# The Dial (Third Series)/Volume 75/The Fate of Baron von Leisenbohg

THE FATE OF THE BARON VON LEISENBOHG
BY ARTHUR SCHNITZLER
Translated from the German by Kenneth Burke
IT was a warm evening in May when Kläre Heil reappeared for the first time as Queen of the Night. The circumstance which had kept the singer away from the opera for almost two months was a matter of common knowledge. Prince Richard Bedenbruck had been injured in a fall from his horse on the fifteenth of March, and after an illness of a few hours—during which time Kläre had never left his side—had died in her arms. Kläre's anguish had been so intense that at first they feared for her life, later for her mind, and until recently, for her voice. This last fear proved to be quite as unfounded as the other two. As she came before the public she received a friendly and expectant greeting; but after the first great aria her more intimate friends could accept the felicitations of her more distant acquaintances. In the fourth gallery the childish red face of little Fräulein Fanny Ringeiser beamed with happiness, and the habitués of the upper rows smiled to their comrade sympathetically. They all knew that Fanny, although she was nothing more than the daughter of a Mariahilf haberdasher, belonged to the popular prima donna's closer circle, that she had frequently been invited to her house for tea, and had secretly been in love with the dead Prince. Between acts Fanny explained to her friends that Kläre had got the idea from the Baron von Leisenbohg of selecting the Queen of the Night for her first appearance, feeling that the dark costume would correspond most closely to her mood.
As to the Baron, he took his orchestra seat—first row centre, on the aisle as usual—and acknowledged the greetings of his acquaintances with an amiable but almost painful smile. To-day various memories were running through his head. He had met Kläre about eight years ago. At that time he was providing for the artistic education of a slender young lady with red hair and was attending an evening performance at the Eisenstein Singing School where his ​protégée as Mignon was making her first public appearance. The same evening he saw and heard Kläre, who sang Philine in the same scene. He was then twenty-five years old, unattached, and godless. He simply forgot about Mignon, obtained an introduction through Frau Natalie Eisenstein to Philine, and declared to her that his heart, his influence, and his position were at her service. At that time Kläre was living with her mother, the widow of a higher postal official; and she was in love with a young medical student with whom she frequently drank tea and chatted in his room in the Alservorstadt. She was deaf to the Baron's stormy courtship, but with her disposition softened by Leisenbohg's attentions she became the mistress of the student. The Baron, to whom she made no secret of this fact, returned to his auburn protégée, but kept up his acquaintanceship with Kläre. On every holiday that furnished the slightest opportunity he sent her flowers and bon-bons, and he would pay an occasional formal call at the house of the postal official's widow.
In the fall Kläre took up her first engagement in Detmold. The Baron von Leisenbohg—at that time still an official in the ministry—used his first Christmas holidays to visit Kläre at her new place of residence. He knew that the student had become a doctor and had married in September, and he took hope. But Kläre, upright as ever, informed the Baron immediately after their meeting that in the meanwhile she had entered on tender relations with the tenor of the Hoftheater, with the result that Leisenbohg could take away no other memories of Detmold than a platonic stroll through the city park and a supper in the theatre restaurant in company with several colleagues of both sexes. Nevertheless he repeated his trip to Detmold several times, rejoiced in his aesthetic concern for Kläre's considerable progress, and, further, hoped for the next season, for which the tenor was already contracted in Hamburg. But this year he was again disappointed, since Kläre had felt herself obliged to grant the petitions of a wholesale merchant of Dutch descent, by the name of Louis Verhajen.
When, in her third season, Kläre was called to a place in the Dresden Hoftheater, in spite of his youth the Baron threw over a very promising political career and moved to Dresden. Now he spent each evening with Kläre and her mother, who had acquired a ​perfectly lovely innocence in all matters concerning her daughter . . . and he took new hope. But unfortunately the Dutchman had the unpleasant habit of announcing in every letter that he would arrive the next day, assuring his mistress that she was surrounded by an army of spies, and incidentally threatening her with the most painful forms of death in the event of her being unfaithful to him. But as he never did come, and Kläre began falling gradually into a state of extreme nervousness, Leisenbohg resolved to end the matter at all costs, and left Detmold to carry on his transactions in person. To his astonishment the Dutchman declared that he had sent these threatening love-letters to her purely out of gallantry, and that as a matter of fact nothing would be more agreeable to him than to be freed of all further responsibility. Elated, Leisenbohg came back to Dresden and told Kläre of the pleasant outcome of the interview. She thanked him cordially, but the first thrust at further tenderness was parried with an abruptness which took the Baron by surprise. After a few brief and searching questions she finally confessed to him that during his absence no less than Prince Kajetan himself had conceived a violent passion for her and had sworn to do himself some harm if he was not heard. It was only natural that she had ultimately been forced to give in, so as to avoid throwing the reigning house and the country at large into unspeakable misery.
With a reasonably broken heart Leisenbohg left the city and returned to Vienna. Here he began using his influence, and his continuous efforts were responsible to no small degree for the offer which Kläre received to sing in opera in Vienna the next year. After a very successful appearance as guest star she began her engagement in October, and the splendid flowers from the Baron she found in her dressing-room on the evening of her first appearance, seemed to express both supplication and hope. But the kind protector who waited for her in agitation following the performance was to learn that once more he had come too late. The blond rehearsal director—who was also of no small importance as a song writer—with whom she had been studying these last weeks had been granted privileges by her which she could not have infringed upon for anything in the world.
Since then seven years had passed. The director was followed by Herr Klemens von Rhodewyl, the dashing gentleman rider; ​Herr von Rhodewyl by the bandmaster Vincenz Klaudi, who frequently joined so loudly in the operas he conducted that one could not hear the singers; the bandmaster by Count von Alban-Rattony, a man who had gambled away his Hungarian estate at cards and later won back a castle in lower Austria; the Count by Herr Edgar Wilhelm, author of ballet-texts, which he paid handsome prices to have set to music, of tragedies for which he hired the Jantschtheater to produce, and of poems which he had printed in the most beautiful type, in the stupidest, most select paper of the capital; Herr Edgar Wilhelm was followed by a gentleman named Amandus Meier, who was nothing except nineteen years old and very pretty, and who had nothing but a fox-terrier that could stand on its head; and after Herr Meier came the most elegant man of the monarchy, Prince Richard Bedenbruck.
Kläre had never treated her affairs as a secret. At all times she kept a simple bourgeois house, except that every once in a while there was a change of masters. She was unusually favoured by the public. Higher circles were pleased that she went to mass every Sunday, confessed twice a month, wore on her bosom as an amulet a picture of the Madonna blessed by the Pope, and never went to bed without saying her prayers. There was seldom a charity bazaar in which she was not one of the saleswomen; and ladies of the aristocracy as well as those of the Jewish financial circles were delighted if they could offer their wares in the same booth with Kläre. She always had a winning smile for those youthful enthusiasts who hovered about the stage door. The flowers which were lavished upon her she distributed among this patient throng; and once when the flowers had been left behind in her dressing-room she said in the snappy Viennese which suited her so well, "My soul if I haven't left the salad up there in my room. Come around to-morrow afternoon, kids, if you want to come in on it." Then she got into her cab, stuck her head out of the window, and shouted, "There's a coffee in it, too."
Fanny Ringeiser had belonged to the few who found the courage to accept this invitation. Kläre dropped into a light conversation with her, asked as affably as an arch-duchess about her family relations, and was so taken in by the chatter of this fresh and vigorous girl that she pressed her to come back again soon. Fanny accepted ​her offer, and soon succeeded in winning a respected place in the house of the artist; and she maintained this position by keeping her distance in spite of Kläre's freedom with her. In the course of years Fanny received any number of proposals, mostly from among young sons of manufacturers in the Mariahilf section, with whom she usually danced at balls. But she refused them all, since with unswerving regularity she persisted in falling in love with whoever was Kläre's lover at the time.
For over three years Kläre had been true to Prince Bedenbruck, but with a deeper passion than she had loved his predecessors; and although Leisenbohg had never quite abandoned hope in spite of all his disappointments, he began seriously wondering whether the happiness he had longed for for ten years would never bloom. Always, when he saw someone beginning to slip out of favour, he would take leave of his other darling in order to be prepared at any moment and for all contingencies. He had done the same after the sudden death of Prince Richard; but for the first time it was more through habit than conviction. For Kläre's pain seemed so immoderate, that it was everyone's opinion she would shut herself off now for all time from the joys of this life. Every day she rode out to the cemetery and laid flowers on the grave of the departed. She lost all interest in bright-coloured clothing, and locked up her jewellery in the most out-of-the-way corner of her writing-desk. It required earnest pleading to dissuade her from leaving the stage for ever.
After her first reappearance, which had come off so brilliantly, her external life, at least, took its usual course. The former circle of more removed friends reassembled. The musical critic Bernhard Feuerstein appeared, with either spinach or tomato spots on his vest according to yesterday's bill of fare, and grumbled—much to Kläre's undisguised delight—over colleagues, male and female, and director. As to Lucius and Christian, the two cousins of Prince Richard from the other line of Bedenbrucks, she suffered herself to be courted as formerly in the most uncompromising and respectable style. A gentleman of the French embassy and a young Bohemian virtuoso at the piano were introduced to her, and on the tenth of June she went to the races again for the first time. But as Prince Lucius, who had a turn for poetry, expressed it, only her mind was awake; her heart was still sunk in slumber. Yes, if one of her ​younger or elder friends ventured the slightest hint that there was anything like tenderness or passion in the world, the last trace of a smile vanished from her face, she stared dully before her, and occasionally she would lift her hand as though to ward off something, a gesture which seemed to apply to all men, and for all time.
Then it happened in the latter half of June that a singer from the north by the name of Sigurd Olse sang Tristan. His voice was clear and powerful, if not especially noble; he was of an almost superhumanly large build, and with a certain inclination to fulness; at times when in repose his face would be quite without distinction, but as soon as he began singing his steel-grey eyes would light up with a mysterious inner fire, and with his voice and his glance he seemed to sweep all away with him—especially women.
Kläre sat with her unoccupied colleagues in the company's box. She alone seemed to remain unmoved. The next morning Sigurd Olse was introduced to her in the director's office. She spoke a few friendly, but almost cool words to him about yesterday's performance. The same afternoon he paid her a visit, without waiting to be invited. Baron Leisenbohg and Fanny Ringeiser were present. Sigurd drank tea with them. He told of his parents, who lived in a little Norwegian fishing village; he told of the remarkable discovery of his talent by a travelling Englishman who had landed in a white yacht in a remote fjord; he told of his wife, an Italian, who had died on the Atlantic Ocean during their honeymoon and had been lowered into the sea. After he had left, the others remained for a long time plunged in silence. Fanny was examining with great care her empty tea-cup; Kläre had sat down at the piano and was resting her arms on the closed cover; the Baron was silently and anxiously immersed in the problem of why, during the account of Sigurd's wedding trip, Kläre had neglected that peculiar gesture with which since the death of the Prince she had brushed aside all hints of some further passionate or tender relations on this earth.
As further starring parts Sigurd sang Siegfried and Lohengrin. Each time Kläre sat unmoved in her box. But the singer, who associated with hardly any one but the Norwegian ambassador, appeared every afternoon at Kläre's, seldom failing to meet Fräulein Fanny Ringeiser there, and never failing to meet the Baron.
​On the twenty-seventh of June as Tristan he made his last appearance. Kläre sat unmoved in the company's box. The following morning she drove with Fanny to the cemetery and laid an enormous wreath on the Prince's grave. The same evening she gave a party in honour of the singer, who was to leave Vienna the day after.
The circle of friends was completely assembled. Everyone was aware of the passion which Sigurd had conceived for Kläre. As usual, he spoke quite volubly and with agitation. Among other things he told how during his voyage here on the ship an Arabian woman married to a Russian grand-duke had prophesied from the lines of his hands that he was soon to go through the most fatal period of his life. He trusted wholly in this prophecy, and superstition seemed with him to be something deeper than a mere method of making himself interesting. He also spoke of the generally well-known fact that last year, immediately after his landing in New York where he was to fill an engagement as visiting star, on that very day, yes, on that very hour, although he had to pay a severe penalty, he had taken another ship back to Europe; and all this simply because on the wharf a black cat had run between his legs. He certainly had every reason to believe in such secret relationships between incomprehensible signs and the fate of man. One evening at Covent Garden in London, before going on the stage he had neglected to murmur a certain little charm handed down by his grandmother . . . and his voice had suddenly failed him. One night in a dream a winged angel had appeared before him in rose-coloured tights, announcing to him the death of his favoyrite barber . . . and sure enough, the next morning it was discovered that this poor devil had hanged himself. Further, he always carried with him a short but very significant letter which had been given to him in a spiritualist séance in Brussels by the spirit of the dead singer Cornelia Lujan; it contained in fluent Portuguese the prediction that he was destined to become the greatest singer of the old and the new world. He told all these things to-day; and as the spirit-letter, written on rose-coloured paper of the house of Glienwood, was passed from hand to hand, an undercurrent passed through the entire room. But Kläre herself scarcely altered her expression, and merely nodded her head indifferently now and then. Nevertheless Leisenbohg's unrest attained a high intensity. To his ​sharpened eye the signs of approaching danger became clearer. To begin, Sigurd, like all of Kläre's previous lovers, had formed a pronounced attachment to him during supper, had invited him to his place on the fjord at Molde, and finally brought in the "I say, old fellow!" and the "Listen, old boy!" In addition, Fanny Ringeiser would tremble all over whenever Sigurd addressed a word to her, she would become alternately white and red when he looked at her with his large steel-grey eyes, and when he spoke of his imminent departure she began crying softly. But even now Kläre remained calm and serious. She scarcely returned Sigurd's singeing glances, she spoke with no more vivacity to him than to the others; and when he finally kissed her hand and looked upon her with eyes which seemed to beg, to promise, to despair, her own remained clouded and her features unmoved. Leisenbohg observed all this with distrust and anxiety. But when the evening was over and everyone was going, the Baron experienced something unexpected. He was last to reach Kläre's hand at parting; but when, like the others, he was about to go on, she held his hand tightly and whispered to him, "Come back again." He wondered if he had not heard right. But she pressed his hand again, and with her lips almost to his ear she repeated, "Come back again; I shall expect you in an hour."
Almost in a swoon, he went along with the others. With Fanny he accompanied Sigurd to the hotel, and as if from a great distance listened to his ravings about Kläre. Then he led Fanny Ringeiser through the quiet streets in the soft coolness of the night to Mariahilf, and from behind a cloud he saw the stupid tears roll down across her red, childish cheeks. Then he took a cab back to Kläre's. He saw a light glimmering through the curtains of her bedroom; he saw her shadow glide by; her head appeared at the edge of the curtain and nodded to him. He had not dreamed that she was waiting for him.
The next morning Baron von Leisenbohg went for a ride in the Prater. He felt happy and young. It seemed to him that some deeper meaning lay in this belated fulfilment of his yearning. His experiences of last night had been the most marvellous surprise, and yet they were hardly more than the heightening and necessary culmination of his previous relationship with Kläre. He felt now ​that it could not have happened otherwise, and made plans for the immediate and distant future. How long will she remain on the stage?" he thought. "Perhaps four or five years. Then, but not sooner, I will marry her. We will live together in the country, not far from Vienna, in St Veit, perhaps, or in Lainz. I shall buy a small house there, or else have one built according to her own ideas. We shall live pretty much in retirement, but frequently take long trips . . . to Spain, Egypt, India . . ." In this manner he went on dreaming to himself, letting his horse out as he crossed the meadows by the Heustadl. Then he trotted back through the Hauptallee, and at the Praterstern took his seat in his carriage. He stopped in at Fossatti's and sent Kläre a bouquet of splendid dark roses. He had breakfast alone as usual in his rooms on the Schwarzenbergplatz, and after his meal lay down on the divan. He was filled with a strong yearning for Kläre. What had all the other women meant to him? They had been a distraction, nothing more. And he foresaw the day when Kläre likewise would say to him, "What were they all to me? You are the only man, and the first man, whom I have loved." . . . And lying on the divan, with eyes closed, he let the whole string of them glide by. . . . Certainly, she had loved no one before him, and had always loved him, perhaps, in each of the others!
The Baron dressed, and then started on the well known way to her house slowly, as though to enjoy for a few seconds longer the anticipation of their meeting. There were a good many promenaders on the Ring, but the season was noticeably nearing its close. And Leisenbohg was glad that summer was here; he would travel with Kläre, see the ocean or the mountains with her . . . and he had to hold himself in check, to keep from shouting aloud in his enthusiasm.
He halted in front of her house and looked up at her windows. The light of the afternoon sun was reflected in them and nearly blinded him. He mounted the two flights to her apartment, and rang. No one came to let him in. He rang again. No one came. Leisenbohg now noticed that a padlock had been put on the door. What could that mean? Was he in the wrong place? She did not have a card on the door, but on the door adjoining he read as usual, "Oberstleutnant von Jeleskowits." Undeniably he was standing in front of her apartment, and it was locked up. He hurried down ​the stairs, and tore open the door to the janitor's apartment. The Janitress was sitting on a bed in the semi-darkness. A child was looking up from the basement to the street; another was blowing a meaningless tune on a comb. "Is Fräulein Heil not at home?" asked the Baron. The woman stood up. "No, Herr Baron, Fräulein Heil has left town . . ."
"What!" the Baron shouted. "But of course," he added immediately, "she left at about three o'clock, didn't she?"
"No, Herr Baron, the Fräulein left about eight this morning."
"And where to? . . . Or that is, did she go directly to—" he said haphazardly, "did she go directly to Dresden?"
"No, Herr Baron; she left no address. She said that she would write where she is."
"So, yes, yes, quite so. Naturally . . . many thanks." He turned away and came up on the street again. He could not help looking back at the house. How differently the evening sun was reflected in the windows now. The heavy melancholy mugginess of a summer evening lay over the city. Kläre was gone! . . . Why? . . . She had fled from him? . . . What was the meaning of that? . . . He thought at first of going to the opera. But he remembered that the season was closing the day after to-morrow, and that for the last couple of days Kläre had nothing to do there.
So he went to 76 Mariahilferstrasse where the Ringeisers lived. An old cook came to the door, and examined this tony visitor with some distrust. He had the cook call Frau Ringeiser. "Is Fräulein Fanny at home?" he asked with an excitement that he could not master.
"How's that?" Frau Ringeiser asked sharply.
The Baron introduced himself.
"Oh, quite so," said Frau Ringeiser. "Would the Herr Baron mind stepping in?"
He stepped into the hall and asked again, "Is Fräulein Fanny not at home?"
"If the Herr Baron would just step a little farther." Leisenbohg had to follow her, and found himself in a low half-dark room with blue-velvet furniture, and windows hung with rep curtains of the same colour. "No," Frau Ringeiser said; "our Fanny is not at home. Fräulein has taken her along on her vacation."
​"Where?" the Baron asked, staring at a photograph of Kläre which stood in a narrow gold frame on the piano.
"Where? That I don't know," said Frau Ringeiser. "About eight o'clock this morning Fräulein Heil was here in person and begged me to let Fanny go along with her. Well, she just asked so beautifully—I simply couldn't say no."
"But where . . . where!" Leisenbohg insisted.
"That I really couldn't say. Fanny is to telegraph me as soon as Fräulein Heil makes up her mind where she is going to stay. Perhaps as early as to-morrow morning, or the morning after."
"So," Leisenbohg said, letting himself sink down on a little cane-bottomed stool in front of the piano. He was silent a few seconds; then he arose suddenly, held out his hand to Frau Ringeiser, begged her forgiveness for the trouble he had caused her, and slowly descended the dark stairway of the old house.
He shook his head. She had been very cautious, to be sure . . . much more cautious than necessary. For she might have known that he would not have been importunate.
"Where shall we go, Herr Baron?" the driver asked, and Leisenbohg noticed that he had been sitting in the open carriage for quite a while simply staring in front of him. Following a sudden impulse he answered, "To the Hotel Bristol."
Sigurd Olse had not yet left. He sent word that the Baron should be asked to come up to his room, received him warmly, and suggested that they spend the last evening of his stay in Vienna together. Leisenbohg had already been deeply affected by the fact that Sigurd Olse was still in Vienna; and this added amiability touched him to tears. Sigurd immediately began speaking of Kläre. He begged Leisenbohg to tell him as much of her as he could, for he knew perfectly that her oldest and dearest friend stood before him in the person of the Baron. So Leisenbohg sat down on a trunk and talked of Kläre. It was soothing to him that he could discuss her. . . . He told the singer nearly everything, with the exception of certain facts which he felt bound as a gentleman to leave unspoken. Sigurd listened, and seemed to be charmed.
At supper the singer invited his friend to leave Vienna with him this very evening and accompany him to his estate at Molde. The Baron was strangely moved. He did not accept for the present, but promised to visit him in the course of the summer.
​They went to the station together. "Perhaps you will consider me a fool," Sigurd said, "but I would like to pass her windows just once more." Leisenbohg looked at him furtively. Perhaps this was a ruse . . . or was it the final proof that the singer was beyond suspicion? When they reached Kläre's Sigurd threw a kiss toward the locked windows. Then he said, "Remember me to her."
Leisenbohg nodded; "I shall tell her when she returns."
Sigurd looked at him in surprise.
"She is gone already," Leisenbohg appended. "She left early this morning—without saying good-bye—but that is the usual thing with her," he added the lie.
"Gone," Sigurd repeated, and fell to thinking. They were both silent.
Before the train pulled out they embraced each other like old friends.
That night the Baron cried in bed, something which had not occurred to him since childhood. The one hour of pleasure that he had spent with Kläre seemed beaten upon by dismal storms. He felt that her eyes last night had gleamed like mad. Now he had it all straight. He had heeded her call too promptly. The shadow of Prince Bedenbruck still held her under its influence, and Leisenbohg felt that he had finally possessed Kläre only to lose her for ever.
For a few days he went around Vienna at a loss what to do with his days and nights. Newspapers, whist, riding . . . all these previous ways of spending his time now meant absolutely nothing to him. He felt that his whole existence depended on Kläre for its meaning, and that even his affairs with other women had been simply the reflection of his passion for Kläre. The city seemed covered by a continual grey mist. When he spoke to people their voices were subdued; and they stared at him strangely, even traitorously. One evening he drove to the station and half-mechanically bought a ticket to Ischl. He ran into acquaintances there who inquired innocently after Kläre; his answers were irritated and impolite, with the result that he was obliged to fight a duel with a gentleman who did not concern him in the least. He stood up lethargically, heard the bullet whistle by his ear, shot into the air, and left Ischl half an hour after the duel. He went to the Tyrol, ​the Engadine, the Bernese Oberland, the Lake of Geneva; rowed, took walks, climbed mountains, slept once in an Alpine herdsman's hut, and, in short, managed to live each day knowing as little of the day past as of the day following.
One morning he received a forwarded telegram. He opened it with trembling fingers, and read, "If you are my friend keep your promise and come to me immediately. For I am in need of a friend. Sigurd Olse." Leisenbohg did not doubt for a moment but that the contents of this telegram had something to do with Kläre. He packed as hurriedly as possible and left Aix, where he happened to be at the time, at the earliest opportunity. He went straight through Munich to Hamburg and took the boat which would bring him to Molde via Stavanger; he arrived one clear summer evening. It had seemed as though the journey would never end. He remained totally impervious to the scenery.
Also, he had been unable lately to recall Kläre's singing, or even her features. But when he saw Sigurd standing on the shore, dressed in white flannels and with a white cap, it seemed as though he had seen him only last evening. And in spite of his agitation he smiled from the deck in answer to Sigurd’s greeting, and remained quite composed as he walked down the gangway.
"I thank you a thousand times for answering my call," Sigurd said. And then he added simply, "It is all over with me."
The Baron observed him critically. Sigurd looked very pale and the hair about his temples had become noticeably grey. He was carrying on his arm a dull green plaid.
"What is the matter? What has happened?" Leisenbohg asked, smiling stiffly.
"You shall learn everything," Sigurd said. It struck the Baron that Sigurd's voice was not so full as it used to be. They went along the beautiful sea-drive in a small, narrow carriage. Both were silent. Leisenbohg did not dare to ask. He kept staring out at the water. It was nearly still; he got the peculiar notion of counting the waves, but found that this was impossible. Then he looked up at the sky, and it seemed as though the stars were slowly falling. Finally it occurred to him that a singer was in this world somewhere; Kläre Heil by name—but that was not greatly important. There was a jolt, and the carriage stopped before a plain white house surrounded by green. They took dinner on a verandah ​facing the sea. They were waited on by a stolid-faced servant whose expression became positively ominous when he was pouring the wine. About them lay the brilliant northern night.
"Well?" Leisenbohg asked, as a sudden wave of impatience came over him.
"I am a lost man," Sigurd said, staring in front of him.
"How do you mean?" Leisenbohg asked tonelessly. "And how can I help you?" he added mechanically.
"Not much. I have no idea." And he gazed over the tablecloth, over the banisters, the garden, the trellis, the street, the sea . . . into nothing.
Leisenbohg became inwardly paralyzed. . . . All sorts of thoughts shot through him. . . . What could have happened? . . . Was Kläre dead? . . . Had Sigurd murdered her? . . . Yet no, that was impossible. . . . There he was, sit- ting in front of him. . . . But why did he not go on? And suddenly, oppressed with an egregious anxiety, Lelsenbohg groaned, "Where is Kläre?"
The singer turned towards him slowly. His somewhat heavy face lit up; he seemed to be smiling—unless it was the effect of the moonlight. In any case Leisenbohg found at this moment that the man who was sitting opposite him, leaning back with both hands in his pockets, his legs stretched out beneath the table, and this veiled expression on his face, resembled nothing in the world more closely than a Pierrot. The green plaid was hanging on the banister, and seemed to the Baron at this moment like a dear old friend. But what did this ridiculous plaid have to do with him? Perhaps he was dreaming? . . . He was in Molde. Strangely enough. . . . If he had been wise he would simply have telegraphed the singer from Aix, "What is wrong? What do you want of me, Pierrot?" And he suddenly repeated his previous question, although more politely and with more patience, "Where is Kläre?"
The singer nodded several times. "To be sure, the whole thing involves her. Are you my friend?"
Leisenbohg nodded. He felt a slight chill. A warm wind was blowing in from the sea. "I am your friend. What do you want of me?"
"Do you remember the evening we last saw each other, Baron? We had supper together at the Bristol and you went with me to the station."
​Leisenbohg nodded again.
"Of course you could not have suspected that Kläre Heil was leaving Vienna in the same train with me.}
Leisenbohg let his head sink heavily on his breast. . . .
"I did not suspect it any more than you," Sigurd continued. "I did not see Kläre until the next morning when we had stopped for breakfast. She was sitting over her coffee in the dining-room with Fanny Ringeiser. From the way she acted I thought that we had met purely by chance. It was not by chance."
"Go on," the Baron said, observing the green plaid as it swayed gently.
"She confessed to me later that it was not by chance. From this morning on we remained together, Kläre, Fanny, and I. We put up at one of your charming little Austrian lakes. We took a lonely house between water and forest, secluded from the rest of humanity. We were very happy."
He spoke so slowly that Leisenbohg nearly went mad.
"What did he bring me here for?" he thought. "What does he want of me? Did she confess to him? What does that have to do with him? Why is he staring into my face so steadily? Why am I sitting here in Molde on a verandah with a Pierrot? Isn't it merely a dream, after all? Perhaps I am sleeping in Kläre's arms? Perhaps this is the same night?"—And involuntarily he strained his eyes wide open.
"Will you avenge me?" Sigurd asked suddenly.
"Avenge? . . . What for? What has happened?" the Baron asked; and he heard his own words as though they came from a distance.
"Because she has ruined me. Because I am lost."
"Explain to me, finally," Leisenbohg said in a hard dry voice.
"Fanny Ringeiser was with us," Sigurd continued. "She is a nice girl, don't you think?"
"Yes, she is a nice girl," Leisenbohg answered, and suddenly saw in front of him the half-dark room with the blue velvet furniture and the rep curtains, where he had talked with Fanny's mother hundreds of years ago.
"And she is quite a stupid girl, don't you think?"
"I think so," the Baron replied.
"I know so," Sigurd said. "She did not suspect how happy we were." And he was silent for a long while.
​"Go on," Leisenbohg said, and waited.
"One morning Kläre was still asleep," Sigurd began again. "She always used to sleep quite late into the morning. But I was taking a walk in the forest. Suddenly Fanny came running up behind me. "You must get away, Herr Olse, before it is too late. Hurry away from here; you are in great danger!" Strangely enough, at first she would say nothing more to me. But I insisted, and soon learned what sort of danger, according to her, was threatening me. Ah! She thought that I could still be saved, or else she certainly would have said nothing to me about it!"
The green plaid on the banisters was inflated like a sail; the lamp on the table flickered a little.
"What did Fanny tell you?" Leisenbohg asked.
"Do you remember the evening," Sigurd asked, "when we were all guests at Kläre's house? That same morning Kläre had gone to the cemetery with Fanny; and by the Prince's grave she confessed the hideous thing to her friend."
"The hideous thing?" the Baron was trembling.
"Yes.—You know how the Prince died? He fell from his horse and lived for about an hour afterwards."
"I know."
"No one was with him except Kläre."
“I know.”
"He would not see any one but her. And while he was dying he made a curse."
"A curse?"
"A curse.—'Kläre,' the Prince said, 'do not forget me. I would have no rest in the grave if you forgot me.'—'I will never forget you,' Kläre answered.—'Swear to me that you will never forget me,'—'I swear.'—'Kläre, I love you, and I must die!'"
"I am speaking," Sigurd said, "and I am speaking for Fanny, and Fanny is speaking for Kläre, and Kläre is speaking for the Prince. Don't you understand me?"
Leisenbohg listened with taut nerves. It seemed to him as though he could hear the voice of the dead Prince coming up out of the thrice-sealed coffin and ringing through the night.
"'Kläre, I love you, and I must die! You are so young, and I must die. . . . And someone else will come after me. . . . I know it; that's what will happen.—Someone else will hold you in his arms and be happy with you. . . . He shall not—he ​dare not—he dare not! . . . I curse him. Do you hear, Kläre? I curse him! . . . The first man who kisses these lips, who embraces this body after me—may his soul rot in Hell! . . . Kläre, Heaven hears the curse of a dying man. . . . Take care for yourself—take care for him. . . . He is des- tined for Hell! In madness, misery, and death! Woe! Woe! Woe!'"
Sigurd, out of whose mouth the voice of the dead Prince had resounded, had arisen. He was standing there, large and stout in his white flannels, looking off into the clean night. The green plaid sank from the banisters into the garden. The Baron felt himself freezing horribly. It was as though his body was becoming rigid. He wanted to cry out, but when he opened his mouth no sound came. At this moment he was in the little room of Mme Eisenstein, the music teacher—where he had seen Kläre for the first time. A Pierrot was standing on the stage declaiming, "With this curse on his lips Prince Bedenbruck died, and . . . listen . . . the wretch in whose arms she lay, the victim on whom the curse will be fulfilled, is I! . . . I! . . . I! . . ."
Then the stage collapsed with a loud crash, and sank Leisenbohg's eyes into the sea. But he, without a word, fell over backwards in his chair—like a marionette.
Sigurd sprang up, calling for help. Two servants came, picked up the unconscious man and laid him in an armchair which was standing off to one side of the table. One of them ran for a doctor; the other brought water and vinegar. Sigurd rubbed the Baron's forehead and temples, but he remained motionless. Then the doctor arrived and began his examination. It did not last long. At the end he said, "This gentleman is dead!"
Sigurd Olse was very agitated. He asked the doctor to make all necessary arrangements, and left the terrace. He passed through the drawing-room, went up stairs to his own bedroom, made a light, and wrote hastily:
"Kläre! I found your telegram at Molde, where I had fled immediately. I will confess that I did not believe you; I thought that you were trying to quiet me with a lie. Forgive me—I am no longer in doubt. The Baron von Leisenbohg was here. I sent for him. I asked him no questions; for as a man of honour he would have had to lie to me. I had an ingenious idea. I told him of the ​dead Prince's curse. The effect was amazing: the Baron fell back in his chair and died on the spot."
Sigurd stopped writing. He became very serious and seemed to be thinking. Then he placed himself in the middle of the room and raised his voice in song. At first it was a bit timid and veiled; but it gradually grew in volume, finally becoming as powerful as though it were echoing back from the waves.—A contented smile passed over Sigurd's features. He drew a deep breath. He went to the writing-table again and added to his message:
"Dearest Kläre! Forgive me—everything is lovely again. I shall be with you in three days . . ."
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