Remember Me (18 page)

He dismissed Richard, but he could not sleep. Not even away from Herrenchiemsee could he sleep, for Herrenchiemsee was always there, a door to Fürstenried. There was something waiting in that gallery of glass, and there are some doors that will never lock.

Build he must. He must build Falkenstein, before too late. He felt the urgency of those too weak to control events, who see them pour through their fingers as though our life were a rope in a tug of war with destiny.

Nor was Richard asleep either. Instead he sat in his house near Berg, his wife and children asleep, and wrote tersely in his diary that the King now never slept until 4 a.m., as neither had Prince Otto in the old days. Then he paused to think, and his thoughts filled him both with relief and with an almost uncontrollably acid sadness. After all, he had once loved Ludwig deeply, and there are some battles of which we know the outcome well in advance, though not necessarily the strategy. But he had a wife and children. There was nothing he
could
do but watch. It was 1881. They were getting close to the end.

F
rom Herrenchiemsee Ludwig had gone to the theatre, but he had not told Richard why. Just as he had given up hope, the world seemed to open up again like a great submarine shell. He could not know it was only to
capture
the diver for the pearl. He sat alone in the Court Theatre in Munich. The play was Hugo’s
Marion
de
Lorme.

He was excited, for only in the theatre can we
participate
in the possible. That is the hold the theatre has on us. Tired of the improbabilities of everyday life, where events begin to die as soon as we enter upon them, we turn for reassurance to the stage, where we may watch things happen in our brains, the way they do before we act. On the stage we may enjoy the consequences of actions we no longer dare to undertake. There we can repeat our mistakes without penalty, for if we grow bored we may always leave and come again, whereas if we grow bored with life we may leave it only once. We may come and go as we wish, for only the actors know they are condemned to repeat themselves night after night. They bear the burden of self-knowledge for us, so that as we watch them every experience becomes unique, as it should be.

Sitting alone in the theatre he thought all that.

The theatre was dark, like the night, safer, and more conveniently mysterious. He preferred it empty, for others should not see our life as we would live it. As he sat in darkness, as the footlights suffused the curtain before it parted, it was as though he stood on the shores of the world, waiting for the first life to appear from the sea.

The Court Theatre connected with the palace. When the emptiness and alienation of the Residenz became too much for him, he had only to open a door in a side room, step along a quiet corridor, and open another door behind the royal box, to rediscover magic once again. If he knew the play by heart, he could drop in as he pleased. On this 30th April 1881 he was particularly anxious to be there on time. In the connecting corridor he looked out of a
window
and down to the deserted cobbles of the street
below
. To-night might be important. Unexpectedly he felt hope, even though he was tired. He hurried on. The whole year had felt strange. It might be black, but it would not be grey.

For his excitement he had a certain reason.

Wagner had returned to Munich. Ludwig had not particularly wanted to see him, but he had given him use of the Court Theatre for two months. Sometimes we have certain friends for whom our affection is undiminished, but whom we can never bring ourselves to meet again. We write to them. We exchange gifts. We speak well of them. But there was once a moment, perhaps trivial, but never to be forgotten, after which seeing them became impossible, because they did something so blindly wilful that we could never see them as they were before again.

He had to agree to meet Wagner in the wintergarden, but he dreaded the meeting. He sat in the Indian hut and watched the artificial moon in the water. Wagner was
announced at five. Ludwig rose uncertainly. When our friends have become famous, something personal goes out of them. Now he and Wagner were rival kings in different countries, each coveting the conquest of the other. Between them there could be no ease or trust. He looked up anxiously.

Wagner came down the path among the ferns. Time had made him heavier. Yet absorption in the arts gives us a curious youthfulness. It was like the meeting of two lovers, after many years, when neither can remember which one failed the other, yet each remembers very well. They had much to talk about, but nothing to say. In Wagner’s eyes shone the defensive youthfulness of the artist suddenly grown old.

They talked for three hours. They did not talk with each other, however, so much as at each other. Ludwig felt far away from his own words. Wagner still reeked of tobacco, as he had at that first audience, years ago. It reminded Ludwig of his youth.

At eight o’clock on April 29th they slipped into the theatre for a performance of
Lohengrin
. Ludwig sat there, hoping the work would make it possible to communicate with the man.

There is a strange tenseness about an artist who sees some work of his own after a lapse of many years, the same tension one may observe in parents as they watch their children receive the baccalaureat, a sense not of accomplishment, but of loss. Ludwig stirred uneasily. It occurred to him that Wagner saw in
Lohengrin
what he had seen at Linderhof, a beautiful cage for something that had flown away.

He saw in the way that Wagner hunched forward to watch as Lohengrin sailed away that he, too, still searched for an embodiment, not in his life, but in his works. The
man who finishes his life work before he dies, dies twice. Wagner was full of plans. He would do an opera upon the life of the Buddha. But they were only plans. He was ripe with accomplishment, but the public had stolen all his fruit. New works might grow from the seed of
Lohen
grin
and
Parsifal,
but new works by Wagner never.

The curtain fell. They rose. Wagner watched the
darkened
theatre expectantly and then sighed. Ludwig
understood
. So, too, must he go on with Falkenstein, even though it would never be built. The visit had made him sad.

When Wagner was gone, he went back to the
wintergarden
. There had been some letters for him. He held them in his hand and then put them on a table.

At last the stillness became too much for him. The water of the imitation lake had lapped too often at the shore. He pulled his letters to him and began to open them, putting on glasses to read, since there was no one to see him wear them.

There was a note from the director of the Court Theatre, who enclosed two photographs of a new actor. Ludwig was not too interested. He opened the envelope and slid out the pictures. He had been reading Victor Hugo recently, and had taken a fancy to
Marion
de
Lorme.
Two lines in that play fascinated him. The Marquis de Saverny, the chief character, somewhere said: “If I found adventure in a passing encounter, then the heart of illusion could still be broken in upon.”

It could never happen in life, but Ludwig longed to see it happen on the stage. He had ordered the play to be performed on April 30th.

He turned the pictures over and stared at them.

He found himself looking at a young man whose hair was parted in the middle and fluffed out at the sides. The
face was heavy and the hair untidy. Yet the features were fine. The mouth was delicate, and its upper curve echoed the concave curves of the nostrils. The eyebrows were well drawn. The eyes looked out sensitively from far away, seeing everything and full of power. He was not only looking at the ideal face he had always sought. He took off his glasses. He was looking at himself.

He sat there for a long time and then picked up the pictures once again. There was no doubt. It was himself. If he had been born of the people, he would have looked like this. He might even have had this power.

He was startled and disturbed. Of all the people we see every day, seldom do we look at a stranger only to find ourselves staring back at us. The young man’s name was Kainz. Ludwig ordered that Kainz was to play Didier, in
Marion
de
Lorme.

What was to happen? He must find out.

April 30th was a Saturday, on the brink of May. That night Ludwig slipped eagerly and unseen into the
darkened
theatre, taking his place in his box. The
performance
was a little late in getting started. The orchestra was repeating itself.

As the curtains began to part, he sat very, very still, uncertain, terrified, and poised to flee.

The stage was revealed. The scene was the bedroom of a château at Blois. The Marquis de Saverny was
discovered
importuning Marion de Lorme to become his mistress. Her heart was given to another. Saverny departed in disgust. The actress who played Marion de Lorme was pleasing, but had a piping voice. Ludwig could not abide high-pitched sounds. He sat forward and watched the window at the rear of the stage.

A figure scrambled over the balustrade to enter the room. It was dressed in black and wore bottines. The
costume was abominable. The lighting was worse. Ludwig frowned. He could see nothing clearly, but he would not wear his glasses in a public place. The piece was badly directed. Didier had his back to the auditorium. He flung himself at Marion’s feet. He was graceful, but in an oddly discomfited way. He must be young. When he spoke his voice was deep, controlled, and beautiful.

“Who am I who crawl with the base herd?” he asked Marion. Yet some commoners did not seem to be
commoners
. When, later in the scene, the truth emerged that he had been born a foundling, Ludwig relaxed. It was an ancient rule that foundlings, because saved by the grace of God, were enrolled among the ranks of
gentlemen
, and therefore might consort with their peers. So that was all right. Perhaps the woodsman in the glade had been a foundling, too.

Didier was young and his movements had a certain helpless vigour. Ludwig sat back in the shadows of the box. The voices rose to him out of the theatre. Saverny entered. There was a brawl with street robbers. Didier saved his life. The two men found they were rivals for Marion’s hand. Didier spoke again. His voice was better now: he was getting the feel of the part.

“Your road lies that way. This is mine,” he said. The two men separated and left the stage. But this was a play. They would meet again. Ludwig felt no real anxiety about that. The curtain went down. It seemed a long time to wait until Act II.

Act II took place also at Blois, but outside, at the
doorway
to a wineshop on a public square. The scene was excessively tedious: neither Didier nor Saverny appeared for many, many minutes. Ludwig closed his eyes. His left leg had gone to sleep. The scene was designed to build up audience tension. Ludwig waited, anxious and
bored. He could not remember how Didier looked. A wisp of dialogue caught his attention.

“Of what use is the King, I pray to know?”

At last Saverny entered. He was in search of Didier. He spoke frankly to his fellow nobles:

At long last Didier entered. His manner was pensive and noble. Assuredly he was no mere commoner. Saverny, not knowing him, provoked him to a duel. It was thrilling and tragic. Ludwig hunched forward. The King’s guards entered and arrested both men for duelling. Saverny shammed dead. Only Didier was hauled off to gaol. The penalty for duelling was death. This was not life, he was watching, but optimum reality. Marion entered and mourned. The curtain fell.

Ludwig paced up and down at the back of his box. He was hungry. He wanted sandwiches, but the footman had not supplied them. He did not ring. It was better to go hungry, than to be disturbed.

At last the bell rang and the curtain rose. The third act took place in the grounds of the Château de Nangris, a gothic building with modern additions. The scene was long. Didier did not appear until the end of it. Saverny was present in disguise. At last a troop of strolling players entered to seek shelter for the night. Didier was with them, also in disguise. He had escaped from gaol. He was certainly both noble and handsome. His eyes were bewitching. Ludwig drew back into the shadow of his box. The eyes seemed to stare directly at him.

It was a pity Didier had so small a part, yet perhaps it was better at first to catch only a glimpse of him, for a
glimpse was sometimes better than a view. The figures we see over our shoulders or flickering on the borders of the eye are not always terrible. Sometimes they are angels of the annunciation, full of joy. They comfort us until we turn to them, then they disappear. Didier spoke.

Ludwig nodded as the words came up to him. He felt the same way. He strained to hear some edge of the
personal
in that voice. He would save Didier. He would save himself.

Didier ranted from the stage, and it was a cry from the ideal self. It should not go unanswered. Didier, too, must know what loneliness was like.

Ludwig frowned. It was not a problem of two. Didier was himself. The theatre seemed to stir. His attention strayed. The play dwindled away into plot mechanics. Didier was discovered, arrested, and carted off to gaol. Saverny could not allow him to go to his death alone. He revealed himself, and together the two men were
incarcerated.

Act IV took place in the King’s apartments at
Chambord.
The King had been rendered impotent by his ministers. He no longer had even the will to act. He refused to intervene to reprieve Didier and Saverny. The act was endless. Didier did not appear in it. Probably he was resting in his dressing-room. What was his face really like? Would he be Didier offstage as well? The action went on and on.

“I have enough to do to live‚’ exclaimed the stage king, “without the care of reigning.”

That, too, was true. Ludwig waited for Act V.

At last it came. The scene was the
donjon
at
Beaugency.
The plot ground on relentlessly. Marion spoke: