“It only proves your disobedience. Vocation, indeed! Any man has a vocation for the stage: any man who has brains, and is not physically too weak to utter the thoughts of an author. Vocation! You might as well tell me you had a vocation for the highway—and if you had robbed a man, by placing a pistol to his head, and bidding him stand and deliver, that your success was your excuse! “Is it not enough,” pursued Schoenlein, after a pause, “that there should be _one_ actor in the family: one whose necessities have driven him on the stage, and who, once there, is forced to remain there?” “But I, for my part, see nothing reprehensible in the life of an actor.” “I do.” Franz saw there was no appeal from such a decision, so he dressed himself in silence. He was hurt, angry. He expected that his father would have been delighted with his performance, would have rejoiced in his success. To be treated like a schoolboy, to hear such tones and see such looks, irritated him. “Come with me to my hotel,” said Schoenlein, as Franz completed his dressing. They had not taken many steps before a stout middle-aged woman, enveloped in a fur cloak, said to Franz: “_Lieber Franz_, the carriage is waiting.” Schoenlein did not hear the whispered reply, but strode hastily onwards: his son followed. “Who was that,” he inquired, as they came out into the street, “who called you _Lieber Franz_?” “Oh! that—an actress—one of our company—Madame Kritisch.” “Hm!” growled the old man; but he did not speak again till they reached the hotel. Arrived there, they went up into his room. “Franz, my dear boy,” said Schoenlein, with great tenderness, “you must promise me to quit this life, and I will forget that you have ever disobeyed me. Let us look on it as a boyish freak, now over.” Franz was silent. “It is your father who speaks. Remember he is your best friend; and he earnestly implores you to quit a career which even success can only make a gilded disgrace. Will you promise me this?” He felt very uncomfortable, and knew not what answer to make. “You are young,” pursued his father; “young and hopeful. You look as yet only to the bright side of life, and see only the pleasures of the stage. You think it glorious to be applauded, to have your name in the mouths of men, your portrait in shop windows. In a little while all this applause will pall upon your ear; all these portraits will look like so many signs of your disgrace, and caricatures of yourself. The charm will pass away, and you will feel yourself to be a mountebank, painted to amuse a gaping crowd! Then the wear and tear of the profession, its thousand petty irritations and miserable anxieties, will be as stings of wretchedness, and you will curse the day you first trod upon a stage.