The people sit there in long rows and look at the infant prodigy. And they think all manner of thoughts with their collective brain. An old gentleman with a white beard, a seal-ring on his forefinger, and a knotty growth on his bald pate, an excrescence, if you will, thinks to himself: “One ought really to be ashamed of oneself. One has never been able to get beyond playing ‘Three Hunters from the Palatinate,’ and here one sits as an old greybeard and has miracles performed for one by this midget. But one must not forget that this gift is a divine one. God bestows his gifts as He will; there is no help for that, and it is no shame to be an ordinary human being. It is somewhat as with the child Jesus. One may bow before a child without being ashamed. How comforting to feel this!” He does not dare to think: “How sweet it is!” “Sweet” would be unworthy of a robust old gentleman. But he feels it! He feels it for all that!
“Art—” thinks the business man with the parrot-like nose. “Of course! Art brings a bit of a gleam into life, a little tinkle, a touch of white silk. And the deal furthermore is not a bad one. There are at least fifty seats at twelve marks apiece sold; that alone makes six hundred marks—and then all the incidentals. Deducting the rent of the hall, and the cost of lighting and the programs, there will be a balance of at least a thousand marks. Not at all to be despised.”
“Well, that was Chopin that he just played,” thinks the piano-teacher, a lady with a pointed nose, of about that age when hopes begin to go to sleep and the intelligence acquires an additional sharpness. “One might say that the boy is not very direct. I shall say afterwards that he is not very direct. That sounds well. The way he holds his hands is, moreover, very undisciplined. One should be able to lay a coin upon the back of the hand—I should give him a bit of the ruler.”
A young girl, who looks very waxen-faced, and who is of an age in which there are certain tensions inducing delicious thoughts, thinks to herself: “What is it that he is playing there? Why, it is passion, passion, that he is playing! But he is a mere child! Were he to kiss me, it would seem as though my little brother kissed me—it would not be a kiss at all. Can it be that there is a passion that is disconnected from all earthy things, pure passion, something that is only passionate child’s-play?—Well, if I should say that aloud, they would dose me with cod-liver oil. That is the way of the world.”
An officer leans against a pillar. He surveys the successful Bibi and thinks: “You are somebody and I am somebody, each in his own way.” He draws his heels together and pays the infant prodigy that homage which he pays to all existent powers.
The critic, however, an ageing man in a seedy black coat and turned-up, mud-spattered trousers, occupies his free seat, and thinks: “Just look at this Bibi, this urchin! As an individual he has still some distance to go, but as a type he is quite finished—it is the type of the artist. He carries in him the majesty of the artist as well as his lack of dignity, his charlatanism and his sacred spark, his contempt and his secret rapture. But I must not write that—it is really too good. Ah, yes, believe me, I might have become an artist myself if I had not seen through it all so clearly.”
The infant prodigy has finished and a veritable tempest of applause breaks loose. He is forced to appear again and again from behind his screen. The man with the brass buttons comes with new garlands in tow, four laurel wreaths, a lyre made of violets, a bouquet of roses. His two arms do not suffice to hand all these tributes to the infant prodigy; the impresario himself ascends the platform to help him. He hangs a laurel wreath round Bibi’s neck; he strokes his black hair tenderly. And suddenly, as though he were overcome by emotion, he bends low and bestows a kiss upon the infant prodigy, a sounding kiss, full upon the mouth. This causes the tempest to increase to a hurricane. This kiss acts like a galvanic shock upon the audience; it shoots through the crowd and thrills every nerve. The people are borne away by a mad desire for noise. Loud bravos mingle with the wild tumult of hands. Several of Bibi’s small and matter-of-fact comrades down there wave their handkerchiefs.—But the critic thinks: “Of course, that kiss from the impresario was bound to come. An old and effective trick. Yes, by heavens! if one only didn’t see through it all so plainly!”
And then the concert of the infant prodigy draws to a close. It began at half past seven and is over by half past eight. The platform is filled with garlands, and two small flowerpots are standing upon the lamp-brackets of the grand piano. Bibi plays his “Rhapsodie grecque” as his final number and this passes at the close into the Greek national hymn. Those of Bibi’s countrymen who happen to be present would like to join in and sing this, if this concert were not such a fashionable one. They compensate themselves at the close by making a tremendous noise, a hot-blooded row, a national demonstration. But the ageing critic thinks: “Of course, that national hymn was bound to come. One plays the whole affair into another sphere, no means of rousing enthusiasm is left
