Part 18

The cab rolled up Broadway, that main thoroughfare of New York stretching along for miles, with two apparently unbroken chains of street-cars moving by each other. At that time the cars were propelled by an endless cable travelling in a conduit under the roadway. The traffic all along Broadway was enormous, and the contrast was the more surprising when the cab, after traversing another lively street, turned into a deserted-looking side street, where almost country-like quiet prevailed.

The cab came to a halt, and Willy Snyders helped Ingigerd out. The travellers found themselves in front of a low one-family house with a flight of outside steps, differing in no wise from the other houses on the block, which were all built on the same plan, of exactly the same height, of exactly the same width, and with absolute similarity of detail. Frederick had observed such architectural monotony only in workingmen's houses in Germany, while here it was the mark of a fairly aristocratic section.

Twilight had already fallen when Frederick and Ingigerd at length found privacy in their rooms. The rooms, plainly furnished and scrupulously clean, were lighted by electricity and heated from a furnace in the cellar; and the floors were not laid with wood, but paved with red bricks. Petronilla, the old Italian housekeeper, took Ingigerd in charge, looking after the smallest of her wants with touching motherliness. The two said what was necessary to say in a mixture of Italian and English. After showing Ingigerd to her room and seeing that she was provided with everything, Petronilla stepped out into the hall to call a maid, who was working in another part of the house. Frederick heard her, and put his head out of the door to inquire after Ingigerd.

"The signorina dropped on the couch without undressing and fell right asleep," she said.

Frederick feeling somewhat uneasy went with Petronilla to look after Ingigerd, and found that she had merely succumbed to a leaden sleep. Her constitution, after weeks of over-exertion and abuse, was asserting its rights. Petronilla and the maid undressed her and put her to bed, all unconscious, though now and then opening wide her shimmering sea-green eyes.

II

Frederick washed and went down-stairs to the basement with Willy Snyders. Here there was a tidy little dining-room with a table set for eight. As in the other rooms, the floors were of brick, and the walls half-way up were hung with burlap. Where the burlap ended, a narrow shelf ran around the entire room, set with all sorts of household utensils, chiefly _fiaschi_ of wine in straw cases. Like everything else about the place, the napery was exquisitely clean.

Willy in the meantime had in his droll, lively way fully informed Frederick of the character and purpose of this extremely comfortable house. It was leased by a group of German artists, whose main prop was a sculptor of twenty-eight by the name of Ritter. Willy lauded Ritter as a genius. He had entered upon a career in the New World most remarkable for a man of his age. Among his patrons were the Astors, the Goulds, and the Vanderbilts; and he had received most of the orders for exterior sculpture work on the buildings of the Chicago Exposition. Willy called Ritter "a devil of a fellow," and praised him for his "smartness."

In a corner of the dining-room, in the halls and on the stairway landings, were reproductions of Ritter's works. Willy extolled them to the skies; Frederick honestly admired them. The large bas-relief in the corner of the dining-room represented a group of singing boys, for which Ritter, probably at the suggestion of his customer, a Vanderbilt or an Astor, had used the famous relief of Luca della Robbia as a model. In style, nobility and freshness, his work surpassed anything then being done in Germany.

Another sculptor partaking of the benefits of the club-house was a friend of Ritter, who helped him with his work. Like Ritter, Lobkowitz was a native Austrian. The fourth member of the group was Franck, a painter from Silesia, an impecunious eccentric, upon whose talents his comrades placed an extremely high estimate. It was Willy Snyders the kind-hearted who, soon after a chance meeting with his fellow-Silesian, dragged him from his wretched quarters, not without much coaxing, and transferred him to the club-house.

"Wait and see the way that lunatic Franck is going to behave," said Willy in his peculiar voice, in which there was a blending of the guttural and nasal tones of American English with the Austrian German accent of his friends. "He snaps like a mad dog. He's enough to make you split your sides laughing--that is, if the perverse creature comes at all and doesn't have dinner served in his room."

As a matter of fact, Franck was the first to enter the dining-room. Willy's tongue kept wagging, while the eccentric merely shook hands limply with Frederick and said nothing. Though the three were countrymen, Franck's appearance--like Willy, he was wearing evening dress--added a touch of embarrassment where there had been perfect unconstraint; and though Willy had lent Frederick a suit, and a tailor had already been ordered, Frederick expressed regret at not being appropriately dressed.

"Yes, Ritter's a great stickler for form," Willy observed. "Every evening we have to present the appearance of at least attachés to an embassy."

Petronilla entered and explained in wordy Italian that the poor, dear, sweet little signorina had fallen asleep in bed and was breathing quietly and regularly.

"You could shoot off a cannon, bum! bum! Outside her window, and she wouldn't wake up," she said. Then holding out a newspaper, she asked whether the gentlemen had heard of the sinking of the _Roland_ and the few survivors. When Willy, with his dilating nostrils and his characteristic half-serious, half-comic expression, introduced Frederick as one of those survivors, she burst into a noisy laugh, which vastly amused two of the three Silesians. When convinced that Willy was not teasing, she stared at Frederick speechlessly, burst into tears, and kissed his hands. Then she ran out.

Soon after, Lobkowitz entered, a tall, quiet man. He had heard of Frederick's recent experience, and greeted him with simple cordiality.

"Ritter has just come in his cart," he said.

They looked out of the window. Frederick saw an elegant two-wheeled dog-cart with a handsome coachman in black livery preparing to drive off, while a thoroughbred grey, feeling the tightening of the reins, was rearing and plunging in the shafts.

"The coachman," said Willy, whose lack of reserve and extreme indiscretion his friends accepted good-naturedly, "is a ruined officer of the Austrian army. He ran away from his gambling debts. I don't know whether he got out of the army or was put out. At any rate he is of invaluable service to Ritter. He tells him to the dot how he must dress for luncheons and dinners, for tennis and golf and riding and driving; how to manage a four-in-hand, when to wear a black chimney-pot or a grey one, what colour gloves to wear, what sort of necktie, what sort of cuff links, what sort of stockings. In short, he tells him all the things a man has to pay attention to in order to succeed here in high life."

At this point Bonifacius Ritter, whom fortune had favoured in America beyond his most extravagant expectations, now entered, young, brisk, handsome, amiable as Alcibiades. Frederick was instantly carried away by his manner, radiating bonhomie, naïveté, joy in life, and simple heartiness. The atmosphere of the New World had imparted ease and fire to the flabby amiability of the Austrian.

Dinner was served, and over genuine Italian soup, conversation was soon in full swing. Willy Snyders, as commissary, poured the wine. It was evident how proud he was of Bonifacius Ritter and what satisfaction it gave him to present his quondam teacher to such friends and such a home in this foreign land. The company thawed; and by the time the maid in white cap and apron had finished serving, the four had all touched glasses with Frederick on his and his protégée's rescue. A short pause of embarrassment followed, which Frederick interpreted as a demand for a statement regarding himself. His pale scholarly face still showed deep traces of the hardships he had undergone.

"I came over," he said, "to continue some studies with a friend which he and I began years ago. You know him, Willy. He is Peter Schmidt, the physician, in Springfield, Massachusetts."

"He's in Meriden now, an hour's ride from Springfield."

"Yes?" said Frederick, "I assumed he was still in Springfield. But no matter. While I was in Berlin and Paris, I conferred with some scientists, friends of mine, before boarding the _Roland_ at Southampton. Everybody told me the _Roland_ was one of the best vessels. To my astonishment, I met the young lady who is now enjoying your hospitality. She was going to the United States with her father. We were fortunate. We got into the life-boat perfectly quietly, before the panic broke out, but we had to leave the young lady's father behind. I forgot to say I had already become acquainted with Hahlström and his daughter in Berlin. Thus, fate brought us together, and I consider myself responsible for Miss Hahlström, both as a physician and a human being. She is an artistic wonder. She is a dancer."

Willy Snyders gave a witty account of the attack of Webster and Forster's agent; and the conversation turned on art in general and on American art in particular.

"Millions of dollars annually," said Bonifacius Ritter, "are spent upon all sorts of art objects, an enormous sum on paintings alone. At the same time, there is a class of persons here of Puritanic descent to whom any kind of art is the abomination of the arch-enemy. For instance, there is an association of pious pillars of society, an association of vandals, invested with certain civic rights, whose object is the abolition of filth and the maintenance of chastity. To that end it recently broke into one of the famous clubs of the New York _jeunesse dorée_ and destroyed a number of irreplaceable art treasures, masterpieces, among them even a Venus by Titian."

"And the relation of the amateurs here," said Lobkowitz, "to their artistic possessions is very funny. You should see how they place their paintings. The "Crucifixion" by Munkaczy is displayed in a department store in Philadelphia. The Goulds have Rembrandts in their extremely comfortable bathrooms. Of course, I have nothing to say against good pictures hanging in hotel halls and stairways. The largest bar-room in New York has the whole Barbizon school--Millets, Courbets, Bastien-Lepages, and Daubignys--hanging over the bar."

"My sole reason," said Franck, "for going there every day for my whisky and soda."

Ritter, Snyders and Lobkowitz burst out laughing.

Franck had the looks of a gypsy; so that two more un-European types, as Frederick said to himself, than he and Willy Snyders were scarcely conceivable. Though a year older than Frederick, Franck, small-boned and youthfully slim, seemed to be seven or eight years younger. He was forever shoving from his eyes a pitch-black lock, which promptly fell over his forehead again to the top of his nose. He drank heavily and kept smiling. He smiled, while the others laughed as he expounded the relation of art to whisky.

A sense of security such as he had not experienced in years came over Frederick. He had always felt drawn to artists. Their conversation, their camaraderie never failed to exercise a charm over him. Now was added the fact that here, where he had counted upon a chilly foreignness and complete isolation, he had been ardently expected, had been welcomed with open arms by such a circle. In the midst of their merry toasting and informal dining, informal despite their evening dress, Frederick every now and then asked himself whether the awful experiences he had gone through had really occurred. Was he actually in New York, three thousand miles away from old Europe? Was not this his home? Within the past ten years in his own country had he ever felt even nearly so comfortable and at home as here? How life came surging toward him! Each minute a new wave rolling to his feet--to him who had undeservedly escaped with his bare existence from almost universal perdition.

"I thank you from the depths of my heart, gentlemen and countrymen," he said, "for the hospitality you show me. I don't deserve it." He raised his glass, and they all touched glasses with him. Suddenly, to his own surprise Frederick expanded in a wave of frankness, calling himself a shipwrecked man in two senses of the word. "I have gone through much in my past; and were not the sinking of the _Roland_ so fearfully tragic, I should feel inclined to look upon it as a symbol of my former life. The Old World, the New World. I have taken the step across the great pond, and already feel something like new life within me.

"I don't know just what I shall do." He did not realise he was contradicting himself. "I shall certainly not practise medicine or take up my profession as a bacteriologist. Possibly I shall write books. What sort of books I don't know. One of the things I think of a great deal is the restoration of the Venus of Milo's body. I have already completed in my mind a work on Peter Vischer and Adam Krafft. But for all I know, I may merely write on the use of artificial manure. For I am thinking of buying some land, felling trees, and living a retired life, farming and raising cattle. Then again, I may write nothing but a sort of romance, the romance of a whole life, which may turn out to be something like a modern philosophy. In that case, I should begin where Schopenhauer left off. I mean the sentence that is always going around in my head from _Welt als Wille und Vorstellung_: 'Something lurks behind our existence which is inaccessible to us until we shake off the world.'"

The discourse of the young scholar, passing through his belated period of storm and stress, was listened to respectfully. His reference to artificial manure produced a burst of merriment, and when he ended, his audience applauded.

"Shaking off the world, that's something for Franck, Doctor von Kammacher. Tell him, Franck, how you came to America," said Willy.

"Or about your tramping on foot to Chicago," said Lobkowitz.

"Or," said Ritter, "your adventure in Boston, when two policemen, strangely mistaking your condition for a tremendous jag, took you on a drive in the patrol wagon to the lock-up."

"It's very good they did," said Franck, smiling and tossing the lock from his forehead. "I should certainly have caught a cold if they hadn't."

To Frederick's puzzlement, every one of Franck's utterances was greeted by a shout of laughter.

"Franck is a genuine genius," whispered Willy to Frederick, while filling a glass with Chianti, "and the greatest eccentric in the world. Franck," he cried, "didn't you come to America without a cent of money?"

"For what does one need money?" Franck rejoined, at great leisure, with a naïve smile.

"Didn't you come over as a stoker?"

"Ye-e-es," said Franck, "I was engaged as a stoker."

"But you didn't do any stoking?"

"No, I didn't have the muscle for it."

"But what did you do on the ship?" asked Lobkowitz.

"I? I sailed on the ocean."

"Of course. But you were engaged to work. You must have done something to earn money."

"I played sixty-six with the first mate."

Finally Franck's story was extracted from him. It was by painting the portrait of the head-steward that he had lived so handsomely on the steamer and had landed on American soil with fifty dollars in his pocket, though a day later not a cent of the fifty dollars was left.

"Money's a nuisance," said Franck.

III

Up to this point a wholesome-looking waitress, in white cap and apron, had been serving. Now the Italian cook himself, Simone Brambilla, came in to bring on the dessert and cheese and inquire whether the dinner had been to the gentlemen's taste. The familiarity between masters and cook, who spoke Italian together, testified to the best relations between them. This little fragment of the artists' Italy in America enlivened them all, bringing back memories of the days they had spent in Italy, the days that signify the heyday of their youth to all German scholars and artists.

"Now then, strike up a tune, my boy!" Willy suddenly ordered the cook, "Signor Simone Brambilla, you will please perform for us now! And _cantare_. Understand? _Ma forte_ not too _mezza voce_!" He took a mandolin from the sideboard and pressed it into the chef's arms.

"_Signor Guglielmo è sempre buffo_," said the cook.

"That's it--_buffo, buffo_," cried Franck, striking the table with his fist. His smile had already turned somewhat idiotic, and he seemed to think "_buffo_" meant "to sing."

"_Cosa vuole sentire?_" asked Brambilla.

"'_Addio mia bella Napoli_,'" suggested Willy, "or anything you like, Mr. Brambilla."

"What does 'like' mean?" asked Franck. "I have heard the word so often."

"Would you believe," Willy said to Frederick, "that that ox has been here over a year and doesn't know a word of English?"

"'_Deutschland, Deutschland über alles!_'" Franck began to sing.

"Goodness gracious!" said Willy. "His toothache has begun to bother him again."

"'_Ich weiss nicht, was soll es bedeuten_,'" sang Franck.

"But I do!" cried Willy. "_Silentium!_ When Franck begins to sing and Lobkowitz to yawn and Ritter empties his first glass on the table-cloth, we'll soon be lying stretched out under the table."

The cook had seated himself decorously and was holding the mandolin in position. With his cap of white linen and his white linen jacket and apron, he cut a droll figure among those correctly dressed young men. Willy Snyders poured some _vino nero_ for him into a tumbler, and he struck a few notes by way of prelude, though hesitating to interrupt Franck and begin. He kept his face, glowing from the kitchen fire, turned toward Franck with an expression of courteous waiting and politely besought him in Italian to keep on singing. Finally, since Franck, instead of answering, arose, gave him a comically commanding look, and waved his fork like a baton, he began, striking up an accompaniment with a catching rhythm, which titillated his auditors' nerves. He was an excellent singer and a master-hand at playing the mandolin. He gave those well-known street-ballads which one hears everywhere in Italy, especially in Naples: "_Addio mia bella Napoli_," "_Funiculi Funicula_," "_L'altro ieri a Piedigrotta_," "_Margherita di Parete era sarta delle signore_," and also more serious songs, such as the languishing "_Ogni sera di sotto all' mio balcone sento cantar una canzon d' amore_."

The cook's melodies undoubtedly charmed back his home to him, though in colours less glorious and alluring to himself, perhaps, than to the artists, whether they had been in Italy or not. Frederick leaned his head back and closed his eyes. The dining-room was filled with the fumes of cigars and cigarettes, and the electric bulbs shone as in a mist. Frederick's thoughts carried him far, far away. His arm hung at his side limply, while a Simon Arzt cigarette burned to a stump between his fingers--throughout his adventures, his silver cigarette case had remained safe in his pocket.

Before his inner vision rose the coasts and blue gulfs of Italy, the brown Doric temples of Pæstum and the cliffs of Amalfi, Sorrento, and Capri. He was standing on the Posilipo. He was with Doctor Dorn in the loggia of the zoologic station for deep-sea researches, which Hans von Marées had decorated. In Rome, Frederick had sat over many a bottle of wine with Hans von Marées and Otto, who died while working on the Luther Memorial in Berlin. He saw himself in the famous Est Est Café in Rome, or visiting the malaria patients in the hospital on the Capitol, or promenading in the sunshine on Monte Pincio with a deaf and dumb sculptor, with whom he then went to an afternoon concert. He had laughed because the artist explained that he did not hear the music with his ears, but felt it, or rather felt the drum alone, in his belly.

In that period of his life, Frederick had been undergoing a crisis. But a little more and his preoccupation with Goethe's "Italian Journey," his intercourse with the artists, and the vast number of his impressions of sublime art would have turned him aside from science. But one day he chanced to meet Mrs. Von Thorn and her daughter Angèle. He became engaged, and there was no question now of a change of profession. Angèle was beautiful, and those days, when he read aloud to her chapters from Goethe, or inspired and inspiring passages from Winckelmann, or recited Hölderlin, or held forth to her on the masterworks in the Vatican, were full of never-to-be-repeated romantic asininity. They bought engagement rings of a jeweller on the Corso. Where was his ring? He had removed it from his finger, and, like all his other possessions, it had gone down forever in the cabin of the _Roland_.

Frederick again felt that sensation of hot waves rising from his breast to his eyes. This time the emotion was a soft one, a feeling of reconciliation, of mourning over lost illusions. The second epoch of his life, if a second epoch were really to develop from this beginning, was not like the first, full of innocence and based upon illusions. Frederick was sorry for himself. He was moved almost to tears. For it is an all-too strong faith, an all-too certain hope in happiness that finally bring disillusionment.

It was in one of the intervals of clapping and applause punctuating the end of each of Brambilla's songs, that Petronilla came in and whispered something to Willy Snyders, which caused Willy in turn to whisper to Frederick, who immediately jumped up and left the room. Willy went with him.

Despite Petronilla's protestations, a gentleman and a stately, rather gorgeously dressed lady had forced their way into Ingigerd's room. Frederick and Willy arrived just as the lady was trying to wake Ingigerd and raise her up in bed.

"For Heaven's sake, child," she kept saying, "wake up for a second."

Frederick and Willy recognised Webster and Forster's agent and immediately expelled him to the hall, talking to him in whispers, but none the less energetically. They told him a few forceful things, which he received with a shrug of his shoulders. When they asked the lady by what right she had forced her way in, she said she was the proprietor of one of the largest New York theatrical agencies and had negotiated the contract between Webster and Forster and Ingigerd Hahlström's father, who had received a thousand dollars in advance.

"Time is money, especially here in New York," she declared. "Even if Miss Hahlström cannot dance to-night, she must begin to think of to-morrow. I should be willing to accommodate her, but this is only one of a hundred cases that I have to look after. And if Miss Hahlström is to appear to-morrow, she must go with me this very minute to"--she mentioned the Gerson of New York--"so that they can work on her costume over night. The establishment is on Broadway, and a cab is waiting in front of the door."

The lady said all this in Ingigerd's room, intentionally refraining from lowering her voice. Several times Frederick and Willy interrupted to ask her to moderate her tones.

"Miss Hahlström will not dance at all," said Frederick, finally.

"Indeed?" said the agent. "Then she'll be involved in a very unpleasant law suit."