my brother-in-law came down on the afternoon boat, and of course he occupied our attention. his theories, though often absurd, are certainly well sustained. for instance, his ideas as to the connection between genius and insanity. he says—but i don't know why i speak of it. i defeated him utterly. at length i left the room. i hate a man who won't give up when he's beaten. i found the nice boy on the piazza, and we sat and talked. really a charming fellow. and not so very young, either. he told fascinating tales of a shipwreck he'd experienced, where they sat on the bow as the boat went down and traded sandwiches.
"i gave hunter two hams for a chicken, and it was a mean swindle!" he said reminiscently. "speaking of sandwiches, i gave a chap ten cents to buy one this afternoon. awfully seedy looking. shabby clothes, stubbly beard, dirty hands, not half sober, and what do you think he said?" i remembered and blushed.
"i don't know," i murmured.
[9] "he invited me to a recital—a piano recital! he said he was going to play at five-thirty in the auditorium, and i might come if i liked, though it was a private affair! how is that for nerve? he didn't look up to a hand organ."
my curiosity grew. and then, i had a great consciousness of not liking to disappoint even a drunken man. he evidently thought i was coming. i sketched lightly to the nice boy the affair of the morning. he was not shocked. he was amused. but my brother-in-law says that nothing i could say could shock the nice boy. in fact, he says, that if i mean nothing serious, i have no business to let the nice boy think—but that is a digression. it is one of my brother-in-law's prerogatives to be as impertinent as he cares to be.
"shall we go over?" said i. "he is very probably an accompanist, stranded here, with his engagement ended. perhaps he even plays well. these things happen in books." the nice boy shook his head.
"we'll go, by all means," he said, "but don't hope. he's not touched a piano this long time."
[10]
so we gathered some shawls and cushions and went over. the building was all dusty and smelled of pine. as we stumbled in, the sound of a piano met us. i own i was a bit excited. for one doubtful second i listened, ready to adore. then i laughed nervously. we were not people in a book. it was mendelssohn's "spring song," played rather slowly and with a mournful correctness. i could feel the player's fingers thudding down on the keys—one played it so when it was necessary to use the notes. the nice boy smiled consolingly.
"too bad," he whispered. "shall we go out now?"
"i should like to view the fragments of the idol!" i whispered back. "let's end the illusion by seeing him!"
so we tip-toed up to the benches, and looked at the platform where the steinway stood. twirling on the stool sat a girl of seventeen or so, peering out into the gloom at us. it was very startling. now i felt that the strain was yet to come. as i sank into one of the chairs a man[11] rose slowly from a seat under the platform. it was the stranger. he nodded jauntily at us.
"good thing you come," he announced cheerfully. "i don't know how long i could stand that girl. i guess she's related to the other," and he shambled up the steps. his unsteady walk, his shaking hand, as he clumsily pushed the chairs out of the way, told their disagreeable story. he walked straight up to the girl, and looking beyond her, said easily, "excuse me, miss, but i'm goin' to play a little for some friends o' mine, an' i'll have to ask you to quit for a while." the girl looked undecidedly from him to us, but we had nothing to say.
"come, come," he added impatiently, "you can bang all you want in a few minutes, with nobody to disturb you. jus' now i'm goin' to do my own turn."
his assurance was so perfect, his intention to command obedience so evident, that the child got up and went slowly down the stairs, more curious than angry. the man swept the music from the rack, and lifted the top of the piano to its full[12] height. then with an impatient twitch he spun the music-stool a few inches lower, and pulled it out. the nice boy leaned over to me.
"the preparations are imposing, anyhow," he whispered. but i did not laugh. i felt nervous. to be disappointed again would be too cruel! i watched the soiled, untidy figure collapse onto the stool. then i shut my eyes, to hear without prejudice of sight the opening triple-octave scale of the professional pianist. for with such assurance as he showed he should at least be able to play the scales.
the hall seemed so large and dim, i was so alone—i was glad of the nice boy. suppose it should all be a horrible plot, and the tramp should rush down with a revolver? suppose—and then i stopped thinking. for from far-away somewhere came the softest, sweetest song. a woman was singing. nearer and nearer she came, over the hills, in the lovely early morning; louder and louder she sang—and it was the "spring song"! now she was with us—young, clear-eyed, happy, bursting into delicious flights of laughter between the bars.[13] her eyes, i know, were grey. she did not run or leap—she came steadily on, with a swift, strong, swaying, lilting motion. she was all odorous of the morning, all vocal with the spring. her voice laughed even while she sang, and the perfect, smooth succession of the separate sounds was unlike any effect i have ever heard. now she passed—she was gone by. softer, fainter, ah, she was gone! no, she turned her head, tossed us flowers, and sang again, turned, and singing, left us. one moment of soft echo—and then it was still.
i breathed—for the first time since i heard her, i thought. i opened my eyes. it was all black before them, they had been closed so long. i did not dare look at the nice boy. there was absolutely nothing for him to say, but i was afraid he would try to say it. he was staring at the platform. his mouth was open, his eyes very large. without turning his face towards me, he said solemnly, "and i gave him ten cents for a sandwich! ten cents for a sandwich!"
suddenly i heard sobs—heavy, awkward sobs. i looked behind me. the girl had dropped for[14]ward on to the chair in front and was hysterically chattering into her handkerchief.
"i played that! i played that!" she wailed. "oh, he heard me! he did, he did!" i felt horribly ashamed for her. how she must feel! a child can suffer so.
but the man at the piano gave a little chuckle of satisfaction, and ran his hands up and down the keys in a delirium of scales and arpeggios. then he hit heavily a deep, low note. it was like a great, bass trumpet. a crashing chord: and then the love-song of germany and musicians caught me up to heaven, or wherever people go who love that tune—perhaps it is to germany—and i heard a great, magnificent man singing in a great, magnificent baritone, the song that won clara schumann's heart.
schubert sang sweetly, wonderfully. i cry like a baby when one sings the serenade even fairly well. and dear franz abt has made most loving melodies. but they were musicians singing, this was a man. "du meine liebe, du!"—that was no piano; it was a voice. and yet no human voice[15] could be at once so limpid and so rich, so thrilling and so clear. and now it crashed out in chords—heavy, broken harmony. all the rapture of possession, the very absolute of human joy were there—but these are words, and that was love and music.
i don't in the least know how long it lasted. there was no time for me. the god at the piano repeated it again and again, i think, as it is never repeated in the singing, and always should be. i know that the tears rolled over my cheeks and dropped into my lap. i have a vague remembrance of the nice boy's enthusiastically and brokenly begging me to marry him to-night and go to venice with him to-morrow, and my ecstatically consenting to that or anything else. i am sure he held my hand during that period, for the rings cut in so the next day. and i think—indeed i am quite certain—but why consider one's self responsible for such things? at any rate, it has never happened since.
and when it was over we went up hand in hand, and the nice boy said, "what—what is your—your name?" and i stared at him, expecting to[16] see his dirty clothes drop off, and his trailing clouds of glory wrap him 'round before he vanished from our eyes. his heavy eyebrows bent together. his knees shook the piano-stool. he was labouring under an intense excitement. but i think he was pleased at our faces.
"what—what the devil does it matter to you what i'm named?" he said roughly.
"oh, it doesn't matter at all, not at all," i said meekly; "only we wanted, we wanted——" and then, like that chit of seventeen, i cried, too. i am such a fool about music.
"now you know what i mean when i say i can play," he growled savagely. he seemed really terribly excited, even angry. "i'll play one thing more. then you go home. when i think o' what i might have done, great god, i can't die till i've shown 'em! can i? can i die? you hear me! you see"—his face was livid. his eyes gleamed like coals. i ought to have been afraid, but i wasn't.
"you shall show them!" i gasped. "you shall! will you play for the hotel? we can fill this place for you. we can——"
[17]
"oh, you shut up!" he snarled. "you! i've played to thousands, i have. you don't know anything about it. it's this devil's drink that's killin' me. it ruined me in vienna. it spoiled the whole thing in paris. it's goin' to kill me." his voice rose to a shriek. he dropped from the stool, and from his pocket fell a bottle. the nice boy gave a queer little sob.
"oh, it's dreadful, dreadful!" he whispered to himself. he jumped up on the platform and seized the man's shoulder.
"come, come," he said. "we'll help you. come, be a man! you stay here with us, and we'll take care of you. such a gift as yours shall not go for nothing. come over to the hotel, and i'll get you a bed."
the man staggered up. he was much older than i had thought. there were deep, disagreeable lines in his face. there was a coarseness, too—but, oh, that "spring song"! now, how can that be? my brother-in-law says—but this is not his story. the man got onto the seat somehow.
"you're a decent fellow," he said. "when i've[18] done playing, you go out. right straight out. d'ye hear? i'll come see you to-morrow morning."
then he shut his eyes and felt for the keys, and played the chopin berceuse. and it is an actual fact that i wanted to die then. not suddenly—but just to be rocked into rest, rocked into rest, and not wake up any more. it was the purest, sweetest, most inexpressibly touching thing i ever heard. i felt so young—so trustful, somehow. i knew that no harm would come. and then it sang itself to sleep, and we went away and left him, with his head resting on his hands that still pressed the keys. and we never spoke. i think the girl came out with us, but i'm not sure.
at the door the nice boy gulped, and said in a queer, shaky voice, "i'm not nearly good enough to have sat by you—i know that—you seem so far away—but i want to tell you." and i said that he was much better than i—that none of us were good—that i thought it would be all right in the end—that after all it was being managed better than we could arrange it—that perhaps heaven[19] was more like what we used to think than what we think now. there is no knowing what we might have said if my brother-in-law had not come down to see where i was. and then i went to sleep like a baby.
