I cannot conceive anything so fascinating in an operatic composer's life as the rehearsals of a new work of his. When he first hears in reality the tunes, the harmonies, the combinations of sounds which he had up to that moment heard only in his fancy, a profound terror overcomes him. The positive, actual achievements of the singers and the orchestra are so far from the ideal abstractions his fancy had supposed. Can it be possible that this shapeless noise should represent his score? The melodies are hardly recognizable, erroneous intentions of the singers deteriorate the musical sense, wrong notes hurt the poor composer's ears. But by and by the whole thing improves. Mistakes are corrected, the meanings of musical phrases are explained and the distress of the unhappy man vanishes.

I will not tell you the alarm, the consternation of Patrick Cooper when, at the beginning of the rehearsals, his masterpiece—for secretly, in the inmost recess of his heart, he considered Lady Macbeth as a masterpiece—appeared to him to be not only disorganized, but thoroughly rotten.

"Oh!" cried he silently, and his sufferings were all the more formidable as his vociferations were so very silent, "oh, why did I disobey my good mother? Why did I not follow the ideal career of an insurance broker? Why did I not foresee these shocking experiences? It is all horrible, appalling, awful!"

But later, when the aspect began to change, when the figures I had created took form, when the howlings, the shrieks, the screams became music, when I ceased shuddering and quaking as the hours of rehearsal approached—my confidence came back. I even surprised myself listening with pleasure to my music, and distinctly remember having thought at least at three occasions:

"Patrick, my dear, you are a splendid fellow after all. You ought not to have been so much impressed by the first seemingly helpless trials of all these good people. How all has improved! There are few living composers, if any, able to conceive and to write such a score. And to think that the crowds will come and listen and applaud. But will they understand? Is the crowd sufficiently educated to appreciate my work? Do I not stain the beautiful conception of my fancy by submitting it to the crude judgment of the crowd? Still, a crowd it will be; they will come and listen and applaud. The theatre contains room for fifteen hundred people. There are about one hundred and fifty seats so bad that nobody will take them, but the remaining thirteen hundred and fifty will be occupied at every performance. Now, how many people will come and listen and applaud? Be modest, Patrick, old boy. Say twenty-five performances at an audience each of thirteen hundred and fifty. Makes?... makes?..."

I never knew, for I am bad at figures.

Altogether I was in high spirits, smiling like Sergeant Young before a battle. By the way, I do not know what has happened to Sergeant Young. He has seemed sulky since the other day, when he left me so abruptly. It pains me, for he is my particular chum. And save what is needed to carry on he does not utter a single word to me.

But I must not let myself go into a diversion; I was speaking not of Sergeant Young but of myself and of my high spirits. Yet you must not believe that I was happy. I have already stated that I was altogether happy only during our performance in front of Schubert. That sentiment of perfect felicity never came back. And now, during the rehearsals of Lady Macbeth I was bitten by that "green-eyed monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on": jealousy.

As I am quoting Othello I may as well say that the Cassio in my case was the pretty Lieutenant Franz von Heidenbrunn. I suppose that you have seen it coming a long time ago, and I have only to record how the green-eyed monster was hatched. No Jago was necessary for me, nor was there any handkerchief required.

The regiment in which the pretty officer held his high rank had been shifted from Salzburg to BrÜnn. This was a coincidence, and you will see a very unfortunate one for me.

Every morning, when there was a rehearsal, I went from Vienna to BrÜnn by the eight o'clock train which makes the journey in a little over an hour. I used to meet Mitzi at the Viennese Northern Station, and we travelled together, which rendered that hour as short as it was delightful. Rehearsals in Austria as in Germany begin at ten, and last from three to four hours. Afterwards we had lunch and then we returned by one of the numerous afternoon trains to Vienna.

Perhaps you wonder why I did not prefer to take up my quarters altogether in BrÜnn. Well, first there was that double journey which I would have lost, as well as the always pleasant company of my fiancÉe. And in the second place there was BrÜnn.

This town boasts of being the Austrian Birmingham. I will not hurt the feelings of my Birmingham readers, some of whom find their large and busy city a fine and charming place. If I don't share their taste entirely, it matters little. But BrÜnn! BrÜnn with its one inhabitant to Birmingham's ten! BrÜnn with its wide and empty roads in the new town, and with its narrow and crooked streets in the old one! BrÜnn with its one and only beautiful building: the Jewish synagogue, and its one and only curiosity: the lunatic asylum! BrÜnn with its population of manufacturers—most worthy people no doubt, but with an interest only in buttons, hooks and eyes, pins, steel pins, cotton spinning and other kinds of engineering—BrÜnn was no place for me to enjoy myself in the least.

Nor was it any better for Franz von Heidenbrunn and his sister Augusta, who were both all the more bored with the place as the strict military regulations did not allow the lieutenant to spend even an occasional evening in Vienna. Their gratification at meeting Mitzi several times a week may easily be imagined. I will only say that when Mitzi and I lunched at the Grand Hotel, which is situated quite near the theatre, covers were generally laid for four. Of course, I was always allotted the Countess Augusta, who proved a rather insignificant girl, by whose side I remained unfathomably calm, while Mitzi seemed to enjoy the nuttish and, let me say it, silly conversation of her partner, which is, I believe, a privilege of most lieutenants in Austria. I have, now, an idea that the talk was also carried on under the table—what do we keep feet for when dining?—but I was too well brought up by Daniel Cooper & Co. to investigate the nether world.

Slowly the poison entered my blood. "Trifles light as air are to the jealous confirmation strong." And soon I found myself burning as by "the mines of sulphur." (How good of Shakespeare to have provided me with all the terms necessary to describe my feelings.)

Had Mitzi been only my fiancÉe, I dare say that I would have put a rapid end to the matter. But she was also my Lady Macbeth in formation, and this could not be forgotten even for one moment. So I had to endure my secret sufferings. Besides, I must say, Mitzi was never as sweet to me as during these days. Full of hope and confidence, she always comforted and cheered me when I was disheartened, which happened more than once. Poor Doblana, who on his side was busy rehearsing Aladdin, had no such solace from her when he was dejected as, I am sure, most composers are every other day. Our respective works were to be performed nearly at the same time, Aladdin only about ten days after Lady Macbeth.

At last the morning of the great day arrived. I must have given you a very wrong impression of Daniel Cooper if you do not know that he arrived the day before with mater. They were very pleased with Mitzi, although not a word was said about our betrothal. And Daniel Cooper was greatly amused by being called the "great Mr. Cooper" by Doblana. It was on this occasion only that I found out that the good horn-player, who knew but few things save what belonged to horns and ballets, mixing up Insurance and Cooperation, had, when I first told him about my father's trade, thought that Daniel Cooper was the originator of Cooperative Societies.

What Dad spent on that memorable evening wants a special historian. I do not speak of his innumerable tips, nor of a basket of flowers which had to be transported to BrÜnn by the first Viennese florist in a specially hired motor lorry. I speak of such unexpected things as, for instance, a magnificent set of diamonds he presented to my mother in remembrance of my coming triumph. Needless to say that mater, on his special order, was attired like a queen, and that Dad himself had a new dress suit; an old one would never have been judged worthy by him of listening to Patrick Cooper's music.

The house was not very full. Besides the one hundred and fifty seats which I had judged to be too bad, there were about another three hundred unoccupied, a fact which totally upset my unfinished calculations. However, it is well-known that in German and Austrian provincial towns first nights are not well attended, the general public being rather mistrustful. But all my friends of the Round Table and other acquaintances were present, and they did their hand work well. There was first—honour to whom honour is due—the Herr Graf, then old Hammer, on whose account I had been obliged to invent a special scheme so as to make him accept a railway ticket, for he would not have been able to come otherwise without imposing great privations upon himself, Doctor Bernheim, and even Giulay with his mother. Of course, Doblana had made himself free in order to ascertain whether Miss Amizia Dobanelli was really the she-cat that walked miaowing over the boards. And he must have been deceived if he expected such a thing, for hers was an unparallelled triumph.

Quite a lot of theatrical managers, from that of the Vienna Opera downwards, had been invited, but only one, that of the Graz municipal theatre had come.

The performance was good, as performances in Germany and even more in Austria generally are. I am not afraid to state that a third-rate theatre, as, for instance, that of BrÜnn, would be ashamed of most of our conventional society performances at the Royal Theatre Covent Garden, in spite of all the stars. Confound the stars, who can never be brought to a complete, harmonious agreement, who sing their parts each for his or her own sake, and never think for one moment of the work and its meaning.

From what I have told already, you may have conjectured how very necessary such harmonious ensemble playing was in my Lady Macbeth. It was not a loud opera, and I could expect that the critics would not reproach me with being too noisy in my orchestration. Indeed, it was found too soft by those gentlemen, who never are satisfied. They did not understand that this softness was required for the general atmosphere of my opera.

The chief difficulty had been with the baritone Hetmann, who sang Macbeth. I had great trouble in explaining him why he was never to give full voice during the whole evening.

Macbeth must not appear at the beginning as a criminal. He is first a courageous and truthful man. But he is a dreamer. "Look, how our partner's rapt," says Banquo. He is a dreamer who struggles against the image of his phantasy. Nearly all he says is aside. His reserve, his taciturnity are awful. Whatever he speaks, must be uttered as though against his own will. Berlioz, once, to obtain a very tragic effect, had a drum covered with a cloth. Macbeth must be spoken with a voice resembling the sound of such a drum. Nor must he talk aloud in the banquet scene with the ghost, where on the contrary he ought to become entirely benumbed. He is not without feelings, he speaks warmly of King Duncan, and he loves his wife, knowing how much he needs her.

That performance of Lady Macbeth was for me and, I think, for some of the spectators, a foreshadowing of new times in the operatic art. It was a unique, incessant horror for the audience as long as the fearful score lasted—and it became the most attractive scandal for all the people who search in art nothing but the baseness they find in every day life.

My opera is but a short one, taking two hours to perform. Therefore no necessity arose anywhere for pressing the movement. Bischoff, who had staged it, had obtained most wonderful effects. The singers seemed to be going through the nightmare in which they had a part. Scene after scene seemed to shake with dread and terror. Bischoff knew how to produce the biggest effects with small means. Thus I will never forget that there was a sort of small lamp burning during the scene of the murder. The trembling flame, now more reddish, now more bluish, was flaring all the time. At the precise moment when the murder was supposed to occur in the wings a sudden squall nearly extinguished the light, and for a couple of seconds all became dark; but in the next instant the flame seemed bigger, redder than ever and sooty. It was frightful.

The prologue, namely, the scene of the witches and that where Macbeth wins the title of Thane of Cawdor, went well. After this, while the scenery was being built for the first act, Macbeth's castle at Inverness, the orchestra played my paraphrase of the "Pibroch o' Donuil Dhu," the only vigorous and energetic part of my score. Then the real thing began, for only then Lady Macbeth appeared.

Whatever I may say of her, will not render justice to her incomparable performance. Nobody could have resisted this Lady Macbeth. Even when she had to deliver a reproach, she did it trembling with love. And as Bischoff and I had taught her, she seemed to shudder at her hard, fearful words.

She never seemed to sing, but to whisper, to inspire with the means of the sweetest seduction. She turned round her Macbeth, embraced him, clung to him so that sometimes they seemed to be but one being with two souls. How she sang all the hideousness and atrocity of her part—how she perfumed the blood of her words with sweetest promises! She was what we had asked her to be—more a spoiled child, who foolishly craves for evil, than a heartless criminal.

There was some applause after that act, but the public seemed awed, so intense was the impression. As I was hurrying to the stage, I met dad.

"Oh, my boy!" said he and pressed both my hands so hard that I thought he would break them. His eyes were shining and I could swear that there were tears in them. That "Oh, my boy!" is the one beautiful memory I have of that evening.

The next minute saw me at the door of Mitzi's dressing room. I knocked.

"Who is it?" asked a voice, not Mitzi's, but that of a woman I did not know.

I gave my name. There was some whispering inside which I could indistinctly perceive through the door, and then a woman came out, opening the door so little that I could not even have a peep at the inside.

"FrÄulein regrets," said the woman, as if I had been a mere stranger, "she cannot see you now."

One is above all the son of one's country. I daresay no Englishman would have acted otherwise than I did. I bowed to that dressing woman as if she had been a noble lady and went on to the stage.

There I found the manager of the theatre chatting with his Graz colleague. They both congratulated me, and the manager of the Graz theatre complained about the coldness of the public.

"You will find no such frosty people in the south, in Graz," he told me, "for if you are willing to let me have your opera at the same terms as the ones you have here, I will play it within two months. I should be pleased if I could secure Miss Dobanelli for the part of the Lady."

Yon may conceive how pleased I was and how warmly I thanked him for such encouragement. But the entre-acte being nearly over we had to leave the stage.

My way back to the audience led me past Mitzi's dressing room. Just as I was going by, the door opened and.... Franz von Heidenbrunn came out. I thought that my heart was going to stop. So Mitzi had received him, while her door had remained closed for me. I went on as in a dream.

Before the door of his box I found dad and the mater.

"What has happened?" asked my old Daniel Cooper & Co. "Why are you so pale?"

I was not going to spoil his pleasure.

"I am probably a little excited," I answered. "And the manager of the Graz theatre has just accepted the opera."

"That is splendid!" cried dad.

"Does he pay well?" asked the mater.

"That's the boy's affair," grumbled Daniel Cooper, turning to her. "You mind your own business."

A bell rang, and dad and my mother went into their box, while I hurried back to my seat.

During the whole act of the banquet I could not find my senses. What was I to do with Mitzi? I could not possibly ignore the incident. I asked myself whether she was not too much an artist to be a wife. What, if frivolity were unavoidable in the dramatic art, the most corporal and difficult of all, but the only one in which woman could grow up to the highest genius?

These doubts spoiled the second act for me. Yet I saw how lovingly she was stroking Macbeth's forehead, like a nurse who would cool the burning brow of a sick man. I saw, too, how she smiled at the ghost, how she mocked him, and I heard how she sang the words: "What, quite unmanned in folly?" and afterwards: "Fie, for shame!" exactly as I had taught her, slowly, softly, and more like a warning than a reproach.

There was even less applause after the second act than the first. However, Doctor Bernheim, whom you know as a sensible, judicious man, came and heartily congratulated me.

"In this particular case," he said, "the success cannot be measured from the applause. The public is much too moved to applaud loudly. Instinctively they fear to destroy the atmosphere."

I did not go on the stage after this act. I was afraid lest I should meet Mitzi and say one word too many.

The last act began, and soon the famous sleep-walking scene arrived. Never before had the ruin of a poor, over-burdened heart been acted thus.

She came.

At once I noticed that she was not dressed as she had been the day before at the dress rehearsal, when she had worn a long night-gown. She came like a child, with bare feet and bare legs—there was just then the craze of dancers who appeared like that—tripping full of anguish ... not in a night-gown, but in a chemise ... looking tortured, deceived, broken, a child vanquished in a fight which was too much for her.

And with a voice more gentle, soft, and lovely than anything which I ever heard, she began. Sweet as the singing of a breeze her voice vibrated through the soundless, trembling audience.

"Yet here's a spot."

How she wept after the words: "Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?"

And later: "All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh, oh, oh!" How she whined these three oh's! The audience pitied her. And how helpless she looked, with her poor, naked legs, in her poor chemise....

Then ... then, when she had said the words: "To bed—to bed," there came a musical afterpiece in which I once more repeated all the motives of the opera, including the lullaby. Mitzi was slowly to turn round and to remain there with her taper—showing her back to the audience and advancing only one step from time to time.

She had been rehearsing it with a long, flowing night-gown; and now she was standing there in that short chemise. She had dared that! And to my horror I saw that it was transparent, very transparent even, and tight, and that it outlined the contours of....

There! I am once more in difficulty. You, chaste reader, who have accompanied me through these pages, have surely noticed my struggles at different times to find the right expression for ... you know what I mean. And this time I feel truly awkward because I have reached an important point. I must find a name for that lovely it, which had seduced me from the very first moment I had seen her, for it was pretty, so pretty, quite bewitching.

Ah, Barrie! Thou who has invented that charming name "Little Mary" for something which was as difficult to baptize, help me ... help me to find a name for it ... for that darling ... for that double darling!

Double Darling?

Barrie! Did this idea come from thee?

I'll name it Double Darling, but being shy, I'll write only D. D.

Well, I have explained that I was horror-stricken. This, I must confess, is a lie. I felt no horror at all, on the contrary. The truth is that the attractive sight made me forget my anger, my dejection. She did look fascinating, and the wicked thing knew it. She knew that she was bewitching and was sure that she risked nothing by showing her D. D.

Nor did she fail in her bold venture. When a minute or so later she disappeared in the background, and at the same time the curtain was slowly closed, a storm of applause broke forth as I never had imagined.

Again and again Mitzi had to bow before the public, although she disappointed it somewhat by appearing hidden in a light dressing-gown. But the wanton people had had their sensation, they applauded and shouted, and it reached a degree of real paroxysm when dad's immense basket of flowers was carried on the stage.

But the louder the noise was, the more did I understand that nothing of it was meant for me, for my work. It was not Lady Macbeth over which the public rejoiced, it was Mitzi's D. D.

I heard the people talk. There was not one word for the misery of Lady Macbeth, her sighs and her struggles and her wretchedness. The crowd will never recognize the nobility of suffering. No, they spoke of La Dobanelli.... La Dobanelli in her little chemise. The D. D. had been an event.

And the same thing occurred at the next performances. Only that on the first night the audience had been shaking with terror, and that the following times it was shaking with sensation ... or with deception, for many people left the theatre with words of regret:

"Oh—it was not so wicked as all that!"

The snobs of the town fell in love with La Dobanelli by the dozen. One out of each dozen was struck by the sweetness of her voice, by her sublime acting, by her power of remaining lovable even in crime—the other eleven were in love with the D. D.

Anyhow, when we all met half an hour after the end of the performance at the Grand Hotel there was much joy in the air. Dad was offering to my friends a superb supper in honour of my first night—and they were all present, you bet.

I asked mater how she had enjoyed my opera.

"Oh, it's very pretty," she said. "I like the lullaby very much."

And that was all.

Father, on the other hand, was overflowing with enthusiasm. These two were always the same, never had they the same opinion on anything. Yet, there was one point on which they seemed to agree ... perhaps because not one word was pronounced on it. But their eyes seemed to implore me silently:

"You will not marry that woman, Pat!"

I felt very uneasy. But I am a sport. I bore it all in a decent way. Yet I thanked God when the moment came for the parents to leave. Business had allowed dad to take only a very few days vacation, and they were returning the same night via Dresden and Cologne to England.

It was a happy necessity, for thus they escaped the criticisms of the next morning.

I will divulge you the mildest:

"The two Shakespearian birds of prey were served us yesterday as a dish which was neither fish nor flesh, concocted by our great actor Mr. Bischoff, and accompanied by a sauce anglaise prepared at a Worcestershire (or is it a Yorkshire?) manufacture by a certain Patrick Cooper, who has—unfortunately—nothing in common with Fennimore. But he has a wealthy father, a London shopkeeper in the City, and a mother who advertised yesterday her descent from a jeweller's family.

"There is not much to say about the insignificant Cooperian music, except perhaps that no other living composer would have conceived and written such a score. As for the libretto, it is the mistake of an intelligent man who has treated the subject not from the immortal poet's dramatic point of view, but shortsightedly from that of the actor. Mr. Bischoff only forgot that Shakespeare, too, was somebody, after all.

"Mr. Hetmann was a pale, voiceless Macbeth, and had it not been for the dÉbutante of the evening, Miss Amizia Dobanelli, the performance would have been a total fiasco. She played and sang the Lady with charm as well as with energy. But we think that a part as La Belle HÉlÈne would suit her particular talent better than the ambitious Lady."

Is it not a blessing that dad is an Englishman educated on such thoroughly English lines that he knows no foreign language? Blessed are the poor in education, for theirs is the kingdom of ignorance.