit, etc. 
 Hence I am forced, with whatever regret, etc." Yes, 
 that would do. 
 
 Finally, it was most advisable that, prior to her 
 marriage, she test the carrying power of her fame by. 
 going on the road for an extended period. 
 
 In her nervousness she was accustomed to follow 
 any determination by overhasty action. Hence she 
 rode at once to her manager, forgetting the manu- 
 script of Strehl's play, and arranged for leave of ab- 
 sence. Then she sent telegrams to various agents, 
 making a number of out-of-town engagements. She 
 awaited the beginning of her tour in a fashionable 
 suburb, whither Ziebern followed her. They lived 
 in different hotels, met only at meals, and presented 
 to the world an unexceptionable example of propriety. 
 
 Peter Strehl, in the meantime, had received a fare- 
 well postcard. She, Elisabeth (so she put it) nad 
 been suddenly surprised by offers to go on tour. In 
 
 203 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the meantime she had handed his play to her man- 
 ager. He would receive an answer in about three 
 weeks, but she could hold out no great hopes. 
 Good-by. 
 
 Strehl smiled his beatitude. If his mistresss, who 
 was accustomed to command her managers, recom- 
 mended a play, why, it was as good as accepted. In 
 quiet confidence he awaited the date of his triumph. 
 There was no mistrust in his heart toward her who had 
 been so great, so strong, so glowing. The Koett 
 was passionate, but frank. That had been the com- 
 mon report. And he believed in her as only love, love 
 of a woman that has been utterly sealed, can be- 
 lieve. 
 
 She had given herself to him, and now he offered 
 to marry her. Was she not forced to marry the 
 man to whom she had given her honor.'' And he 
 would marry her, however famous he was. The only 
 thing that grieved him was her absence, and the long- 
 ing for her — so lovely and so desired — grew into 
 many beautiful verses. 
 
 One of his fellow-workmen, at this time, came upon 
 a sheet of paper with some verses headed : " To Elis- 
 abeth." He teased Peter Strehl, and began to sing 
 the old popular song : 
 
 •' O you Elisabeth, 
 You are so big and fat. . . ." 
 
 The pure and fiery poet cut off the music with a 
 thoroughly felt ear-box, and quieted the excitement of 
 
 204. 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the whole shop by the declaration that he would take 
 no jokes on the subject of his betrothed. 
 
 This explanation satisfied even him who had been 
 struck, for, though these simple souls had no re- 
 spect for love, they did have a certain amount for 
 marriage. 
 
 Strehl and his former enemy were reconciled easily 
 enough, for in these circles a blow is not a deadly 
 matter. Indeed, the might of the blow had excited 
 the curiosity of the other engraver, and he walked 
 home with Strehl, asking him intimate questions. 
 Strehl contented himself with saying that his be- 
 trothed was a great lady. It did him good to say 
 that. His friend was at first incredulous, and so 
 Peter, who rather regretted his indiscretion, asked 
 him to consider the information a merry jest. He as- 
 sumed the same attitude in the workshop, which only 
 made the other men believe more thoroughly in his for- 
 tune. And so they rather avoided him, holding him 
 to be an adventurer, a bourgeois, a contemner of la- 
 bor. That explained his poetizing, too. 
 
 So Peter Strehl became isolated. He was too 
 young to bear it lightly. But he thought of Elis- 
 abeth, and hoped and waited. 
 
 In the meantime Elisabeth sought an impresario for 
 her tour. Half seriously, half laughingly, Rasmus, 
 the ever-flexible, offered himself for the position. He 
 had to give up his position with Ziebem to her, he 
 asserted, and so it would be nice if she would en- 
 gage him. He assured her that he was a master of 
 205 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the art of advertising. Elisabeth laughed, but 
 agreed to give him a trial. So Rasmus started off 
 to Briinn, Prague, and into Bavaria. His enthusi- 
 astic conviction of Elisabeth's incomparableness im- 
 pressed the newspapers, and he wrote such charming 
 articles about her everywhere that the hearts of the 
 great masses were moved to tingling expectation, even 
 as Ziebem's heart had once been. 
 
 He knew how to treat all men, and how to make the 
 most profitable agreements: he surpassed Elisabeth's 
 agents in subtle skill, and showed a remarkable talent 
 for his new calling. 
 
 Elisabeth, grown serious now, engaged him perma- 
 nently, and Rasmus's life had a content that engaged 
 his enthusiasm. And these two people really fitted 
 well together. Rasmus's light love for her had long 
 been changed to a thorough study of the surprises 
 and the beauties of her art. Now he could be to her 
 what the stamp is to the coin, what success is to 
 talent. He belonged necessarily to her genius. 
 
 She compelled all the thousands before whom she 
 appeared by the old magic of terror and of love. 
 But he had hypnotized these thousands first, and had 
 given them a voice. He invented the inevitable ex- 
 pression for the effects of her art, saved the critics 
 the trouble of thinking, wrote admirable, tingling 
 articles himself, trained the chiefs of the claques to 
 achieve the most delicate effects in the proper places, 
 and surrounded Elisabeth with a sacred legend: She 
 knew all the daemonic sorrow of one who desires to 
 
 206 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 love and cannot. This legend satisfied all souls, with- 
 out cooling off the male world. Indeed, the fable that 
 this beautiful, unhappy woman was still seeking her 
 conqueror filled thousands of idle heads with an at- 
 tractive and alluring dream. 
 
 Hitherto not only in Vienna, but wherever Elisa- 
 beth's fame had gone, the great question had been: 
 Whom does she hold.' Who holds her? What is 
 there behind all this secretiveness ? Each one sup- 
 posed another lover, and each denied the notions of 
 each. Now a great, sensational sigh of enlightened 
 relief went up. She is still seeking. 
 
 And now, at the time of her greatest foreign tri- 
 umphs, the report of her betrothal to Ziebem spread 
 abroad. But no one believed that she considered him 
 a finality. The few hundred people who knew of the 
 engagement, knew the bridegroom, too. Another step 
 upwards, they said, and spoke of Ziebem as though 
 he were a footstool. 
 
 Rasmus sent accounts of Elisabeth's transporting 
 might to all the home papers in order that a second 
 tour through the Austrian provinces might be paved 
 with gold in advance. And soon people came from 
 all the little towns to Vienna only to see this magical 
 woman of whom all poets dreamed. 
 
 The poems that were written about or to Elisabeth 
 were gathered by Rasmus, and he knew how to make 
 most skillful use of them. In fad, young lyrists 
 came to regard Elisabeth as a grateful subject, for 
 they were sure to see their verses in print. So they 
 
 80T 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 carried their poems to Rasmus — poems that had often 
 had as their original inspiration some Emmy or Mary 
 Ann. 
 
 When Elisabeth returned to Vienna, she was re- 
 ceived, as Rasmus had prearranged, with anxiety and 
 timidity. He had flourished every offer she had had 
 as a danger-signal that Vienna might lose its treasure. 
 
 The tremendous applause of her audiences was now, 
 at the same time, their congratulations on that ap- 
 proaching marriage which would make a countess of 
 Elisabeth. One of the sharpest tongues in Vienna was 
 heard to say : " In the shape of that ass Ziebern, so- 
 ciety seems to have given her a golden fleece." For 
 now, at her return, all papers announced her mar- 
 riage and its date. 
 
 Thus the information which had, shortly before, 
 been the exclusive possession of a few, now spread 
 to all classes. It penetrated the workshops. But 
 then, Peter Strehl had only to look at the papers to 
 learn what Elisabeth had done. 
 
 A cold death-sweat broke out on all his limbs, and 
 his living body felt, without the mercy of a waning 
 consciousness, the authentic agony of death. Behind 
 his forehead something grew into stone. He nerved 
 himself to but a single deed. He sent a laconic tele- 
 gram: "Elisabeth, is it true.? Strehl." And he 
 waited, silent and petrified, in his nameless love. 
 
 But Elisabeth applied her ether system. Only she 
 went straight to the manager. The enraged prole- 
 tarian might break loose and find a flail, and thunder 
 
 SOS 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 down upon all men in his madness. This was no time 
 for mercy. He had to be paralyzed, crushed, exter- 
 minated, before he could draw breath to cry out. 
 
 " Have you sent back that engraver's play.'' " Elis- 
 abeth asked the manager. 
 
 "No." He had forgotten all about it. " I haven't 
 read it yet." 
 
 " He worries me about it," she declared. " Send it 
 back to him, dear friend, and tell him that he has no 
 talent, and might as well give it up." 
 
 The manager used the occasion to offer his con- 
 gratulations to the future countess, and had the 
 manuscript sought for one solid hour. In vain, of 
 course. Then he dictated a letter, taking the bull by 
 the horns. 
 
 " The manuscript of the drama Ortrud " — ^he 
 turned to his secretary : " That's the name of the 
 stuff, isn't it.'' " — " which we are returning under 
 another cover, has been read by all our readers, who 
 agree that it is crass in its effects, old-fashioned, and 
 coarse in aim. Hence — in agreement with your kind 
 patroness — I may urge you to study the life and the 
 art of our own day before you seek to engage the 
 
 attention of the management for a new work " 
 
 — " and so on. Please fix it up, my dear fellow, and 
 tell him to have the kindness to spare us in future." 
 That was the manager's last word. 
 
 Strehl received only his letter. Had the manu- 
 script been lost in transmission? Of course. Mis- 
 fortunes never come singly. . . . 
 
 209 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Moreover, he believed every word in the manager's 
 letter, even the statement that he had no talent. 
 With that stony pressure on the back of his brain, 
 which seemed ready to burst his skull, and rose now 
 and then into waves of fiery agony, he went over the 
 bits of paper that held the rough draught of his 
 play. He was convinced: it was crude and foohsh, 
 good enough for some troupe of bam-stormers in a 
 seventh-rate watering-place. 
 
 He was as worthless as Elisabeth. Or else Elisa- 
 beth had realized what a creature he was, and was 
 frightfully ashamed of the one night of which he, 
 like a common sharper, had cheated her. 
 
 Or she was a hussy, like all theatrical women. But 
 it didn't really matter to him which of these ex- 
 planations covered the case. Reflection was super- 
 fluous. It was equally superfluous that a worm like 
 himself, whose head had been thoroughly crushed by 
 a passing heel, should make any ado in the shape 
 of wriggling and quivering. 
 
 He wanted, immensely, to go to sleep — for good; 
 and the one notion that crept about in the petrified 
 convolutions of his brain was : cheaply and quickly. 
 
 So he took a rope and went to the Prater, wearily 
 climbed a tree, and tied one end of the rope to a 
 branch, the other to his neck. It was far out in a 
 little vale, where few. come. He tied and knotted the 
 rope callously, like a laborer on an indiff'erent job. 
 The dull agony in his brain was gone. Dully he 
 wrought his last work. 
 
 210 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Then he slid down. Of course, there was a mo- 
 ment of fierce struggle and desperate revolt, but it 
 was the struggle of another, and didn't concern his 
 real self. He locked his teeth stubbornly to crush the 
 resistance of the body through which, in the twinkling 
 of an eye, floated dreams, sweet as Elisabeth's kis,3es. 
 
 Then he sank into a purple rest. 
 
 Peter Strehl was dead. 
 
 Almost at the same time Elisabeth rode, with her 
 betrothed, through one of the main alleys of the 
 park. She knew and suspected nothing of the end 
 of the poor little poet, who had daily bought her a 
 little bunch of flowers out of his poor wage, and daily 
 plucked a song for her in the meadow of his heart. 
 In fact, she learned nothing till, at the end of forty- 
 eight hours, a brief notice appeared in the papers. 
 To-day she had something better to do than to think 
 of Peter Strehl. They met carriage after carriage, 
 and she watched carefully the looks and demeanor of 
 the noble ladies whose ranks she was so soon to enter. 
 But the great hats all nodded, whether in greeting or 
 recognition of greeting. Scarcely two or three times 
 did Elisabeth suspect that she had been consciously 
 overlooked. " Ah," she thought in the tenseness of 
 her mood, " just wait, you well-bred persons ! " 
 
 She stored up these memories as food for her ever 
 restless soul. She would not have been sorry had she 
 been forced to wring her recognition from society. 
 Life must be life to her. There they rode, these for- 
 tunate drones with their inherited titles, waiting for 
 211 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the great tourney of visits to humiliate the queen of 
 the boards. Ah, they could wait! 
 
 She would marry, be a countess, and call herself 
 Elisabeth Koett. She would play on and reign on 
 as hitherto. She would not go one step out of her 
 way to meet these people, and if they expected to 
 show her the difference between real and acquired no- 
 bility — their expectations would prove vain. 
 
 For that would be the sensation of the season : her 
 failure to appear. She would go to the turf, and 
 hold her little court like a distinguished stranger, and 
 exchange cool greetings as though nothing had hap- 
 pened. 
 
 She was happy. There would be a struggle, and 
 this time with the irreconcilable hearts of women. The 
 sparks would fly, and that would be charming. 
 
 The marriage was performed with proud simplicity. 
 Only those were invited who were already friends, and 
 of whom Elisabeth knew that they did not consider 
 her elevation an impropriety. But the event was too 
 fascinating not to attract a crowd of escutcheon- 
 females (this was Rasmus's word) to the tiny church 
 of St. Rupert, which was Hameler's favorite church, 
 and had been chosen at his suggestion. In its nave 
 whispered the ghosts of millennial history; it was 
 dark, worm-eaten, fanatically somber, like early Chris- 
 tianity in a pagan land. 
 
 Hameler gave the bride away with imperturbable 
 demeanor. Elisabeth wore a myrtle-wreath, and was 
 proud and calm. 
 
 212 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Ziebern quivered with happiness. He was as much 
 in lovfe as a schoolboy, and his club had admired and 
 approved his choice. Elisabeth was fashionable, 
 racy, proud; she had style. Her salary was enor- 
 mous, and, above all, she had a large private fortune. 
 Furthermore, Rasmus had breathed forth a suspicion 
 that she was Gundenau's daughter, and this flattering 
 legend seemed most charming. 
 
 After the ceremony Elisabeth was most heartily 
 saluted by many noble ladies, whom she did not know 
 at all, and especially the young girls were much taken 
 with the new Countess. 
 
 And yet, behind all this friendliness, Elisabeth 
 subtly perceived a wall of well-bred reserve and pride 
 of birth. She passed by it as carelessly as though 
 it had been a white-thorn hedge. 
 
 She didn't go on a wedding-trip at all, and paid 
 visits only at those houses whence her young husband 
 brought her a friendly invitation. 
 
 In all other respects she remained the woman of 
 whom she would gladly have been prouder than of her 
 new title. 
 
 Into the first days of this subtle watchfulness of 
 social combat crashed the news of Peter Strehl's in- 
 considerate end. He had used the rope — the " dirt- 
 common, hideously vulgar rope ! " That was Elis- 
 abeth's first sensation on hearing of the death of her 
 mad poet-lover. 
 
 Next came, amid some remorse and a good deal of 
 rage against the engraver fellow, a terrible fear of 
 213 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 scandal. She didn't dare ask a question, least of all 
 at a newspaper office, where some sly journalist would 
 steal her secret from her very eyes. 
 
 She had to sit still and await, trembling, by day 
 and night, such revelations as Strehl had probably 
 made. But, in truth, the boy's friends knew nothing, 
 and merely suspected that, his unusual engagement 
 having been broken, he had made away with himself 
 on account of disappointed greed. They were the 
 last people who would think of avenging him. That 
 their dead comrade had been ambitious of writing for 
 the theater — that they knew ; but that one could be 
 unhappy because one's work had failed they couldn't 
 believe. 
 
 For a day and two nights he swung to the tree ; two 
 days he lay in the morgue, until the police had dis- 
 covered his name, and the supposed cause of his death. 
 Then his body was taken to the medical laboratory. 
 
 During these many hours the young Countess trem- 
 bled at every ring of the bell. At last she sent Ras- 
 mus to find out something concerning the remains of 
 Strehl. Rasmus penetrated the clinic, but all along 
 his route of investigation nothing met him except 
 evidence of the poor boy's silence. All that Rasmus 
 thought was that Elisabeth repented her cavalier 
 treatment of Strehl's play. The admirable manager 
 knew nothing. He hadn't happened to notice the 
 paragraph concerning his recent candidate for the 
 dramatic laurel. 
 
 Elisabeth was not easily quieted. In every edition 
 214 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 of every paper she sought a mention of her name in 
 connection with the affair. She had all the papers of 
 Vienna brought in, to the most obscure. But, first 
 of all, she always opened the workingman's paper. 
 
 She expected to be called a ruthless baggage, or 
 to be admired as an inscrutable Sphinx, or cursed as 
 a daemon. In her strength and elasticity she was 
 quite prepared to bear the reproaches and the detesta- 
 tion of man. 
 
 " It is a part of my vocation," she told herself de- 
 fiantly, " to be terrible. I must play the passions 
 from within. I must be able to taste of a human soul, 
 and then to discard it like a fruit that does not please 
 me. I must know that mood which alone made Hedda 
 Gabler's life livable: to be sweet and terrible as love 
 and death. O Peter Strehl, Peter Strehl ! Thy dark 
 angel spreads out its wing to bear me aloft. For I 
 will exert a more terrible magic when it is known 
 that I am one of those women for whose sake men 
 die. . . ." 
 
 But her speculations were vain. The proud pro- 
 letarian had held the matter worthy of no explana- 
 tory word. And this stem silence was his noblest 
 poem. It shamed Elisabeth unspeakably. It crushed 
 her to the earth. Not until now did she know of the 
 greatness of this poor working-boy, who had been a 
 fighter, a poet, a contemner of mortality. Hence she 
 began to love him whom she had scorned and held of 
 little account. She had found the man who could 
 humble her; she had found him in death. She loved 
 
 216 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 him — ^now — ^with all her soul. But all she could do 
 was to obtain the poor, dissected body of the dead 
 man, to hang his mound with simple flowers, and 
 cover his memory with bittei' tears. 
 She was a Countess. . . . 
 
 S16 
 
xvn 
 
 Theee was one other who suffered acutely under 
 the news of Elisabeth's marriage — Wigram. Now 
 he held her eternally lost. Some weeks before Ras- 
 mus had given him the message that pained his soul, 
 and he had sought his old, true comforter, philosophy. 
 In vain. For Wigram was a strong man and a full- 
 blooded. He had never courted the pleasures of the 
 senses ; he had lived a life of renunciation ; his aims 
 had been depth, power, greatness of soul. But 
 he had not succeeded in silencing the call of 
 his blood. And the lonelier this wild and homely 
 thinker grew, the more intensely tortured was 
 he by the sight of woman's loveHness. And so 
 hours came, heart-breakingly irresistible, in which 
 he took a few last gulden which hei had saved 
 for books or for a trip into the dear distance, 
 and bought therewith the indifferent passivity 
 of some poor woman of the streets. . . . The 
 struggle to renounce and a deep satiety then 
 dwelled side by side in his heart. The love of other 
 women he could not gain, for he was shy and lonely. 
 He desired Elisabeth or nothing. 
 
 He meditated in vain as to why nature, in her deri- 
 sion, always flung him back into its flaming caldron, 
 from which his poor, burning soul must strive again 
 
 ai7 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 and again to escape. One of his most somber and 
 melancholy sonnets spoke of such thoughts. 
 
 " Once in my boyhood, glad in alien pain 
 I sought to guide an ant upon its way, 
 And killed the little creature on that day. 
 Enraged that I had sought to guide — ^in vain. 
 
 " That evil deed comes to my mind again 
 And dyes with shame my cheek's habitual gray. 
 For the World-Spirit seeks my soul to slay 
 With deep allurements of a darker stain. 
 
 "Onward I strive for what my heart holds high; 
 The ironic moment hurls me swift aside 
 To batten in the foul world's casual sty. 
 
 "O dream divine forever cast from pride 
 Bearing a beggar's staff! Vain is my cry 
 TiU my mortality the grave shall hide.'' 
 
 Thus Wigram strove and thus he cleansed and con- 
 secrated himself again and again. 
 
 But in one corner of his heart, as in a forgotten cel- 
 lar, there lay the chrysalis of a hope. He never 
 touched it, but he dared not despair of it. It was 
 the hope that some day his fate would lead him to 
 Elisabeth. 
 
 And now that hope, too, was at an end. The news 
 of the actual marriage he had read in a cafe whither 
 he often went to read the papers and consider the 
 strange ways of the world. And when he had read 
 that Elisabeth had sunk herself wholly into the soci- 
 ety of those people who know no spiritual striving in 
 
 218 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 their consciousness of completeness, he arose and 
 went home. Gray, gray and heavy, was the night. 
 The clouds crowded the sky. A storm brewed in the 
 upper air. When he reached his room it was whis- 
 thng in the chimney. 
 
 He opened the window to the March night, and 
 tried to work. But too much of the magic of 
 growth and desire lay in this night, which came to 
 him with its liberating wind. An hour passed, and 
 he could bear it no longer: the night called to him. 
 There was a dripping and flowing on a thousand 
 eaves and trees. The last vestiges of snow melted 
 hastily; the waters of the canals gurgled, and Wi- 
 gram's pulses hammered. 
 
 All was at rest, but he roamed feverishly about the 
 inner city. Then midnight came, and he sought his 
 dwelling again. But sleep was far from him, and he 
 stepped to his window. The massive darkness of the 
 houses was broken by a reddish shaft of hght from a 
 single window. Down in the courtyard the humidity 
 rose in vapor between the icy walls. But up where 
 he was the air was gentle, mild, transparent, and 
 when the reddish clouds disparted and left free a 
 bit of sky, the stars shone so near and brilliant as 
 though they swung immediately above the clouds. 
 
 The city dreamed. The clouds embraced and pen- 
 etrated her; in the chimney whistled the wind of 
 Spring, the wind of fertility, and Wigram felt the 
 feminine element in the approach of Spring, the 
 passionate thirst of the night. 
 
 219 
 
EUsrhetJi Koett 
 
 " You in those dark houses," he called out, " you 
 have what I break my heart for, and you — sleep ! " 
 
 His soul burned and raged. 
 
 At last his turbid blood forced his brain to give 
 himself over to the agony of imagining Elisabeth's 
 bridal night. . . . He fought for breath, he tried 
 to repel the terrible pictures. But there was no 
 mercy for him. They covered the ceiling and the 
 walls of his chamber like the mischievous designs of a 
 rococo dressing-room. He was forced to think of 
 how the woman whom, alone on earth, he desired, was 
 possessed by another. . . . The agony contracted 
 his chest as with iron bands, and a cry wrung itself 
 from him — a short, groaning, thundering cry that re- 
 sounded far out into the night. The cry echoed 
 among the roofs and walls, and Wigram, panting at 
 his dark window, did not know that it had penetrated 
 into many rooms, and that men arose from their beds 
 and stared at the cloudy sky in fear and wonder. 
 
 But next morning a legend floated through the 
 quarter, and the servant-girls discoursed, in trembling 
 voices, of a great Night-fear, like the roc, which, 
 storming athwart the clouds, had cried out after life, 
 in death. 
 
 Ah it had been the cry of the cheated spring-tide 
 itself ; it had been the impassioned cry of burgeoning 
 nature; it had been all that the wisest and deepest 
 mind of his day and place could contribute to the 
 discussion of love. . . . 
 
 In this night Wigram passed through a grave 
 220 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 crisis. For the meaning of that cry had also been 
 a yearning for death. But this mad desire for the 
 end of all things saved him. Yes, death was the 
 reconciler. And with ineffable love he began to think 
 of the day of the great departure. He thought of 
 the first words which had gained him Elisabeth's at- 
 tention : " Death is life's most precious gift ; the 
 yearning for it will, some day, be the most sublime of 
 all religions." And the redeeming thought came to 
 him : " Write a book of the Yearning after Death — 
 a compelling, glowing, mild, and consoling praise of 
 death ! In this thought mighty peoples can lead a 
 sacred life. The Egyptians proved it. For cen- 
 turies this thought filled men with blessedness : the 
 whole Middle Age strove for this reconciliation with 
 death as for the palm of Paradise. And even in 
 those days when, through enjoyment and sloth, the 
 Church incited the detestation of men; when Luther 
 created that caricature of a religion which forms its 
 easy compacts with the world and the flesh to the 
 detriment of the true kingdom — even in those days of 
 the joy in food and drink did Diirer and Holbein turn 
 sadly away and paint their mighty memento mori. 
 
 Thou great Eye that regardest us from eternity, if 
 
 1 could lead man— who lives in each moment — ^to the 
 contemplation of Thy light, then might he again 
 speak enduring words of imperishable things ! " 
 
 And, having thought these thoughts, Cyrus Wi- 
 gram stepped away from the window and closed it. 
 He lit his lamp and wrote and wrote. The divine 
 221 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 rhythm of eternity vibrated in his veins, and in heart 
 and brain like a surge of the sea. An unspeakable 
 joy was his. For he would give man the gift of gifts 
 — the key to the lost Paradise of the sublime. 
 
 It was not in the speech of the philosopher that he 
 wrote, it was in that of the seer. He did not speak, 
 as science speaks, to the erring and limited experience 
 of the actual. He proclaimed, he prophesied, like a 
 poet. 
 
 " All things stand in the midst of Eternity, nor is 
 there any lower or higher," thus he began. " Our 
 little planet has produced a race that is able to recog- 
 nize in itself the great, aspiring spirit of the uni- 
 verse. And because it feels the first, mighty breath 
 of this spirit, it thinks that the end has been at- 
 tained. But there is no end in the unending. The 
 ladder of the spirit is lost in eternity, even as the 
 All's creative impulse strives from the nebula through 
 crystal, plant, beast, man. Here upon this least of 
 stars we are the end, but the soul of the universe must 
 have other worlds for the spirit's growth. For who 
 would dare to say that in a universe where all things 
 strive forever, one only should find its end, and that 
 the conscious spirit of man. Do you not see that 
 we are like a man amid mountain walls that rise above 
 each other. We have climbed one and look back; 
 the forward view is not ours ; the cliff' is too high, but 
 it, too, shall we conquer. And you, in your blind- 
 ness, say : this is the end ; and the spirits in the peaks 
 ajbove laugh. But from mountain wall to mountain 
 
 323 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 wall you shall not pass by taking thought: only the 
 wings of death can bear you upward. thou Splen- 
 dor that will bear me upon the way that my heart's 
 striving yearns after ! Thou, whom a lower con- 
 sciousness believes to be destruction: do thou inspire 
 me ! Yes, do thou inspire me till I am great enough 
 to feel the woe and want of life no longer as wrongs, 
 but as the mighty pulsations in the eternal harmony. 
 Oh, give me grace, thou purple-winged Death, to 
 show the trembling sons of man the great way which 
 they have come, in order that, panting with joy, they 
 may say to its end: O what a flight and mighty 
 passage ! Farther, O soul of mine, thou sacred 
 strength ! " 
 
 These were the first words of Wigram's noble work, 
 and they were wrung from him after that hour in 
 which, with elemental strength of desire, he had cried 
 out after love — in vain. And he began his work, 
 filled with the grace of the eternal spirit: he began 
 his poem of the great yearning which came, one day, 
 into the universe, and strives on through all eternity. 
 
 It was a divine poem of the great undulation that 
 has neither beginning nor end, which, like force, is 
 present in all spheres, leading the spirit to purer 
 heights of vision, always more deeply suffering and 
 full of keener joy, until blessedness and pain have 
 become a single vision of truth. 
 
 Wigram began with the fate of a cloud. He saw it 
 arise, strive, and die above the roofs, and he told its 
 history with love and understanding. He described 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the somber sloth of the vapors when the sky shows a 
 fleecy veil, neither gray nor blue, when the pale sun 
 breaks through, and the landscape is neither sad nor 
 smiling. 
 
 And then he described the feeling of power in that 
 cloud-mass that waxes, and in creative ecstasy forms 
 itself finally to the mountainous cloud of the summer 
 sky. He spoke of the cloud's hatred of cleavage, of 
 the terrible tension of its electric being, the outbreak 
 of its overstrength in the despair of thunder. And 
 in the mirror of his soul, to which had come the truth 
 of the absolute kinship of all things, the fate of the 
 cloud was as real and vivid as the fate of a society of 
 men. 
 
 Next he told of the fate of a child-cloud, that arises 
 in the blue fields of heaven, full of a gentle yearning 
 after life, and then, without apparent purpose, dis- 
 solves like the life of a virgin. 
 
 Wigram proceeded in his history of nature, lending 
 speech to the stone's striving after form, of the 
 stone which, in the pressure of the middle earth, 
 becomes a crystal, beauty never to be beheld, but 
 having its purpose in that, by virtue of it, the uni- 
 verse in the very core of mountains may dream its 
 dream. 
 
 It was a happiness without limits, a blessed feeling 
 of the brotherhood of all things, a vision of the one- 
 ness of life that came to Wigram in those hours of 
 Spring. 
 
 He shot with poetry and wisdom and love the his- 
 224 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 tory of an hundred beings — the grass, the buckwheat, 
 and the bee, the fly, the spider, and the fish, and the 
 deer in the wood. He spoke of all their love and 
 pain, and of their consoling and peace-giving recep- 
 tion into the woof of God's garment. And he spoke 
 of beasts of prey, and of the hunt for them, and 
 showed these phenomena, too, to be soundings upon 
 the strings of the world-harmony. 
 
 He spoke also of the wonderful searchlight that 
 the discovery of radium has let into the nature of 
 things : how it has slain the axiom of the lifelessness 
 of matter, of the finiteness of the universe's soul. 
 And thus he showed that all advances in scientific 
 knowledge are painful only to the striving for knowl- 
 edge, but infinitely consoling to the heart that yearns 
 for the infinite. Thus did Wigram fortify that hope 
 in the eternal which is true religion. 
 
 Nine weeks after Wigram had cried out into the 
 night for the love of woman, he wandered again 
 through the beloved plain south of Vienna. He 
 looked toward the far edge of the plain, where the 
 great, blue mountains stand, and his thoughts surged 
 mightily in him. He was dizzy with an unheard-of 
 happiness, made up of understanding, communion 
 with nature, and love. And once more a cry wrung 
 itself from his soul, a cry that resounded over the 
 plain, a cry of gladness. . . . 
 
 In these days Elisabeth had nothing with which 
 to fill heart or brain. That combat with the ladies 
 of the nobility for which she had nerved herself simply 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 didn't take place. She was begged to enter the so- 
 ciety from which, with the self-consciousness of the 
 plebeian, she had held herself aloof. A lady belong- 
 ing to the very highest aristocracy desired to engage 
 Elisabeth's interests for a certain charity. Seeking 
 most delicately to shield the actress's sensitiveness, 
 and also to discover whether the new title was her 
 weak spot, the great lady said : 
 
 " I was a little afraid to begin, for I didn't know 
 whether Elisabeth Koett, who uses her own illustrious 
 name, would care to be addressed as Countess." 
 
 Elisabeth, anxious to know on which of her aspects 
 the Princess laid greater weight, replied : 
 
 " I beg your Serenity to give me any title by which 
 your kindness would seek to honor me most." 
 
 And the great lady who desired neither to acknowl- 
 edge the preeminence of the name of Koett over the 
 title, nor to hurt Elisabeth by seeming to think a 
 mere Countess Ziebem greater than a great artist, ad- 
 dressed her sedulously as " dearest friend." With 
 such delicacy Elisabeth was conquered and silenced. 
 She was admired in her new set, precisely as in her 
 old, in the character of an artist. 
 
 In the beginning Elisabeth infused into each of 
 these social contacts an excessive wariness. She 
 spoke with that deliberateness and care which Hameler 
 had taught her. The words floated from her lips 
 suavely as the blossoms of Spring, each bearing a 
 hidden seed of significance. But her supposed ene- 
 mies chattered on as lightly as possible, taking no 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 thought. They made conversation: Elisabeth 
 couldn't learn not to speak. And while she couldn't 
 accuse her new acquaintances of the least discourtesy, 
 and was, in truth, treated with the profoundest re- 
 spect, she yet felt herself misesteemed. With all her 
 advantages she could only do one of two things: be 
 silent, or express true thought. A consequence was 
 that she paid out gold and received tinsel. And this 
 led to her discomfort. She spoke of it to her hus- 
 band: 
 
 " Society really shows its small self-respect in all 
 this made conversation. It is as if one were to pro- 
 pose a game at cards to a friend on the plea that one 
 doesn't know what else to do with him!" 
 
 He reassured her. 
 
 " You're foolishly sensitive. People mean to show 
 their friendliness to you, and that's the way they 
 talk. The day is long, and if it's to be filled with 
 words, you can't stop to pick and choose." 
 
 And so the class combat between a great person- 
 ality and great names — the combat of which Elisa- 
 beth had dreamed — ^was over before it had begun. So- 
 ciety had, in fact, received ladies of the stage before, 
 and their lives hadn't been any more scandalous than 
 the lives of those to the manner bom. And, in 
 addition, Elisabeth grew more interesting day by 
 day. 
 
 The story of Peter Strehl's end had transpired. 
 Rasmus, the impresario, had taken care of that. And 
 facts which, two days after the poor boy's death, 
 227 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 would have caused moral indignation, were only 
 piquant at the end of three weeks. 
 
 Rasmus betrayed the fact that Strehl had fallen 
 a victim to Elisabeth's cold cruelty. According to 
 him she had played with the poor fellow as a cat 
 plays with a mouse, but, in view of her approaching 
 marriage, had kept her conduct inviolably correct — a 
 further proof of her frightful self-command. For 
 she had loved Strehl. One had merely to ask the 
 caretaker of the cemetery whether to this day a 
 wreath was not always on that forgotten grave. And, 
 since the latter fact was a fact, society had enough 
 to do to admire the blending of gentle feeling with 
 that cruelty by virtue of which this Circe slew the 
 love in her own heart. 
 
 The verdict was : She is avid of admiration, but 
 cold as ice. Yet, when she played, and her poor 
 burdened, unsatisfied soul and heart uttered the yearn- 
 ing for some authentic passion, there was a great 
 shaking of heads. 
 
 Ziebem himself scarcely knew what to do with her. 
 She was so different from all the light women — good 
 and bad — that he had known. He told her all the 
 spicy anecdotes which his club considered specially 
 fit for the delectation of women, and which even 
 young girls had been known to hear with pleasure. 
 She merely said : " I'd leave all that out. Such things 
 are heard in the greenroom, too." 
 
 " And why should we be less amused than the folks 
 in the greenroom.'' " 
 
 228 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " Ah yes," she said ironically, " I always forget 
 that all men are brothers. I thought there were a 
 few serious varieties." 
 
 At his club Ziebern complained that his wife was 
 strait-laced to the point of boredom. 
 
 " Hm," said Hameler, " perhaps she's no friend of 
 mere theory." This remark gave rise to endless 
 cynical laughter. But Ziebern couldn't be gotten to 
 betray whether Elisabeth cared for the love of the 
 senses. Not that he was too delicate to speak of it. 
 But the trouble was : she endured his caresses, and 
 stared straight ahead of her, so somber of mood, so 
 aloofly brooding, that he felt chilled. She never re- 
 pulsed him. Sometimes she returned his kisses, but 
 as if she were thinking of a dead man, or else pity- 
 ing the fate of all created things. She admitted him 
 to physical intimacy, as though he were a strange 
 animal in whom she strove to recognize a god. 
 
 He, however, was restless and aggressive and tact- 
 less. If there was a question of gentle blood and 
 breeding between them, both were on her side. 
 
 The difference between them was the difference of 
 two worlds : a mighty mass of light and heat — a with- 
 ering planet! She was like the ancestors of noble 
 races: vehement, hot to love or hate, full of strong 
 contrasts, vigorous of speech to the point of thunder, 
 irrevocably passionate in action. His was a soul 
 painted by God's hand in pallid tints, too well bred 
 to flame up inconsiderately in excitement or anger: 
 too ill-bred to curb his desires, which never rose to 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the dignity of passions. Soon after their marriage 
 she began to treat him like a thing that can be ruled 
 at will. When once she wanted him to see a letter, 
 and he didn't come to her at once, she grasped the 
 back of his chair with nervous vigor and pulled man 
 and chair over to her. He didn't like such actions. 
 In fact, he objected to her directness. In society 
 Elisabeth treated men according to the significance 
 of their speech, and the modeling of their foreheads, 
 the vigor and the wisdom of their glance. She took 
 people by storm with her esteem or contempt. 
 
 Ziebern, on the other hand, was anxious to know a 
 man's social stamp before he touched his hand. 
 
 " It is actually difficult," he complained to her, 
 " to find out nowadays whom one should pretend to 
 esteem. One ought to have a secretary to say at the 
 proper moment : ' That's the fellow who wrote the book 
 about Sanscrit ; yonder is the human mole who bored 
 the great tunnel; or: there's the great church archi- 
 tect, and there the man who introduced adding- 
 machines into the treasury, or the Jewish philan- 
 thropist, or the clever journalist.' . . . You can 
 lengthen the list for yourself. Here a handshake, 
 there a friendly bit of rot ! A good deal is demanded : 
 eh.? " 
 
 " For pity's sake," she cried, " drop that hypocrisy 
 of fineness. If only one could find a human being — 
 just one — ^a passionate, growing, powerful man, he 
 can be as good or as bad as he likes. Much I care! 
 But one with a great task that drives him into the 
 
 aso 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 arena — a conqueror; not one of your pinchbeck 
 emasculates ! As God's my judge, they converse me 
 to death. Everyone says the same things ! " 
 
 On one of the first great gatherings in her new en- 
 vironment she looked about her restlessly, search- 
 ingly, angrily ! Many strong men were there — in in- 
 dustry or trade or speculation. There were lords 
 of iron and coal, driven by a great insatiableness. 
 But, in eternal error, they sought only for the ma- 
 terial and for a place in that society in which, some 
 day, their grandchildren would loll in cloth and insig- 
 nificance. She was looking for a man who did not 
 care for the goods of the market-place, but one who 
 throws his life away for the sake of greatness. 
 
 At last she made the acquaintance of a man who 
 seemed to approach her ideal. He had been notice- 
 able to. her before, as the lover of the blonde Miss 
 Kalmen, whose white shoulders had at times gleamed 
 more brightly than Elisabeth's genius. She had 
 thought, once or twice, that she would like to rob her 
 rival of him. Now she discovered from Rasmus, who 
 kept up with politics, that the young Prince was one 
 of those fungi on the political face of central and 
 eastern Europe — the bearer of a dynastic tradition, 
 and heir to a momentarily depreciated crown. The 
 family whose head the Prince's father was lived in 
 exile at a number of hospitable courts. But there 
 was a strong royalist party at home, the culmination 
 of whose activity was awaited by the family to re- 
 conquer its lost throne. This was a situation that 
 231 
 
Elisabeth Koctt 
 
 appealed immeasurably to Elisabeth's generous pas- 
 sions. He was unhappy, but full of regal thoughts ; 
 banished, but pregnant with storms ; high-bom, but 
 aflame with ambition to deserve what he held his in- 
 alienable right. He must be the man she had dreamed 
 of! The Prince, she knew, had long regarded her 
 yearningly. She was an immense contrast to his 
 blonde, fair, fat mistress. A change of merm was 
 a natural thing for the spoiled gentleman to desire. 
 But Elisabeth had been utterly repellent in her con- 
 duct toward him until she learned that he was the 
 pretender to a crown, whose whole life's aim was the 
 reconquest of his country. A man who starts a civil 
 War and causes a whole people to lacerate each other 
 ' — that was a man ! . . . She was an artist, and lived 
 in her imagination. 
 
 The Prince, by the way, didn't in the least share 
 her prejudice in favor of greatness and strife. He 
 sought pleasure, and considered the pleasure of being 
 a king as a most desirable diversion. It was possible, 
 of course, that as a ruler he would develop serious- 
 ness and greatness. A crown does, through its no- 
 bility of tradition, often inspire a sense of duty and 
 sacredness. But at present he showed no sign of all 
 that. He was utterly devoid of that fiery glow of 
 ambition which so often eats into the souls of royal 
 persons held powerless by the exigencies of suc- 
 cession. Few heirs apparent have ever been great 
 rulers whose years of waiting were not corroded by 
 that terrible passion. 
 
 232 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 As long as Elisabeth treated him coolly, he felt 
 merely discomfort. Like all weary and degenerate 
 heirs, he held in especial aversion the very qualities 
 that had raised his ancestors to greatness : Tameless- 
 ness, high ambition, restless blood, violence, and the 
 joy of conquest, defiance, and ruthlessness. The 
 common escutcheon of the nobility should be a heart 
 from which streams an eternal light. Never should 
 the consuming fire after power or greatness be ex- 
 tinguished. 
 
 All such qualities seemed a bit vulgar to the 
 Prince. He didn't care for them at all. But when 
 Elisabeth suddenly began to regard him with other 
 eyes his expert's instinct was comforted. Now the 
 feeling of the conqueror came to him. The prey was 
 ready. He was rather bored by the fact that her 
 husband's title made a measure of consideration neces- 
 sary. He would have liked to go straight ahead. 
 
 But just the delicate and careful method of ap- 
 proach, as she saw it, endeared the Prince further to 
 Elisabeth. She ascribed it all to the distinction of 
 his soul. A whole summer long, while he lived in the 
 neighborhood of the Zieberns, the Prince wooed her 
 in an exquisite silence, while Elisabeth sought to 
 plumb the depth of his ardor and ambition. The 
 fact that he spoke but rarely, and then carelessly, of 
 his crown, she attributed to the necessary self-re- 
 pression and secrecy demanded by great plans. Day 
 after day he seemed to her fuller of the dim presages 
 of greatness, and when she returned to the great 
 233 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 city, where a thousand houses are ready to mask in- 
 violably the deeds of men, she set out — restlessly, help- 
 lessly, confusedly — upon her first adultery. 
 
 Her spiritual confusion had, indeed, been com- 
 plete. For upon her first visit to the house whither 
 the Prince had lured her, he adopted a tone which 
 stung her to immediate protest. 
 
 " Your Highness's experience of women must have 
 been singularly unfortunate, since it taught you to 
 use such a tone." 
 
 He misunderstood her, and thought to give her 
 pleasure by speaking lightly of Miss Kalmen. 
 
 " No, no," she protested ironically, " I don't like 
 frivolous talk unless it's witty. Couldn't you, per- 
 haps, change your tactics with your mistresses.? In 
 a constitutional state such flexibility would be of 
 use!" 
 
 It made him uncomfortable to have her jest of 
 matters that had worried him all his life. He felt 
 that for the governing of a modem state very dif- 
 ferent views were needed than he possessed. Hence 
 he disliked such references. 
 
 But she wanted to know how the idea of royalty 
 looked in his soul : that was the one thing that she was 
 determined to know. And so he promised her to re- 
 veal all his soul if she would first give him the su-< 
 preme proof of her confidence. Thus he cheated her 
 of her body. 
 
 Deeply moved by the riddle of this man's life, 
 which she could not explain in terms of weakness and 
 
 234 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 smallness, she acceded to his wishes. It was still her 
 dream to stand, an inspiring figure, behind this man, 
 whose apparent sloth was caused solely by the influ- 
 ence of a nerveless society. Often, often, she said 
 to him : " I and your people demand a glowing brand 
 in your heart, not the heart and the behavior of a 
 lieutenant." 
 
 " I am young," he groaned. " Give me time. Look 
 at King Edward. In changing his name he has 
 changed his soul, and will be one of the greatest of 
 England's kings. The life I lead now initiates me 
 into the weakness of men, and by such knowl- 
 edge I will rule the better. This is my apprentice- 
 ship." 
 
 This answer of his chimed in with her dreams. She 
 gave him her love, and it was to her a deep happiness 
 to be the cleansing and strengthening fire in which a 
 regal heart might bum itself pure against the mo- 
 mentous future. She would help him to be and to 
 remain great. That's more than the Kalmen could 
 do. 
 
 He, however, was irresistibly drawn back to his 
 blonde Helen, who was much apter to ask after what 
 he had had for dinner than after the woes of kingship. 
 In fact, Elisabeth was the most uncomfortable person 
 he had ever been intimate with. She wanted him to 
 be a ruler, to carry the consciousness of his diadem to 
 bed. . . . Piffle! 
 
 A few weeks after the beginning of the season, 
 in the first days of October, he returned to the beau- 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 tiful Helen Kalmen, not, however, without having 
 first played a very " regal " trick on Elisabeth. 
 
 He took her out for a motor-spin on a day on 
 which she was later to play one of her favorite parts. 
 He drove her from the highway, toward the moun- 
 tains, but did not go beyond easy reach of Vienna — 
 for a motor-car. But when it was time to return, 
 something snapped in the machinery of the car. The 
 chauffeur worked for an hour. Elisabeth asked how 
 long the repairs would take. " Seven hours," he an- 
 swered stolidly. 
 
 She flared up in mighty rage. The Prince coolly 
 shrugged his shoulders. She hired a carriage, and 
 had the horses lashed to the next village. There she 
 changed horses and raced on. The carriage shook 
 her unendurably, but she cried out in agony that the 
 horses crawled. She was two hours late, arriving in 
 time to learn that Miss Kalmen, who was well- 
 prepared, had had quite a triumph in the part. 
 
 The manager treated Elisabeth coolly, imposed a 
 heavy fine, and chuckled at having exerted his author- 
 ity over his arrogant star. 
 
 Miss Kalmen, however, though she had given the 
 Prince her pretty hand in promise of discretion, 
 couldn't bear her half -triumph. She broke her word 
 and laughed into Elisabeth's face. 
 
 " Did you play for the benefit of strolling actors 
 again? In the mountains, perhaps? " 
 
 Then Elisabeth saw through the bargain, and her 
 breath failed at the recognition of such vulgar vil- 
 
 2S6 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 lainy, where she had dreamed of Caesarean great- 
 ness. 
 
 " Miss Kalmen," she said quietly, and held out her 
 hand, " I'm heartily gratful to you for the light you 
 throw on the situation. I know that you were sup- 
 posed to keep silent. That you blurted it out is an 
 honor to your temperament. You have taught me a 
 wonderful lesson. And so I thank you again." She 
 pressed the woman's hand, and whispered : " I won't 
 stand in your way any longer, either in his graces or 
 on the stage. In return I demand silence." 
 
 " You're going to the Burgtheater? " the woman 
 hissed jealously. 
 
 " No," Elisabeth smiled, " I'm going a different 
 way to greatness. But if you will keep the compact 
 I will let you have as many parts as I can without at- 
 tracting attention. Naturally it will take me some 
 time to make my arrangements." 
 
 " Well, that sounds like a decent bargain," the 
 woman said merrily. " So it is to be peace then.'' " 
 
 " Peace," said Elisabeth solemnly. 
 
 237 
 
XVIII 
 
 A PLAN had arisen in her to which she gave long 
 days of melancholy brooding. Her disillusion — a 
 rent in the great curtain of human life — ^pained her 
 unspeakably. It made her think of Peter Strehl who, 
 in the grip of a similar fate, had sought death. She 
 had sought a king and found pasteboard. 
 
 This crisis made her suffer terribly. She spoke to 
 no one, turned a somber aspect to her husband, and 
 brooded and agonized : How can I cut loose from this 
 "good society".'' 
 
 Her whole being was in arms against this final dis- 
 appointment that had met her. 
 
 Society! It was not the nobility per se that had 
 cheated her in so dastardly a fashion; in its ranks, 
 too, there were great lonely spirits, hearts as glowing 
 as any proletarian's. Nor did she accuse the pos- 
 sessors, the men feverish for gain and rank. The 
 heirs, as Wigram had called them — they had de- 
 graded her, the ready-made creatures of an eternally 
 changing fashion, which, at any given point of 
 change, holds itself to be the fine flower of the ages. 
 The ready-made! These she hated consumingly. 
 They had cheated her with their sluggishness, they 
 who have the impudence to say : We are the world. 
 
 All that was left her was — revenge. 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 She selected three of the fine gentlemen who take 
 two hours mornings and evenings to dress and " get 
 themselves up," like women: three virtuosi in the art 
 of tying bows, three club celebrities, three faultless 
 costumes. She invited them for a certain evening: 
 her husband, Hameler, and the Prince. In addition, 
 she invited as witnesses half a dozen persons who were 
 as careful of their honor as of the cut of their coats 
 and the shape of their shoes. Finally, she asked a 
 few faithful friends for her possible protection — 
 Rasmus and the silent, smiling, adoring Syrup. 
 
 It was a wild, unconventional supper. When the 
 corks of the champagne bottles were popping their 
 loudest, Elisabeth mounted a chair and asked for at- 
 tention. She was pallid and cold as ice. She said : 
 
 " Gentlemen ! George Hameler, ray admirable wed- 
 ding-attendant, was my lover. He deceived Count 
 Ziebern with me before our marriage; the hopeful 
 Prince did the same thing later. If you desire now 
 to discuss the situation, I will disembarrass you of 
 my presence." 
 
 When she went out there was no sound in the room 
 save the swish of her dress. The smooth faces of her 
 guests were pale as wax. Ziebern stared about for 
 seconds of himself and his cause. Hameler and the 
 Prince helped him. They dared make no denial, and 
 named their seconds. Two duels were the fruits of 
 that merry supper. 
 
 Elisabeth rapidly gathered her more valuable per- 
 sonal possessions. Her fortune was safely banked. 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 She didn't have to look for much before leaving the 
 house. 
 
 In the night air she stood and stretched out her 
 arms. Now this delusion was at an end. She had 
 squared her accounts with society, careless of its 
 painfully stringent laws. She had acted like a true 
 plebeian. 
 
 Whither now.'' The world was open to her once 
 more. Only it was not bright as of old : it was deep 
 and fearful as the night. She had broken fright- 
 fully with society. She had perpetrated the un- 
 speakable, the like of which no play had ever 
 feigned. 
 
 How, after all, had it happened.'' She had wanted 
 to excite the three men, to lash them with jealousy. 
 She had permitted a bit of the old intimacy to creep 
 into her treatment of Hameler; she had flirted with 
 the still not wholly quenched desires of the Prince. 
 Three toasts had been given in her honor, and finally 
 the wineflown insolence of her guests had expressed it- 
 self in making a butt of Syrup, whose silent happi- 
 ness stung her blase gentlemen. She had thought to 
 free Syrup from his tormentors by fixing the atten- 
 tion of the men on herself. She had merely meant 
 to thank them for their toasts. Half -recklessly, half- 
 desperately had she mounted the chair. 
 
 The electric lights had quivered radiantly over her 
 shining room; the flowers were fragrant; all was joy 
 and laughter, and Rasmus had cried out : " That is 
 right, dear Countess ! We want a masnad speech, a 
 
 240 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 bacchic verse — an Evoe ! Severin, put up your pic- 
 tures and listen to Elisabeth." 
 
 But Severin and the Prince had paid no attention 
 to Rasmus. They had a small, intimate album, full 
 of obscene pictures, on their knees. They had their 
 arms about each other like brothers, and their spir- 
 itual harmony was positively angelic. But about 
 their mouths and eyes quivered a lowering lustfulness 
 and painted the simulacra of devils upon their youth- 
 ful faces. Behind them lolled Hameler, mildly smil- 
 ing at the album, too. 
 
 At that moment disgust and rage and hatred quiv- 
 ered madly in her, and she had pronounced the sen- 
 tence of death — of social death for herself, of death 
 by a bullet, perhaps, for the three men she hated. 
 
 At that moment she would have liked to see them 
 throttle each other. But now, on the street, she was 
 indifferent about that, too. All that lay behind her. 
 The people were now her friends. Those whom she 
 had left would be irreconcilable with all their kin. 
 
 The door of the house opened. The Prince and 
 Hameler emerged arm in arm, the best friends pos- 
 sible. The young officer called in a piercing tone for 
 his carriage. The horses approached from a side 
 street, the two gentlemen entered without looking at 
 Elisabeth. A footman shut the door. The two ene- 
 mies of her husband rattled off. 
 
 Once more the housedoor moved. A lonely man 
 came out and followed Elisabeth with shy and gentle 
 steps. She turned around hastily. 
 £41 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 " What do you want ? " 
 
 " It is I, Countess," said Syrup. 
 
 " I am no longer a countess." 
 
 " As you please," he said, trembling. " Do you 
 need a friend? " 
 
 Elisabeth looked at him in surprise. 
 
 " Ah yes," she said, " you understood, then, what 
 those polished persons with their smooth names never 
 could understand — you, whom they hold lightly.? " 
 
 " I understood that you desired to square your ac- 
 counts with them and their world." 
 
 " Yes, yes. That's what I wanted." 
 
 " And so I don't know yet whether you want to 
 begin a new life or. . . . Dearest lady," he stam- 
 mered, " I'm so frightfully anxious on your account. 
 For that reason I took the liberty of following 
 you." 
 
 *' You need have no fear for me, dear friend. But 
 I thank you ; you are good and true. Did I carry on 
 terribly?" 
 
 " It was colossal, magnificent. Everyone trem- 
 bled. You are great even when you are terrible." 
 
 " And the three gentlemen? " 
 
 " They will shoot each other. It is frightful. 
 Does that give you pleasure? " 
 
 " No," she said coolly, " but since that's a part 
 of the profession of being in society, why, they may 
 exercise it. I don't compel them." 
 
 He shuddered at the quietude of her dsmonic 
 might. Since she had been in Vienna she had been 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 mistress of his thoughts, nay, of his life. Almost 
 involuntarily he murmured: 
 
 " Yes, you are the woman for whom one dies." 
 
 Silently she walked beside him, in whoni love and 
 fear were blending, through the night. She did not 
 speak a single word, but crossed the Rmg toward an 
 hotel, in which, at least, she would be sure not to 
 meet those whom she desired to avoid. She asked 
 Syrup to engage rooms for her. When they were 
 procured, she gave him her hand without further 
 speech. It was a silent farewell. 
 
 She slept like one who has died. But the next day 
 the agonized stirring of her thoughts began again. 
 No revenge could heal the sickness of her deeply 
 humiliated soul. 
 
 She was as desperate as she had been. 
 
 Rasmus the faithful came to see her. He told her 
 that he would break entirely with Ziebem, and stand 
 by her, if she desired it. A flickering irony illumi- 
 nated his face. His mood was anything but tragic, 
 and he spoke lightly of the previous evening : 
 
 " I'm not a bit surprised that you were dead tired 
 of little Severin. I'll procure a respectable divorce 
 for you. Cause : hopeless incompatibility. So your 
 highly temperamental disclaimer of last night will 
 have no evil consequences." 
 
 She was utterly astonished. 
 
 " No evil consequences ? " 
 
 " Of course not," he said ironically. " Don't you 
 suppose that society has its method of dealing with 
 243 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 high explosives? When your friends had recovered 
 from their first shock, the next thing we all did — 
 even before Ziebem challenged his opponents — ^was 
 to pledge our honor never to divulge the evening's 
 events. Hameler made the proposition, and everyone 
 took the oath. Then the conditions for the two duels 
 were arranged. Society constituted itself a kind of 
 court of honor after Syrup had been asked out. Well, 
 before Hameler left with the Prince he gave his word 
 of honor that his intimacy with you had been prac- 
 tically platonic, and had antedated your engagement 
 to Ziebern. Hence these two will go in for a friendly 
 kind of farce: light swords, easy conditions; on the 
 first abrasion they shake hands, reconciled. And that 
 the duel which His Serenity has graciously granted 
 your husband will have no serious consequences — ^well, 
 the Prince's political importance is guarantee enough, 
 isn't it.'' He honors Severin by this appearance of 
 giving him satisfaction, and thus heightens the lat- 
 ter's social importance. Finally, all concerned hope 
 that you will observe the same discretion which will 
 be granted you." 
 
 Elisabeth was not greatly edified by the news that, 
 for the present, her fair fame would be saved. She 
 said coolly: 
 
 " Another farce, then ; my tragedy turned into 
 comedy. I aim at hearts and hit — rubber. It's very 
 instructive, and I thank you, dear Rasmus, for all 
 your interesting bits of information, of which I care 
 for just one: that your friendship for me is saved." 
 
 244 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 Sadly she gave him her hand. 
 
 "Ah," he smiled joyfully, "I! That's nothing. 
 The main thing is that, in spite of your experiment, 
 the world is still yours — the interest of the boxes, the 
 love of society which you need so much. And, sec- 
 ondly, you have left " 
 
 " Just one thing," she said briefly. 
 
 "And that is.?" 
 
 " The wagon of Thespis ! " 
 
 " So that's the latest trick.? " 
 
 " Yes," she said earnestly, " the vagabonds' wagon 
 made sacred by Thespis and Moli&re. To-day the 
 wagon rolls through the land considered a travesty 
 of art, and yet it is art's sole remaining refuge. Only 
 there can the actor escape the soilure of his calling. 
 The wheels of the wagon touch the mud, not the 
 actor's repertory or his art. If I have my own com- 
 pany, the intriguing for parts is eliminated. Each 
 member knows his specialty. We can take thirty, or 
 sixty, or even an hundred plays, using only such mod- 
 ern work as has the proven stamp of authentic genius. 
 So there will be no contracts with authors, no man- 
 agement, no experiment, and no failure. The audi- 
 ences are unsophisticated; the wagon can make its 
 way to those little country towns where people trem- 
 ble if only Pelleas and Melisande go through the mari- 
 onette performance. I'm rich enough; I don't need 
 to earn money. I will pay my people well. Do you 
 go out, Rasmus, and seek ! The fieriest, the most en- 
 thusiastic of our young players will heed the call to 
 245 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 wander — for that urge is in their blood. They say 
 that when Odysseus blew the trump of war, Achilles 
 leapt from the ranks of the women among whom he 
 hid disguised. Do you cry out : ' The wagon of 
 Thespis is reborn ! ' — and the best will flock to your 
 standard." 
 
 " But," said Rasmus, " if you appeal to the Wan- 
 derlust of your actors, how will art profit.'' " 
 
 " I will tell you," she cried : " we will play Sophocles 
 and Moliere, Shakespeare and Goethe, Ibsen and 
 Maeterlinck. Of Hauptmann's plays we will take 
 The Weavers and Hannele, those in which his 
 soul cried out instead of whispering. The choice of 
 a mighty subject betrays the artist; that of a grate- 
 ful one, the mere virtuoso. The satiated audiences of 
 the great city, who have a dozen theaters at their 
 command, compel us to the use of crass and violent 
 effects. I myself suiFered for years from the so-called 
 good part. Nor can I bear other aspects. Week 
 after week I must defend myself, not against a rival's 
 superior gifts, but her more powerful protector or 
 lover. My art is threatened by any harlot who prom- 
 ises sweeter nights, by every new trick, by sophisti- 
 cations of dress, by white shoulders, by the newcom- 
 er's charm of freshness. To play my rivals to pieces 
 — that's my art, and they are enthusiastic because I 
 can do that too. But I am full of horror, I want 
 to seek my own society ; the society that is truly mine 
 — ^men and women who are willing to bear hunger and 
 thirst for art's sake. With such I would be at one; 
 
 246 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 with such rejoice and liberate! And think, Rasmus: 
 To gather the best spirits of a town for one or two 
 days, to give them something on which their minds 
 can feed for years to come, and then to go farther, 
 farther! . . . Do you understand me ? " 
 
 He was moved and wiped his brow with a plebeian 
 red handkerchief, the banner of his liberation from 
 society. 
 
 " Elisabeth," he said, " to-day you have come into 
 the kingdom of your soul. Hitherto you have been 
 an exile from it in alien worlds. I will help you with 
 all my heart and strength. I will be your impresario, 
 and the dust and clay of the roadside shall not touch 
 your hem." 
 
 He went. In a few short weeks he had gathered 
 many notable actors, above all, he had engaged Ep- 
 pelin, whose delicate gifts had been unappreciated on 
 several stages. Horst Wullenweber roared with de- 
 light at the chance: young and old capitulated to 
 the double lure of conquering the limitless world and 
 of playing with Elisabeth. It was to be a company 
 that would play not for the glare and glitter of some 
 star, but for the eternal honor of art. 
 
 But Elisabeth was neither calm nor happy yet, 
 even when Rasmus had gone to put her new plan into 
 execution. This wandering, which was to begin dur- 
 ing the holidays, and save a score of restless, 
 oppressed artists' souls — it was all but an expiatory 
 act to her, no true liberation. Something was lack- 
 ing to her! Was it her lost purity and strength? 
 247 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 In her bare rented room she meditated till late into 
 the night. 
 
 " Can I not grasp the thoughts of the great play- 
 wrights? Am I not almost their equal when I shake 
 the souls of men? Ah, that's it — I am great only 
 through them. They are the condition of me. But 
 a leader must be a man. Oh, this old, strange, hope- 
 less striving for him upon whom I may lean! This 
 yearning for one who is stronger than I! Will my 
 eyes ever see him ? " 
 
 But her desperate thoughts brought her only 
 images of divine beauty. Then a new thought came 
 to her. In Athens stood an altar with an empty 
 postament : To the Unknown God. Were they afraid 
 to place the god's statue there for fear it would seem 
 uncomely to the spoiled Athenians? And with this 
 thought words came to her lips, half -unconsciously, 
 and as through force of habit — ^words which, at one 
 time, in her old home, she had uttered in her deuly 
 perplexities. 
 
 " I'll go and ask Wigram." 
 
 She was almost frightened at the lightness that 
 came into her heart. She felt as if she had suddenly 
 had news of a dear brother, lost to her for years. And 
 while she thought that she would go to Wigram and 
 beg him to assume the spiritual leadership of her com- 
 pany, all her plans seemed suddenly to become great 
 and light. Now all would be well, and in the middle 
 of the night she hurried through the streets, victory 
 in her heart. 
 
 M8 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 But the way was too long. She took a cab. And 
 every time the cabby urged his well-trained beast on- 
 ward, her heart cried again : " All will be well." 
 
 She rang the doorbell, quieted the janitor's sus- 
 picion with a tip such as only folly or joy will givey 
 and stormed up the stairs. She would sit by his bed 
 and confess and ask and explain and weep like a wild, 
 young sister. She knocked at the door, and her heart 
 throbbed. 
 
 " Come in ! " answered his deep, quiet voice, for 
 he was awake and lost in thought. But the en- 
 trance of Elisabeth forced a cry from him. He had 
 sooner expected a divinity. 
 
 " Cyrus," she cried, " Cyrus, be glad with me, for I 
 have come back to your hopes of me ! " 
 
 The wild triumphant tone convinced him at once. 
 He sprang up, and his great voice trembled with joy. 
 
 " Elisabeth ! If that is true, it is a greater hap- 
 piness to both of us than any other on earth ! " 
 
 She threw her hat and furs and muff from her. 
 
 " Let me look at you, dear friend and brother ! 
 Have you still your old, wild tousled head.'' And 
 didn't your sorrow for me turn you graj? Ah, on 
 what erring ways I have gone! But henceforth I 
 belong to her to whom we both belong — ^to art, the 
 sacred, the eternal ! " 
 
 And like a hurt child she told him of her errors 
 
 in search of wealth, of success, of self-adoration. She 
 
 told him of the daily wretched squabbles at the 
 
 theater. Then she breathed deeper, and her words 
 
 M9 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 came more slowly. A mountain of spiritual need had 
 been cast off in her confession. And she told him of 
 Hameler, and how, as his mistress, she had last 
 thought of the sacred ardor of Wigram's creative ef- 
 fort. And she breathed out all her sorrow over Peter 
 Strehl, who had had to pay with his life for her last 
 yearning after Bohemia. She confessed the cool cal- 
 culation with which she had drawn Ziebern into the 
 compact of marriage, merely not to have to play the 
 part of great ladies on the stage, and endure the sight 
 of the reality in thfe boxes. She told him how her 
 unconquerable desire for distinction, for spiritual fire, 
 for greatness, had driven her into the arms of the 
 Prince in whom she hoped to find all her ideals. And, 
 somber and quiet of mind, she did not refrain to tell 
 him of the bitterness of her disillusion. 
 
 Wigram was deeply moved. 
 
 " Those are lessons taught by life — wild, strange, 
 sacred lessons! And now, Elisabeth.''" 
 
 " Now.'' " she cried. *' I have had for years the 
 desire to change my life wholly. ' Farther, farther ' 
 — that has been the secret call of my heart. Six or 
 seven times I tried to break my engagement in order 
 to satisfy my fever to wander out into the goodly 
 world. But the siren songs of the glories of this 
 world have always lulled my soul to sleep again. Now 
 the day of insight and the day of my turning back has 
 come ! " 
 
 She told him of her plan to have several huge 
 touring-cars built, and of faring from town to town 
 
 250 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 and from castle to castle, like the English actors of 
 the sixteenth century. Thus she would seek to carry 
 the beacon of a great art hither and thither for single 
 priceless hours. She would go into the Slav 
 provinces of the empire which, for the sake of their 
 own imperfect speech, seek to form a mediocre sep- 
 aratist culture. And into the hearts of these foolish 
 folk she would hurl the greatness, the sweetness, the 
 sacredness of the Germanic ideal. Thousands ahd 
 thousands of these erring, hate-filled hearts she might 
 reconquer to that salvation which — for them — lay 
 solely through the Paradise of German thought and 
 speech and aims. 
 
 She was wrought up and impassioned, and Wigram 
 regarded anxiously the twitching of her lips. 
 
 " A secret fire is eating its way into you, Elisa- 
 beth," he said tenderly, " beware lest it consume 
 you!" 
 
 " Ah," she cried, " is that not the best fate I can 
 hope for — to be consumed by a noble fire in the days 
 of my youth ! " 
 
 Then said Wigram as if transfigured : 
 
 " Behold, Elisabeth, the mysterious yearning of 
 all souls has brought you whither it has brought me 
 also — to the longing for redemption from the fables 
 of this world." 
 
 And now he told her of his great and sacred work : 
 
 the book in Praise of Death. He read her the stories 
 
 of the cloud, the cricket, the bee, the pert sparrow, 
 
 and the cunning fox, and he showed her that all these 
 
 251 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 forms of being were, like herself, bound upon that 
 Eternal Quest, and that in them, too, echoed the 
 crj of her own heart: Farther, farther. . . . And 
 each of these prodigal children of the universe re- 
 turns at last to its redeemer, death. 
 
 In the silence of the night he read her one of his 
 loveliest apologues concerning the death of a her- 
 mit who lay, in utter loneliness, so weakened by fever 
 that his hand could not grasp the water jar. While 
 his poor body throbbed in pain, hymns of the eternal 
 might, of sublimity, of the desire of the enduring, 
 sounded in his purified soul. Thus did this most 
 lonely of all lonely souls die amid the thunder of the 
 forest's booming, the moaning of the trees, and in it 
 pain and strife, yearning and peace, became one sym- 
 phony. 
 
 Elisabeth's eyes gleamed. 
 
 " You are greater than I, Cyrus. I would have 
 my art be the bearer of a cultural idea, an apostle of 
 the German race. But if you will fare with me on 
 my wanderings, I will seek to play into all hearts that 
 sublime thirst for the great Uberator, death." 
 
 " It is well," said Wigram ; " I will fare with 
 you." 
 
 She had found the way out at last, and her 
 strength gave way. 
 
 " I'm tired to death," she whispered. " Have you 
 a place where I can rest? " 
 
 Wigram spread his own bed for her as tenderly 
 as a mother smoothes the couch of a little child. He 
 
 £62 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 himself lay down on the divan. He put out the light, 
 and Elisabeth undressed and sank down, utterly 
 weary. 
 
 " Good-night," she said. 
 
 " Sleep well, Elisabeth." 
 
 She stretched her limbs in unwonted comfort. But 
 before she went to sleep the truth of things came to 
 her. There she lay at night in Cyrus Wigram's 
 room, and they were to each other as children. And 
 she knew that her freedom was found, for she loved 
 him. But it was with a love which, until that day, 
 she had not known; it was the heavenly, not the 
 earthly love. And so, purely and happily, they went 
 to sleep. . . . 
 
 The deer, with the hunter's lead in its heart, breaks 
 out upon a last and mighty flight, stormy, wild, and 
 strong, as none other in its life has been. Thus it ex- 
 pends its most desperate power before it dies. And, 
 behold, that man whom the Snake of Eternity has 
 bitten flees onward like the deer, full of fear and 
 power, but unconscious of the hindrances of this 
 world. He lives only to die. Once, in harsh old 
 times, such a life could endure for a space. But in 
 our days this recognition of eternal truth has become 
 rare : its beauty has become terrible, and swiftly slays 
 the impassioned heart. 
 
 So there is little to tell, after so great a thing as 
 the return of an erring child of the world into the 
 Eternal kingdom, save what is shadowed forth by the 
 image of the wounded deer. 
 
XIX 
 
 It was a mystic morning of the Spring^tide on 
 which Elisabeth's motor-cars rolled out from Vienna. 
 
 They rolled on toward the rising sun which soared 
 roseate and broad behind the mountains. They rolled 
 toward that region whence the rare, slow freight 
 trains come to Vienna, laden with wine and sugar- 
 beets, and carrying no cultural influences and few 
 men. They rolled into the hostile Hungarian land. 
 
 This was once German earth. And the rich vine- 
 yards from the Leitha mountains to the Neusiedler 
 Lake, the Pressburg region to the North, the lands 
 of Odenburg and Steinamanger to the South — all 
 these districts were once scenes of German skill and 
 thrift until, in the seventeenth century, they were sold 
 to Hungary for the delusion of a crown. In the 
 beautiful free regal cities German ability still strives, 
 half -smothered, against the Hunnish jargon, which 
 can never replace one of the world's great cultural 
 tongues. And thither Elisabeth carried, for the first 
 time in many years, the divine German word. 
 
 A time of pain and fame began for her. Those 
 exiles from the motherland honored her as an angel 
 bearing to them a brief immortal draught. The aged 
 renewed their strength, the young, half tempted from 
 their true allegiance, felt the thrill of belonging to a 
 
 254 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 mighty and a favored folk. And Elisabeth was so 
 strange and sweet, so magical to every heart, that all 
 men between sixteen and sixty adored her in the Ger- 
 man theater and, through her, the lofty speech she 
 spoke. Thus may a single genius strive for its race. 
 
 The Magyars and the Slavs hurled venom and 
 stones. But the rich and silent souls even among 
 these people longed to be children of a race whose 
 great men had created a world of thought, of happi- 
 ness, of high emotion. 
 
 The papers of Vienna, of the Austrian provinces, 
 of the German Empire, were supplied by Rasmus 
 with accounts of Elisabeth's travels. And the whole 
 German world followed, with love and anxiety, her 
 apostolic mission. Her strife and her martyrdom 
 made her more illustrious than the love of thousands 
 had hitherto done. 
 
 But there was one who suffered from a deep melan- 
 choly beyond the wont of men. And that was Syrup, 
 in whom glowed mightily the master-virtues of his 
 race — Jewish yearning for the ideal and Jewish grati- 
 tude. He loved Elisabeth, oh yes, sensually and 
 super-sensually. But what had been dearest to him 
 were the hours of lofty emotion and thought which 
 she had given him as an artist. He had always left 
 the theater transfigured. Life and death, happiness 
 and pain, had been one in him — a single harmony, a 
 complete redemption. And now there was none who 
 could give him that. All the theaters of Vienna 
 seemed empty. 
 
 S65 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 He sought in the picture galleries for the works of 
 liberating masters, and found none : he read the great 
 poets, but Elisabeth's vibrating, stirring voice was 
 lacking to their interpretation. He heard Mozart 
 and Wagner and Beethoven, and for moments was 
 happy. But when the great waves of music died 
 into silence, he returned to reality like a slave from a 
 fair dream-life. 
 
 Oh, how the professional actors in the theaters 
 played ! In none was divine love or scorn. Artisans 
 of word and gesture, they had not among them one 
 creative soul. And so Syrup suffered from a deep 
 nostalgia for his heavenly kingdom. 
 
 For a year and more had Elisabeth been on her 
 travels. Her life was a divine fever ; she was threat- 
 ened and loved ; she fought and conquered. It was a 
 life without parallel, a happiness without end, be- 
 cause it was so blent with sorrow. Her fortune de- 
 creased, but she heeded it not. Her life was like a 
 torch. The more gloriously it flares up, the nearer 
 is its end. But, ah, the light it gives ! 
 
 As for Syrup, he took what little capital he had, 
 obtained leave of absence from the bank which em- 
 ployed him, and followed Elisabeth. She used up her 
 money in order to play, to conquer, to be great: he 
 used his to live through her. As long as his means 
 lasted, he was blessed. His honest, clever practical- 
 ity suggested fears for the future; resolutely he 
 abandoned them. He wanted to live, through Elisa- 
 beth, upon the heights of being. 
 
 256 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 In a little town in the Carpathian mountains he 
 met her, and reveled in joy and greatness and fought 
 for her against the hostile rowdyism of the Magyars. 
 Blessed as a martyr, he bore a deep scalp-wound to 
 the hotel. He was happy beyond measure. When 
 the railroad came to an end Elisabeth received him 
 into her car. Soon he belonged to her company, and 
 was teased like a private chaplain. 
 
 Thus two years and a half passed over this world 
 of change, and still without rest the large motor- 
 cars of the " great Elisabeth " traveled through the 
 land. For thus the German papers called her in rev- 
 erence, the Slav and Magyar press in derision and 
 hatred, on account of her power to preach the gospel 
 of the German word. 
 
 Often and often she heard waves of rejoicing mingle 
 with hisses and with venom in alien tongues. And 
 still her path lay through realms of blind hatred. 
 Not her dignity nor her woman's weakness saved her 
 from mistreatment and insult by word and deed. But 
 she went her way, past enthusiasm and hate, pro- 
 claiming through the great plays of the eternally 
 free spirits the message of liberation from the idols 
 of the Market-place. 
 
 An intimate desire had taken hold of her to play 
 the awakening from the agony of life. At times, of 
 course, her company played the profound comedies 
 of the bitter-hearted Moliere, even of Aristophanes. 
 But dearest to her were those works through which 
 blows the breath of temporal redemption and eternal 
 
 257 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 awakening: Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth, Othello, Mary 
 Stuart, Faust. . . . She was happy when she could 
 depict death. Deeper and deeper she penetrated the 
 secrets of the final hour of life. A thousand times 
 did she bless the mild, rich poet of Hannele. 
 And she had discovered still another poet, whose 
 best and holiest work she carried about with loving 
 care. And that was Peter Strehl and his forgotten 
 Oddrun. 
 
 When she had left her husband, he had sent her all 
 kinds of odds and ends that were hers. Among these 
 she discovered, with a quivering heart, the pages of 
 her young, dead lover's manuscript. She desired to 
 expiate and to read the words which he, in his mis- 
 taken youth, had written. And, at the end of a few 
 pages, her whole heart had burned. 
 
 It was a work as full of a pregnant silence as Mac- 
 beth. Oddrun speechlessly, but with battling soul, 
 approaches her fate. She is almost silent through 
 long acts unto the resonance and glory of her final 
 cry. 
 
 And Elisabeth knew that, in Peter Strehl, she had 
 murdered that which should have been divine and im- 
 mortal. 
 
 She assumed the heritage of guilt and glory, and 
 interpenetrated the glowing, faulty work with the 
 might of her art. And all men trembled before the 
 mystic reproaches of him who was dead. They 
 shared the troubled conscience of Elisabeth. Od- 
 drun became famous far and wide, and all poets 
 
 258 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 mourned Peter Strehl, the unknown, the early dead. 
 Adonis ! Adonis ! 
 
 But in Elisabeth burned still the passion for deliv- 
 erance from the yoke of things: Farther . . . 
 farther. . . . Her lovely flexible body vibrated with 
 this passion, and became girlish again in its appealing 
 slenderness. And those who loved her said: " She 
 will die, like Rafael and Mozart, in her divine youth. 
 The passion of Eternity is upon her." It was true. 
 Her wholly spiritualized body needed but a light 
 blow. . . . 
 
 It was a merciless Summer's day far down in the 
 Slavonic country — whether in Esseg or Peterwardein 
 does not matter. It was a little town by the sloth- 
 ful waters of the Save. The sound of German 
 speech had not utterly died away there, and in the 
 deadly heat of a sickly Summer Elisabeth had 
 carried thither the consolation of the holy German 
 tongue. 
 
 Goethe's Faust had been played, and her whole 
 soul had cried out in Gretchen's last words : 
 
 "Judgment of God, to thee I am committedl" 
 
 On the benches of the hall hired for the performance 
 the Germans of the place sat, strong, proud, glad of 
 the sound of their mother-tongue, and of the words 
 of the mighty poet. But when the storms of ap- 
 plause ceased, Elisabeth felt fevered, and drank greed- 
 ily of the infected water of the district. 
 
 Days later she still dwelt in the far town beyond 
 
 259 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 the Save. Her cars stood, blind monsters, on the com- 
 mon, and her actor-folk went about depressed. No 
 one spoke of other performances. 
 
 For in her plain room lay Elisabeth, white as the 
 wall, with dark and staring eyes. 
 
 The ceiling had been painted in crude figures. At 
 these Elisabeth stared in the intensity of her fever. 
 Some of the blots had been meant to represent pansies. 
 These turned to the faces of gargoyles, which 
 changed and shifted strangely. She saw the face of 
 her first manager, who had been small and erect, and 
 full of temperament. In the old, old days, a fellow- 
 actor had made an image of himself on the wall of 
 the greenroom: he had worked with rouge and false 
 hair, half-painting, half relief work. And now this 
 painted face looked down on her and assigned her the 
 part of a waiting-maid, and her soul hurt and 
 hurt. . . . 
 
 Another face was pale and puffed like a bim. It 
 was that of her last manager. In a high-pitched, 
 hoarse voice, he imposed a heavy fine on her because 
 she had been ill too long. So she tried to jump from 
 her bed. But Wigram and Rasmus, who watched 
 over her, held her back. Then she grew dizzy. She 
 heard the roaring of great motor-cars. They howled 
 and thundered and crashed. Then one retreated and 
 another approached. Her husband and his seconds 
 sat in one. They were going to the duel. A third 
 one came and, behold, it was the hangman's cart. In 
 it Peter Strehl was rattled toward the gallows, and 
 
 260 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 he was afraid and cried : " Huhu ! " Elisabeth cried 
 out : " Stop ! He is innocent ! " But the cart rolled on 
 till lost in the distance. But from afar she could 
 still see cart and horse in the haze of Summer 
 that glinted in the horse's mane. Then all was 
 gone. 
 
 Deeply moved did Wigrara regard her moveless 
 countenance. Only an occasional twitching gave 
 evidence of the last illusions thronging her earthly 
 habitation. Life still revenged itself with its images 
 upon the escaping soul. 
 
 Then Elisabeth began to sing the bugle-calls from 
 Handet. 
 
 "Oh, that this tno, too solid flesh would melt, 
 Thaw and dissolve itself into a dew ..." 
 
 she wailed like a child. And again she sang the 
 bugle-call. One could see how Elisabeth was trying 
 to imitate the woeful expression on the face of Son- 
 nenthal, the great and gentle actor, who played Ham- 
 let with something senile in his demeanor. Often she 
 had made jest of him whom she admired. Now that, 
 too, passed before her soul. . . . 
 
 Then came memories of Paris and Hiller. She 
 spoke a curious French, with set teeth, like the Wal- 
 loons. " Je t'aime, je t'aime, je t'aime!" With 
 just that maddening rapidity did Sarah Bernhardt 
 speak, with lips almost closed — a snake of pas- 
 sion. . . . 
 
 There was long rest and dim waiting. Then her 
 261 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 voice arose again, pure, sweet, and poignant as a sil- 
 ver flute: 
 
 "The thane of Fife had a wife! Where is she now? ' 
 
 Then she seemed to sleep. Rasmus, exhausted 
 with long vigils, crept out. But her sensitive ear 
 heard his step. She started up as he closed the 
 door. 
 
 " Cyrus ! " 
 
 " I am with you, Elisabeth," he said softly. 
 
 " Cyrus, have I made my will, or was it a 
 dream . . ." 
 
 " You made it and, oh, I wish it were not so . . ." 
 
 " The will in which you and Rasmus are named as 
 my sole heirs ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Ah, that is well, well . . ." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " Cyrus." 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " A curtain is rolling up — purple, blue, and gold. 
 My new debut is beginning ? " 
 
 " Can you still jest, Elisabeth.? " 
 
 She didn't answer. She hummed, monotonously 
 and strangely, like a golden fly in the haze of Summer. 
 Then she ceased. 
 
 " Farther . . ." she said, " farther . . ." 
 
 She turned her face away like a tired child, whom 
 the light hurts. 
 
 Then all was still. She seemed in deep sleep, and. 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 since she lay on the side of her heart, the physician 
 had to turn her over in order to ascertain that Elis- 
 abeth Koett would never awaken to the errors of this 
 world. . . . 
 
 Yonder, in that Slavonic town, at the end of the 
 world, ancient custom was strong. The actress, 
 guilty of the threefold sin of her calling, her seduc- 
 tion of the folk of the land, and her power of Ger- 
 man speech, was consigned to unconsecrated ground 
 beyond the wall of God's acre. Thus the Slav clergy 
 decreed. Wigram and Rasmus were not the men to 
 raise a cry concerning this circumstance. They had 
 far too much to do in thinking about the eternal life 
 of that restless soul that had been embodied in so 
 beautiful a form, whom they had loved so un- 
 speakably, and who had so divinely expiated her 
 sins. . . . 
 
 A small event took place on the day following the 
 funeral of the German actress. In the dawn the dead 
 body of a man lay across the fresh mound. Earth 
 had become useless to Syrup since the great artist of 
 pain and passion had passed away. She had purified 
 his soul. She died and the world was empty. . . . 
 
 At her last resting-place he had taken poison, and 
 lay there in his ultimate faithfulness. . . . 
 
 He left a letter, begging Wigram and Rasmus to 
 bury him at the feet of her for whom he had lived. 
 The desire was superfluous. He would have been 
 buried there in any case — a suicide and a Jew. . . . 
 
 Wigram and Rasmus didn't even know his given 
 263 
 
Elisabeth Koett 
 
 name. They wrote to Vienna, but received no an- 
 swer. Syrup's family carried its anger beyond the 
 grave, because of his passion and death for the sake 
 of a Gentile woman. 
 
 Hence on the massive block of granite marking that 
 lonely grave, there is a grotesque inscription : 
 
 Elisabeth Koett. 
 
 t August 15, 1908. 
 
 Syrup. 
 
 t August ir, 1908. 
 
 "Farther. . . 
 
 . Farther. ..." 
 
 To Wigram and Rasmus fell but a small inher- 
 itance. Elisabeth had used nearly all her fortime in 
 the pursuit of her mission. Her wealth and her 
 strength came to a simultaneous end. Yet what re- 
 mained sufficed to insure to Wigram, for the rest of 
 his earnest days, the luxury of uninterrupted ecstatic 
 thought. 
 
 His work should be completed in these our days. 
 It sings in irresistible strains of beauty of that dark 
 impulse, throughout all our erring ways, after the 
 rest which God, whose name is Eternal Yearning, has 
 prepared for us. Upon its last pages is told the 
 story of the life and death of that deep, sinful, won- 
 derful woman, Elisabeth Koett, whom Eternity drove 
 through time, whose days were but a yearning for 
 that loftier dream whose symbol is the grave, who had 
 lived the life of impassioned genius, and had died its 
 death. For Elisabeth had lived for the future only 
 to give Wigram's book a last and crowning instance 
 of the agony of life. . . . 
 
 264 
 
■' 'Elisabeth Koett 
 
 And an unmatchable yearning would tear the hearts 
 of all men, could they read this irresistible book — 
 this compelling, magically singing Praise of Death, 
 whose secret is the secret which Elisabeth had ut- 
 tered :" Farther . . . Farther. . . ." 
 
 THE ENB 
 
 265