With the latter, who was just engaged in a consultation about the repertory with the theatre attendant, a toothless old skeleton, he left me to settle the necessary arrangements. As soon as Bethmann had gone, Schmale, the stage manager, shrugged his shoulders and smiled, assuring me that that was just the way of the director, to put everything on his back and trouble himself about nothing. There he had been sitting for over an hour, discussing with Kroge what should be put on next Sunday: it was all very well his starting Don Juan, but how could he get a rehearsal carried out, when the Merseburg town bandsmen, who formed the orchestra, would not come over on Saturday to rehearse?
All the time Schmale kept reaching out through the open window to a cherry tree from which he picked and persistently ate the fruit, ejecting the stones with a disagreeable noise. Now it was this last circumstance in particular which decided me; for, strange to say, I have an innate aversion from fruit. I informed the stage manager that he need not trouble at all about Don Juan for Sunday, since for my part, if they had reckoned on my making my first appearance at this performance, I must anyhow disappoint the director, as I had no choice but to return at once to Leipzig, where I had to put my affairs in order. This polite manner of tendering my absolute refusal to accept the appointment-a conclusion I had quickly arrived at in my own mind-forced me to practise some dissimulation, and made it necessary for me to appear as if I really had some other purpose in coming to Lauchstadt. This pretence in itself was quite unnecessary, seeing that I was quite determined never to return there again.
People offered to help me in finding a lodging, and a young actor whom I had chanced to know at Wurzburg undertook to be my guide in the matter. While he was taking me to the best lodging he knew, he told me that presently he would do me the kindness of making me the housemate of the prettiest and nicest girl to be found in the place at the time. She was the junior lead of the company, Mademoiselle Minna Planer, of whom doubtless I had already heard.
As luck would have it, the promised damsel met us at the door of the house in question. Her appearance and bearing formed the most striking contrast possible to all the unpleasant impressions of the theatre which it had been my lot to receive on this fateful morning. Looking very charming and fresh, the young actress's general manner and movements were full of a certain majesty and grave assurance which lent an agreeable and captivating air of dignity to her otherwise pleasant expression. Her scrupulously clean and tidy dress completed the startling effect of the unexpected encounter. After I had been introduced to her in the hall as the new conductor, and after she had done regarding with astonishment the stranger who seemed so young for such a title, she recommended me kindly to the landlady of the house, and begged that I might be well looked after; whereupon she walked proudly and serenely across the street to her rehearsal.
I engaged a room on the spot, agreed to Don Juan for Sunday, regretted greatly that I had not brought my luggage with me from Leipzig, and hastened to return thither as quickly as possible in order to get back to Lauchstadt all the sooner. The die was cast. The serious side of life at once confronted me in the form of significant experiences. At Leipzig I had to take a furtive leave of Laube. At the instance of Prussia he had been warned off Saxon soil, and he half guessed at the meaning which was to be attached to this move. The time of undisguised reaction against the Liberal movement of the early 'thirties had set in: the fact that Laube was concerned in no sort of political work, but had devoted himself merely to literary activity, always aiming simply at aesthetic objects, made the action of the police quite incomprehensible to us for the time being. The disgusting ambiguity with which the Leipzig authorities answered all his questions as to the cause of his expulsion soon gave him the strongest suspicions as to what their intentions towards him actually were.
Leipzig, as the scene of his literary labours, being inestimably precious, it mattered greatly to him to keep within reach of it. My friend Apel owned a fine estate on Prussian soil, within but a few hours' distance of Leipzig, and we conceived the wish of seeing Laube hospitably harboured there. My friend, who without infringing the legal stipulations was in a position to give the persecuted man a place of refuge, immediately assented, and with great readiness, to our desire, but confessed to us next day, after having communicated with his family, that he thought he might incur some unpleasantnesses if he entertained Laube. At this the latter smiled, and in a manner I shall never forget, though I have noticed in the course of my life that the expression which I then saw in his face was one which has often flitted over my own features. He took his leave, and in a short time we heard that he had been arrested, owing to having undertaken fresh proceedings against former members of the Burschenschaft (Students' League), and had been lodged in the municipal prison at Berlin. I had thus had two experiences which weighed me down like lead, so I packed my scanty portmanteau, took leave of my mother and sister, and, with a stout heart, started on my career as a conductor.
In order to be able to look upon the little room under Minna's lodging as my new home, I was forced also to make the best of Bethmann's theatrical enterprise. As a matter of fact, a performance of Don Juan was given at once, for the director, who prided himself on being a connoisseur of things artistic, suggested that opera to me as one with which it would be wise for an aspiring young artist, of a good family, to make his debut. Despite the fact that, apart from some of my own instrumental compositions, I had never yet conducted, and least of all in opera, the rehearsal and the performance went off fairly well. Only once or twice did discrepancies appear in the recitative of Donna Anna; yet this did not involve me in any kind of hostility, and when I took my place unabashed and calm for the production of Lumpaci Vagabundus, which I had practised very thoroughly, the people generally seemed to have gained full confidence in the theatre's new acquisition.
The fact that I submitted without bitterness and even with some cheerfulness to this unworthy use of my musical talent, was due less to my taste being at this period, as I called it, in its salad days, than to my intercourse with Minna Planer, who was employed in that magic trifle as the Amorous Fairy. Indeed, in the midst of this dust-cloud of frivolity and vulgarity, she always seemed very much like a fairy, the reasons of whose descent into this giddy whirl, which of a truth seemed neither to carry her away nor even to affect her, remained an absolute mystery. For while I could discover nothing in the opera singers save the familiar stage caricatures and grimaces, this fair actress differed wholly from those about her in her unaffected soberness and dainty modesty, as also in the absence of all theatrical pretence and stiltedness. There was only one young man whom I could place beside Minna on the ground of qualities like those I recognised in her. This fellow was Friedrich Schmitt, who had only just adopted the stage as a career in the hope of making a 'hit' in opera, to which, as the possessor of an excellent tenor voice, he felt himself called. He too differed from the rest of the company, especially in the earnestness which he brought to bear upon his studies and his work in generaclass="underline" the soulful manly pitch of his chest voice, his clear, noble enunciation and intelligent rendering of his words, have always remained as standards in my memory. Owing to the fact that he was wholly devoid of theatrical talent, and acted clumsily and awkwardly, a check was soon put to his progress, but he always remained dear to me as a clever and original man of trustworthy and upright character-my only associate.