Remember Me (19 page)

It was true. The play was very true. Didier could change his whole life. The executioners arrived. Didier and Saverny embraced for the last time. The play was so directed that it was Didier’s face Ludwig could see, over Saverny’s back. Didier was clearly moved. The two men were led off to their execution. They would always be together. The curtain fell.

Ludwig sighed and did not stir. He felt an immense gratitude. After a while he went back to the wintergarden to savour the experience alone.

It was like
Tristan
and
Isolde.
Love was always the prelude to death. So it was in the
Aida
he had seen the previous afternoon. If we must immolate ourselves, we should not have to do so alone. Lohengrin had given Elsa a ring. Richard had given him a ring, made of iron.
To Didier he would send a ring also, but it should hold a star sapphire, like a star of hope. It was difficult to remember that the man’s name was Kainz. He was eager to hear what Didier would have to say.

An answer to his gift came on May 1st. Once more, after so many years, May began auspiciously. The letter was in a fine, bold hand. It spoke of humility.

It made him eager to see Didier again as soon as
possible
. He scheduled a second performance of
Marion
de
Lorme
for May 4th. When the fourth came he sat
watching
the stage anxiously, but it was indeed Didier and indeed himself he watched. This time he sent a gold chain, with an enamel swan dangling from it, like the Order of the Holy Ghost in Hugo’s
Hernani,
that order only those of noble blood might wear.

On May 9th the play was to be
La
Marquise
de 
Pompa
dour
.
He commanded that Didier should be present to watch, in a box below his. He did not dare to meet the man, but perhaps he could establish contact in some way, in the dark of the theatre, watching a charade together, as those at mass watch the altar.

So Ludwig sat alone in the royal box. He sent an equerry to Didier with opera glasses and a copy of the libretto. All through that interminable performance he sat motionless, listening for sounds from the box below him, the sounds not so much of movement as of shared emotion. Sometimes he thought he caught the stealthy turning of a page. At least their eyes were both watching the same spectacle, bifocal to the same experience.

As the performance went on he thought less of the stage and more of the box below him. It was terrible not to dare to come closer, and May was wearing on. He commanded another performance of
Marion
de
Lorme,
and got no sleep until it took place.

It must be almost dawn. He bit his lips. If he could love no one, at least he could protect himself in another. But would that other understand? Was Didier, despite the resemblance, really himself? The darkness of the theatre was deceptive. The illusion was not on the stage, but in the eyes of those who watched.

Yet he could not be mistaken. He had seen the man’s bearing. It was noble. For there are certain truths the knowledge of which is an inherited or intrinsic privilege. To know them is to be that special hermetic sort of
aristocrat
, the autocrat. Autocrats are born at random,
whereas
aristocrats issue only from their own house. What the one inherits from a family, the other derives from genius itself. Few of us have the strength to be absolute in
ourselves
and to ourselves. Yet only spiritual autonomy can pull us through.

The third performance of
Marion
de
Lorme
was less a performance than a sacrament. He watched eagerly. When Didier was led off to death, Ludwig arose and clapped twice. He had never done that in the theatre before. Afterwards he drove straight to Berg, opened his diary, and permitted himself to quote from the play. “So unseparated we died, eternally united,” he wrote. It was a promise to himself.

Didier wrote to him at Berg and May sped by. It was not right that they should not meet. Didier should appear in other parts. Ludwig sent him a copy of
Hernani.
He wanted to hear more of that immortal voice, and in
Hernani
it was possible to die for a principle. He wanted to listen to the great speech in the tomb scene, in which we learn of Hernani’s origins:

He was agitated. Berg seemed emptier than ever. Once a week he visited Richard and his family, at their home nearby. He needed their reassurance, for he was about to do something of which he felt afraid. On the way back he always walked by the lake, escorted by a footman to act as linkboy. The footman annoyed him, but he needed a light. He was finished forever with menials such as he.

Along the shore of the lake he watched, catching glimpses of the mountain peaks. May became
unendurable
and drew to its close. He could not bear to spend all of it alone. That was neither right nor necessary. Yet he hesitated. The weeks went by, narrowed down, and opened out of each other, like a series of tunnels through which he drifted in a boat, now with head room, now not. He could stand isolation no more.

So on the 29th he sent a messenger to Munich, and knew he had done a fatal, an irrevocable thing. That made him more restless than ever. He had sent for Didier. But of course Didier was not entirely Didier. He was also a man called Kainz, and of the man Kainz Ludwig felt mortally afraid.

Had he taken another step down in the circular stair, or had he not?

W
hen Kainz received the messenger, he was nervous, too. Knowing what he would some day be, he resented how people treated him now, knowing how they would change their opinion of him later, and thus losing future friends in a foreknowledge of their hypocrisy. An actor is someone else only in the evening. He cannot be
another
man all day, for if so, then he is locked up in one role, and that is madness. Nor did he know that it was Didier who had been summoned, and not Kainz, for he was still young enough to take pride in being himself, so it was of himself he thought when people praised him, not of his roles.

He had not seen the King, but the King had watched him. Kainz did not know whether to expect a demigod or a monster. He thought he was being summoned as an attractive boy, not as a budding actor. He did not know that love, being inexorable, would demand both.

He thought that kings were merely actors, too, but born out of the trunk on to a permanent stage. He was right: they were; but he forgot the sacred origins of the drama. He forgot that at least to himself the priest is still King, the King still priest, even though the audience no longer believes it. And now there was no audience.

A carriage called at his lodgings. There was something unreal about the whole experience. He liked to step out of the theatre into the world, not into another play. He did not yet know that the performance is continuous, and that if we are to survive we can never cease to act.

Being patronized by the King made him feel uneasy and vaguely Greek. Unfortunately he did not look Greek, and to the Greeks appearance was everything, since it was the mirror of their thoughts. Rifling in his mind through all the roles he had ever played, he could find nothing to give him so much as a hint how to behave in this one. Even the stiff, formal, passionate poems of Count von Platen did not help much. He was oddly excited. He was Kainz, going to visit the King. It was something a little wider than his life so far.

The carriage was a small closed calèche, suffocating and very uncomfortable. He wanted very much to sneeze, though that would not have been respectful. The view flashed by the square windows like a stereopticon. He managed to catch a nap, but ached all over. The journey went on for hours. It began to be dusk and the horses were climbing. The air became pure, which jerked him awake. He rubbed his eyes. Something had changed.

It was only that they had turned off the road, having reached Linderhof. Whether it was seemly or not, he hung out of the window, squinting in the gloom.

Linderhof glittered among the trees, a frosted wedding cake, trimmed with silver leaves. There was a restless movement to and fro somewhere, like the rustle of silk or leaves shifting in the wind along an abandoned,
ruinated
corridor. As the carriage swept up to the entrance, he had a glimpse of the fountain, weaving hypnotized back and forth under the moon like a giant, impalpable cobra, the one thing in that landscape heartlessly and
inimically alive. Then the door of the calèche was opened and he was ushered to his room.

It was such a room as he had entered only in plays. It was also transient. It contained no bed. He was told to change. He must have seemed bewildered, for the
servant
told him he would sleep in a châlet on the property. No one slept at Linderhof, not even the King. There was some constraint here he did not understand, and a
certain
fearful mockery as well. He was brought hot water and asked to hurry.

Obediently he plunged his wrists into the water. After washing, he changed into an evening coat and white tie, trying to get his bearings, but without success. A lackey came to the door and beckoned him outside.

To his bewilderment they went not into one of the state rooms, but downstairs to the garden floor. At the foot of the stairs the lackey paused. His name, he said, was Burkel. He did not smile. The two men stepped out on to a terrace. They were going into the garden. This close-to, the fountain hissed and spat. It cast its spray everywhere into the moist air, and it seemed to follow them as they skirted the basin, as though it could see them. Almost, in an abrupt gust of wind, it lunged at him. It was tall and utterly malevolent, glittering against the shadows.

They stepped off the gravel, on to a narrow path. Kainz stared while the fountain drew back and then lunged again, splattering poisonous drops close to his face and eyes. The lackey Burkel lingered ahead, like a confidant in some muffled melodrama. With a wary eye on the fountain, Kainz followed, feeling the gravel pop under the thin soles of his evening shoes. The fountain still watched above them, the top of its trajectory oddly like a flattened head. He had not known that water, the source of life, could show such venom.

The air was so fragrant as to be oppressive. It smelled of mummy. He hesitated, seeing the lackey stop once more ahead of him. This was it. He would be asked either to undress or to recite, and his career had reached such an impasse that he did not greatly care which, except that he was tired. In the circumstances he was only too anxious to do what was expected of him. But what was expected of him?

Before them was a large granite rock. The rock slid away. He was startled. Beyond was a small vestibule. He could hear Burkel’s torch spluttering. The walls were damp. They walked a little way and came to a wider place. He found himself standing once more on gravel, at the edge of lifelessly lapping water. The lights were blue. Under them two swans perambulated the pool. They were the colour of blotting paper. They had been indoors too long. Kainz grunted with surprise, but was not heard, for beside him a red, blue, and yellow waterfall gushed from the wall.

Burkel made an odd movement and set off towards the left. The torch he carried smudged still more a ceiling already much smudged. Bewildered, Kainz
followed
him along a strait path which curved around the water towards the other side of the grotto. They came to the entrance of a gazebo built of silver-painted shells. Steps to it were concealed by rocks.

Behind him Burkel moved rapidly away, but not before Kainz saw his smile. The reflection of his torch fled across the water, where the swans sailed angrily away from it. There was a movement within the gazebo. The grotto was chilly and evening clothes are far from warm. Kainz went up the steps, as Burkel disappeared. The waterfall gave a convulsive spurt and shifted colours.

Inside the gazebo was a supper table, laid out with such things as one has at an after-theatre party, of which only a dish of
glacé
trout ornamented with anchovy rosettes caught his eye.

If he had been anywhere else, he would have smiled. He had spent most of his youth in the green room, and he recognized what he saw. It was the usual arrangement. For talent and genius mean nothing. They have a certain survival value once we have arrived, but they will never allow us to scramble to security unaided. Platonism is meaningless in the theatre; and we are lucky to attract attention at all, so we cannot afford to reject any sponsor who appears. If attention comes from someone of the sex we prefer and is not too ugly, that is more than we can possibly hope for. Kainz did not smile. He was too puzzled. He knew that this sort of thing happened, but it had not happened to him before.

Where was the King? A man stood at the other side of the table, half hidden in shadow. He stepped abruptly forward. He was tall, and he swayed slightly, his fingers flexing with impatience. His face was very white. It was a chipmunk face. His hair was parted in the middle, and his mouth was muzzled by moustaches which flowed down on either side into his beard. His chest was
enormous
, and it made him swing like a pendulum upside down. It was the sort of face you expect to see waiting for you at the end of a corridor, in sleep. His eyes were penetrating, disappointed, and warm, even though angry. He sketched a gesture.

“You are late,” he said. His voice was choked.

Kainz knew he was late. He felt miserable.

The figure was too angry to be imposing. It stared at him. As it stared, Kainz could feel himself growing uglier. He felt soiled.

“You are smaller than Didier,” said the King drily. He moved back behind the table and made a vague motion towards it. Kainz could think of nothing to say. Behind him the swans grew irritable at each other in the lake. Time suddenly prolapsed.

Ludwig was shaking visibly. Kainz scarcely noticed. The King quivered like a fox at an empty burrow. Kainz tried to speak, and saw the words wither in front of him in the air.

“You had better sit down,” said the King. He did not sit down himself. He eyed Kainz narrowly. Kainz could think of nothing to lessen the tension. He could not help it if he was a small man. He felt himself dwindle.

The King began to pour champagne, but suddenly put the bottle down, as though he could not move. Kainz did not dare to look up at him. He looked instead at the glasses. The bubbles rose slowly yellow through the stem. They would never break the surface.

The King drained his glass. “This is unforgivable,” he said. He backed away from the table and left the gazebo. Kainz sat rooted where he was. The swans hissed. The waterfall spat. The lights flickered. He had failed. He had had his chance and lost it. He was not what the King wanted after all.

Someone bent over him. It was Burkel.

“He expected Didier, you fool‚’ said Burkel. “Who cares about an actor? Recite!”

Kainz sat up. Burkel’s round, smooth face was staring down at him. “Act,” repeated Burkel, and winked. “We all act here. Stand up.” He drew away.

Kainz stood up. He looked out over the lake. He could not see the King anywhere on the path.

With desperation, he scrambled back into the only safety he knew. He cleared his throat. On the water the
swans waited motionless. Shadows came and went across the ceiling.

He began to recite. He chose Didier’s scenes in the last act of
Marion
de
Lorme.
They were the longest speeches. The roof of the grotto cast back his voice
distorted
. Automatically he shifted his voice production to obliterate the echo. He felt the part take hold. The swans raised their heads. The speeches rolled out into the air before him. He did not feel inadequate any more. He launched into the fifty-six lines in which he renounced Marion de Lorme in order to die with Saverny. On the stage he wore an open silk shirt for that. Automatically he began to undo his tie, standing with his feet planted wide apart on the floor of the gazebo. He closed his eyes. Somewhere he heard footsteps. The executioners were coming. There was a special trick he wanted to try out of halting for a moment on the noun, before rushing on to the dependent clauses. They would never let him use it in the theatre. He used it now. He reached the end of the speech, paused for breath, and opened his eyes.

The King was standing before him at the table. He was watching him with hungry eyes, but they were not hungry with lust. Kainz understood. It was not Kainz the King wanted, nor even Didier. It was the power to speak such noble sentiments. The King handed him a glass of champagne and Kainz drained the glass. He gave a sudden smile and felt much better. The corners of the King’s mouth twitched and he poured again. He leaned forward intently.

“Go on,” he said. He seemed larger and more
commanding
now.

Kainz went on.

He was puzzled, but he felt much better. Now he was doing what he knew how to do. So long as he followed
his own voice, he was safe in this labyrinth. He decided to let it out, though warily conscious of the acoustics of the grotto. He tried all the tricks he had worked on for so long, that in the theatre they would not let him try. Before him he could see his voice, curving, swooping, flying, dipping, a glider hypersensitive to the controls. He went on and on. The grotto vanished.

There was a creak. The King sat down.

“You must rest,” he said. He dug out the side of the
glacé
trout and served it upon a plate, passing it to Kainz. “Have you learned the role of Hernani yet?”

Kainz nodded. He was happy and he was perspiring. Few of us are ever loved for our abilities, especially in the theatre. “In act one,” he began, and even to himself his voice sounded different. Dimly he realized why. He had dropped the Viennese accent and was speaking instead with the accent of authority.

The King’s eyes now snapped with enthusiasm. They were alive. Kainz saw for the first time that they were beautiful. Desire did not matter, if only there were
something
to admire. The King sat forward eagerly on his chair, and Kainz did the same. He began to recite with his mouth full. They sat there together until well past dawn.

Kainz was no longer nervous. He began to see the eager, white-skinned boy behind the beard, and
something
inside him that was older than he was felt oddly moved. It felt exultant too. He was a success.

The visit could go on.

*

It went on for twelve days.

Each day they took long walks, or else went for
carriage
drives. Kainz had never before been treated in this way. It was fantastic, and he began to be worried about
his voice. Burkel brought him an atomizer and throat spray every morning. He seemed as anxious as Kainz himself.

Some things bewildered him. He could not be Didier every day. He began to sense something of the nightmare of the actor who is allowed to play only one role. They read Byron, Hugo, Grillpartzer, and Caldéron, but
always
he must be Didier. In these parts he should not be Didier. And who was the Didier the King thought he was?

One day, while they were walking down a hillside towards the lake, the King took his arm. He had the feeling that Ludwig had not wanted to do so, that it was something he had tried not to do, had wanted desperately for days to do, and was half ashamed of having done. Kainz became very still inside and abruptly the King broke free. Kainz surprised on his face a strange,
half-haunted
look. He did not understand it. What did it matter, one way or the other, any more? Yet he could see that to the King it mattered a good deal. Kainz knew that physically nothing could happen between them now, for they had passed beyond that point where it could, since now they knew each other too well to be able to discover each other.