i suppose it is needless to say that i passed a sleepless night, haunted till morning by veronika’s face and voice; that i tossed endlessly from pillow to pillow, going over in memory every circumstance from our meeting to our parting; that i built a hundred wondrous castles in the air and that veronika presided as chatelaine in each. i thought i should boil over with rage when i dwelt upon the enforced drudgery of her life. i could hardly contain myself for sheer joy when i made bold to say, “why, it is not impossible that some day she may love you—not impossible that some day she may consent to become your wife.” one doubt, the inevitable one, harassed me: had i a clear field? was there perchance another suitor there before me? perhaps her affections were already spoken. still, on the whole, probably not. for, where had he kept himself during the evening? surely, if he had existed at all, he would have been at her side. yet on the other hand she was so beautiful, it could scarcely be believed that she had attained the age of one-and-twenty without taking some heart captive. and that sad, mysterious expression in her eyes—how had it come about except through love?—thus between despair and hope i swung, pendulum-like, all night.
dawn filtered through the window. “thursday!” i muttered. “seven days still to be dragged through—but then!”—imagination faltered at the prospect. i went about my usual business in a sort of intoxication. my footstep had acquired an unwonted briskness. every five minutes my heart jumped into my throat and lost a beat. but my pupils suffered.
i was more inclined to absent-mindedness than ever. at dusk i revisited the terrace despite the rain that fell in torrents, and walked by her house and lived through the whole happy episode again.
be assured i was punctual when at last wednesday came. i remember, as i mounted the staircase that led to their abode, an absurd fear beset me. what if they had moved away?
what if i should not find her after this interminable week of waiting? my hand shook as i pulled the bell-knob. i was nerving myself for the worst in the interval that elapsed before the door was opened.—the door was opened by veronika herself!
“ah, good-evening. we were expecting you,” she said.
i stammered a response. my temples were throbbing madly.
veronika led me into the dining-room. they were still at table. i began to apologize. tikulski stopped me.
“you have come just at the proper moment,” he cried. “you shall now have occasion to confess that my niece is as good a cook as she is a player.”
“but i have dined,” i protested.
“but you can make room for one morsel more—for a mere taste of pudding.”
veronika, with infinite grace, was moving about the room, getting a plate and napkin. then with her own hands she helped me to the pudding.
“doesn’t that flavor do her credit?” cried tikulski. “it is a melody materialized, is it not?”
we all laughed; and i ate my pudding at perfect ease.
“i hope mr. neuman has brought his violin,” said veronika, “for then we can have a first and second.”
“yes, i took that liberty,” i answered.
and afterward, adjourning to the parlor, i played second to the old man’s first for an hour or more—reading at sight from his own manuscript music, which was not the lightest of tasks. then veronika sang to us. and then, as it was extremely hot, mr. tikulski proposed that we betake ourselves to a concert garden in the neighborhood and spend the rest of the evening in the open air. we sat at a round table under an ailanthus tree, and watched the people come and go, and listened to light tunes discoursed by a tolerable band, and by and by had a delicious little supper; and while mr. tikulski puffed a huge cigar, veronika and i enjoyed a long, delightful confidential talk in which our minds got wonderfully close together, and during which one scrap of information dropped from her lips that afforded me infinite relief. speaking of her nocturnal pilgrimages to hoboken, she said, “i go over by myself in the summer because it is still light; but coming home, the organist takes me to the ferry, where uncle meets me.”
“so,” i concluded, “there is no one ahead of me; for if there were, of course he would be her escort.” and i lost no time about putting in a word for myself. “i am very anxious to hear you sing in church,” i said. “your voice can not attain its full effect between the narrow walls of a parlor.”
and it was agreed that i should call upon them sunday afternoon and that we should all three take a walk in central park, veronika and i afterward going to hoboken together. music had, indeed, proved a freemasonry, so far as we were concerned. this was only our second interview; and already we treated each other like old and intimate friends.
a thunder shower broke above our heads on the way back to fifty-first street, and in default of an umbrella, i lent veronika my handkerchief to protect her hat. she returned it to me at the door of her house, and lo! it was freighted with a faint, sweet perfume that it had caught from contact with her. i stowed the handkerchief religiously in my pocket, and for a week afterward it still retained a trace of the same dainty odor. it was a touchstone, by means of which i could call her up bodily before me whenever i desired.
as i sat alone in my bed-chamber that night, i acknowledged that i was more deeply in love than ever. the reader would not wonder at this if he could form a true conception of veronika’s presence. i wish i could describe her—that is, render in words the impression wrought upon me by her face, and her voice, and her manner, and the things she said. i am not accustomed to expressing such matters in words, but with my violin i should have no sort of difficulty. if i wanted to give utterance to my idea of veronika, all i should have to do would be to take my violin and play this heavenly melody from chopin’s impromptu in c-sharp minor:—sotto voce.
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it seems almost as though chopin must have had veronika in mind when he composed it. its color, its passion, its vague dreamy sadness, and withal its transparent simplicity, make it for me a perfect musical portrait. those were the traits which most constantly and conspicuously abode in my thought of her. her simplicity, her child-like simplicity, and her naturalness, and the serene purity of her soul, made her as different from other women that i had seen—though, to be sure, i had seen but few women except as i passed them in the street or rode with them in the horse-car—made her as different from those i had seen, at any rate, as a lily plucked on the hillside is different from a hothouse flower, as daylight is different from gaslight, as schubert’s music is different from liszt’s. in every thing and from every point of view, she was simple and natural and serene. her great pale face, and the dark eyes, and the smile that came and went like a melody across her lips, and the way she wore her hair, and the way she dressed, and the way she played, sang, spoke, and her gestures, and the low, sad, musical laughter that i heard only once or twice from the beginning to the end—all were simple, and natural, and serene. and yet there was a mystery attaching to each of them, a something beyond my comprehension, a something that tinged my love for her with awe. a mystery that would neither be defined nor penetrated nor ignored, brooded over her, as the perfume broods over a rose. i doubt whether an american woman can be like this unless she is older and has had certain experiences of her own. veronika had not had sufficient experience of her own to account for what i have described: but she was a jewess, and all the experience of the jewish race, all the martyrdom of the scattered hosts, were hers by inheritance.
no matter how i was occupied, whether teaching, or practicing, or reading, or writing, or walking, or talking to other people, i was always conscious of the love of veronika astir in my heart. just as through all the vicissitudes of a fugue the subject melody will survive in one form or another and be at no minute altogether silenced, so through all the changes of my busy day the thought of veronika lingered in my mind. i can not tell how completely the whole aspect of the world had been altered since the night i first saw her standing in the moonlight. it was as if my life up to that moment had been passed beneath gray skies, and suddenly the clouds had dispersed and the sunshine flooded the earth. a myriad things became plain and clear that had been invisible until now, and old things acquired a new significance. my heart welled with tenderness for all living creatures—the overflow of the tenderness it had for her. all my senses, all my capacities for pain and pleasure, were more acute than before. suddenly music, which had been my art, became my religion: she had glorified it by her devotion. i looked forward to my next visit with her as a benighted traveler looks forward to the glowing window that promises rest and shelter: only in my case the light illuminated my whole pathway and made the progress toward its source a constant delight instead of a perfunctory labor. but this is the common story of a man in love, and stands without telling. suffice it that before our acquaintance was a month old i had got upon the most intimate terms with mr. tikulski and veronika, spending not only every wednesday evening at their house but also each sunday afternoon, and accompanying her to hoboken as regularly as she had to go. never was there a prouder man than i at those junctures when, with her hand pressed tightly under my arm, i felt that she was trusting herself entirely to my charge and that i was answerable for her safety and well-being. the hoboken ferry-boats became to my thinking vastly more interesting than the most romantic of venetian gondolas; and to this day i can not sniff the peculiar stuffy odor that always pervades a ferry-boat cabin without being transported back across the years to that happy, happy time. i actually blessed the necessity that forced her to journey so far for her livelihood; and it was with an emphatic pang that i listened to the plans which she and tikulski were prone to discuss whereby she was shortly to get an engagement nearer home: though the sight of her pale, tired cheek reproached me the moment after. on her side she made no concealment of a most cordial regard for me. her face always lighted up at my arrival; she was always eager to share her ideas with me and to call forth my opinion of her work, appearing pleased by my praise and impressed by my criticism. she set me an admirable example of frankness. she would say precisely what she thought of my renditions, sparing not their blemishes and indicating how an effective point might be improved.
but as yet i had not dared to hope that she loved, or was even in train to love me. so as yet i had not intended to speak of love at all.
but one day—one sunday late in june—she proposed to sing me a song she had just been learning.
“what is it?” i asked.
“from le d茅sert of felicien david,” she said, handing me the music.
it was the “o, belle nuit, o, sois plus lente,” originally written for tenor.
“i should hardly think it would suit your voice,” i said, running over the music.
“neither did i, at first; but listen, anyway.” and she began.
her voice had never been in better order, had never been more resonant, never more electric. contrary to my misgivings, the song suited it perfectly, afforded its ‘cello quality full scope. she sang with an enthusiasm, a precision, a delicacy of shading, that carried me away. as the last tender note melted on her lips, she swung around on the piano-stool and looked a question with her great, dark, serious eyes. i know not what possessed me. a blindness fell upon my sight. my heart gave a mighty bound. in another instant i was at her side and had caught her—my darling—in my arms. in another instant she was sobbing her life out upon my shoulder.
by and by, after the first stress of our emotion had subsided, i mustered voice to say, “then, veronika, you love me?”
her hand nestled in mine by way of answer.
i told her as well i could how i had loved her from the first.
“it is strange,” she said, “when you turned to me there on the terrace and spoke, it was as if a light broke into my life. and it has been the same ever since—my heart has been full of light. oh, i have wanted you so much! i was afraid you did not care for me. why have you waited so long?”
no need of putting down my answer nor the rest of our dialogue. when mr. tikulski came back i confessed every thing. he asked but a single question, imposed but a single condition.
i replied that i earned enough by my teaching to support him and her comfortably and to contribute toward the maintenance of the widow and her brood in germany. furthermore, i had solid grounds for expecting to earn more next winter. there would be an opening for me in the symphony and philharmonic societies, and as i was gaining something of a reputation i might reasonably demand a higher price for my lessons. it was arranged that we should be married the first week in august.
our journey to hoboken was all too short that night. never had horse-car or ferry-boat advanced with such velocity before. as we left the church she asked, “did you notice how my voice trembled in my solo?
“it only added to its effect,” i answered. “were you nervous?”
“oh, no, i was happy, so happy that i could not control my voice.”
ah, but i had a full heart as i walked home that night. the future was all radiant radiant beyond my wildest dream. it frightened me. such perfect bliss seemed scarcely possible, seemed too great and glorious to last. and yet had not veronika’s own lips promised it? and sealed the promise with a kiss that burned still where she had placed it? it was useless for me to go to bed; it was useless for me to stay in the house. i put on my hat and went out and spent the night pacing up and down before her door. and as soon as the morning was far enough advanced i rang the bell and invited myself to breakfast with her; and after breakfast i helped her to wash the dishes, to mr. tikulski’s unutterable disapproval—it was “unteeknified,” he said—and after that i accompanied her as far as the first house where she had to give a lesson.
while writing the above i had almost forgotten. now i remember. i must stop for a space to get used to remembering again that she is dead.
