‘But what about the Rigi song – that is not old, is it?’ I said.
‘No, that was composed about fifteen years ago,’ he said. ‘There was a German in Basle, a very clever man. He composed it. It’s a splendid song! You see, he composed it for the tourists.’
And, translating them into French as he went along, he began repeating to me the words of the Rigi song, which he liked so much:
‘If you would go up the Rigi
You need no shoes as far as Weggis
(Because you go that far by steamer)
But in Weggis take a big stick,
And upon your arm a maiden.
Drink a glass of wine at starting,
Only do not drink too much.
For he who wants to have a drink
Should first have earned …
‘Oh, it’s a splendid song!’ he said, as he finished.
The waiters, too, probably considered the song very good, for they came nearer to us.
‘Yes, but who composed the music?’ I asked.
‘Oh, nobody! It comes of itself, you know – one must have something new to sing to the foreigners.’
When the ice was brought and I had poured out a glass of champagne for my companion, he seemed to feel ill at ease, and glancing round at the waiters shifted uneasily in his seat. We clinked glasses to the health of artists; he drank half a glass, and then found it necessary to raise his eyebrows in profound thought.
‘It’s a long time since I drank such wine, je ne vous dis que ça.6 In Italy the d’Asti wine is good, but this is better still. Ah, Italy! It’s splendid to be there!’ he added.
‘Yes, there they know how to appreciate music and artists,’ I said, wishing to lead him back to the subject of his failure that evening before the Schweizerhof.
‘No,’ he replied. ‘There, as far as music is concerned, I cannot give anyone pleasure. The Italians are themselves musicians like none others in the world: I sing only Tyrolese songs – that at any rate is a novelty for them.’
‘And are the gentlefolk more generous there?’ I went on, wishing to make him share my resentment against the guests at the Schweizerhof. ‘It couldn’t happen there, could it, as it did here, that in an immense hotel frequented by rich people, out of a hundred who listen to an artist not one gives him anything?’
My question had quite a different effect on him from what I had expected. It did not enter his head to be indignant with them: on the contrary he detected in my remark a reflection on his talent, which had failed to elicit any reward, and he tried to justify himself to me.
‘One does not get much every time,’ he replied. ‘Sometimes my voice fails or I am tired. To-day, you know, I have been walking for nine hours and singing almost all the time. That is hard. And the great people, the aristocrats, don’t always care to hear Tyrolese songs.’
‘But still, how could they give nothing at all?’ I insisted.
He did not understand my remark.
‘It’s not that,’ he said, ‘the chief thing here is, on est très serré pour la police,7 that’s where the trouble is. Here under their republican laws you are not allowed to sing, but in Italy you may go about as much as you please, and no one will say a word to you. Here they allow it only when they please, and if they don’t please, they may put you in prison.’
‘How is that? Is it possible?’
‘Yes, if they caution you once and you sing again they may imprison you. I was there for three months,’ he said smiling, as though this were one of his pleasantest recollections.
‘Oh, that’s dreadful!’ I said. ‘What for?’
‘That is so under the new republican laws,’ he continued, growing animated. ‘They don’t want to understand that a poor fellow must live somehow. If I were not a cripple, I would work. But does my singing hurt anyone? What does it mean? The rich can live as they please, but un pauvre tiable like myself mayn’t even live. Are these the laws a republic should have? If so, we don’t want a republic – isn’t that so, dear sir? We don’t want a republic, but we want – we simply want … we want’ – he hesitated awhile – ‘we want natural laws.’
I filled up his glass.
‘You are not drinking,’ I said to him.
He took the glass in his hand and bowed to me.
‘I know what you want,’ he said, screwing up his eyes and shaking his finger at me. ‘You want to make me drunk, so as to see what will happen to me; but no, you won’t succeed!’
‘Why should I want to make you drunk?’ I said. ‘I only want to give you pleasure.’
Probably he was sorry to have offended me by interpreting my intention wrongly, for he grew confused, got up, and pressed my elbow.
‘No, no, I was only joking!’ he said, looking at me with a beseeching expression in his moist eyes.
Then he uttered some fearfully intricate, complicated sentence intended to imply that I was a good fellow after all.
‘Je ne vous dis que ça!’ he concluded.
So we continued drinking and talking and the waiters continued to watch us unceremoniously and, as it seemed, to make fun of us. Despite my interest in our conversation I could not help noticing them and, I confess, I grew more and more angry. One of them got up, came over to the little man, looked down on the crown of his head, and began to smile. I had accumulated a store of anger for the guests at the Schweizerhof which I had not yet been able to vent on anyone, and I own that this audience of waiters irritated me beyond endurance. Then the porter came in and, leaning his elbows on the table without taking off his hat, sat down beside me. This last circumstance stung my self-esteem or vanity, and finally caused the oppressive rage that had been smouldering in me all the evening to explode. ‘Why when I was alone at the entrance did he humbly bow to me, and now that I am sitting with an itinerant singer, sprawls near me so rudely?’ I was filled with a boiling rage of indignation which I like in myself and even stimulate when it besets me, because it has a tranquillizing effect, and gives, at least for a short time, an unusual suppleness, energy, and power to all my physical and mental faculties.
I jumped up.
‘What are you laughing at?’ I shouted at the waiter, feeling that I was growing pale and that my lips were involuntarily twitching.
‘I am not laughing; it’s nothing!’ said the waiter stepping back.
‘No, you are laughing at this gentleman.… And what right have you to be here and to be sitting down, when there are visitors here? Don’t dare to sit here!’ I cried turning to the porter.
He got up with a growl and moved towards the door.
‘What right have you to laugh at this gentleman and to sit near him, when he is a visitor and you are a lackey? Why didn’t you laugh at me or sit beside me at dinner this evening? Is it because he is poorly dressed and sings in the street? Is it? While I wear good clothes? He is poor, but I am convinced that he is a thousand times better than you, for he insults no one, while you are insulting him!’
‘But I am not doing anything!’ replied my enemy the waiter, timidly. ‘Do I prevent his sitting here?’
The waiter did not understand me and my German speech was lost on him. The rude porter tried to take the waiter’s part, but I attacked him so vehemently that he pretended that he, too, did not understand me, and waved his arm. The hunchbacked dish-washer, either noticing my heated condition and afraid of a scandal, or because she really shared my views, took my part and, trying to interpose between me and the porter, began to persuade him to be quiet, saying that I was right and asking me to calm myself. ‘Der Herr hat recht; Sie haben recht!’8 she said firmly. The singer presented a most piteous, frightened appearance and, evidently without understanding why I was excited or what I was aiming at, begged me to go away quickly. But my angry loquacity burned stronger and stronger in me. I recalled everything: the crowd that had laughed at him, and the audience that had given him nothing – and I would not quiet down on any account. I think that if the waiters and the porter had not been so yielding I should have enjoyed a fight with them, or could have whacked the defenceless young English lady on the head with a stick. Had I been at Sevastopol at that moment I would gladly have rushed into an English trench to hack and slash at them.