The Serapion Brethren Volume I Part 4

"I sincerely trust there are no mad people in it," said Lothair; "for I have had more than my fill of them already: and I hope it conforms to the rule of our patron saint."

"There are no mad people in it," said Theodore, "but, as to its conformity with Serapiontic rule, I must leave that to the verdict of my worthy brethren, begging them at the same time not to judge me too severely, seeing that my little story was suggested by a light, airy picture, and makes no pretence but to cause a pa.s.sing moment's entertainment."

With which Theodore produced his ma.n.u.script, and began as follows:

"AN INTERRUPTED CADENCE.

"In the Berlin autumn Exhibition of 1814, there was a charming picture of Hummel's, called 'A Scene in an Italian Locanda,' which attracted much attention. It was both light and vigorous, and had all the effect of representing a real occurrence. The scene was a garden-arbour, thick with the luxuriant leaf.a.ge of the South. Two Italian ladies, seated opposite to one another, at a table, with wine and fruit--one of them singing, the other accompanying her on a guitar. Between them, and behind the table, an _abbate_, standing beating the time, as music-director; his hand was raised, as a conductor's is when a singer is executing a _cadenza_, watching carefully and anxiously for the precise instant when the singer--evidently warbling out her cadence, with eyes upraised to the sky--should come in with her _trillo_--her long shake; at the precise termination of which it would be his duty to make his down-beat, on which signal the guitarist should strike in with her chord of the dominant. The _abbate_, all admiration and intense enjoyment, was watching for the proper instant to made his down-beat as a cat watches a mouse. Not if his life depended on it would he depa.s.s that precise instant by a hair's-breadth. Fain would he muzzle every fly, every mosquito, humming about under the leaves. Most distressful to him the approach of the landlord, who had selected that particular moment to come in with more wine. Beyond the arbour, in the middle distance, a shaded alley, with streams of bright sunlight breaking athwart it through the branches; and a man on horseback, drinking a cool draught, served to him by a girl from the _locanda_.

"Edward and Theodore were standing studying this picture; and Edward said:

"'The more I look at this picture; at that lady singing--not quite so young as she has been, but inspired by genuine artistic enthusiasm--at the pure, intellectual Roman profile, and the magnificent figure of the lady accompanying on the guitar, and at the delicious little _abbate_ beating the time, the more convinced I am that they are portraits of real, living persons. I feel as if I should like to step into that arbour and open one of those delightful wicker-covered flasks that are smiling at me on that table there. I can almost fancy I scent the aroma of the n.o.ble wine. And that latter idea must be realised, and not allowed to evaporate in this chill atmosphere. I propose that we go and drink a bottle of real Italian wine, in honour of this charming picture, and of the happy land of Italy, the only country where life is worth living.'

"As Edward so spoke, Theodore was standing silent, sunk in deep reflection.

"'Very well--yes--we may as well,' he answered, like a man waking from a dream. Yet he seemed loth to tear himself away from the picture, and still kept casting longing glances at it when he had mechanically followed his friend to the door.

"It was an easy matter to put Edward's idea into practice. They had only to cross the street to find themselves in the little blue room in the Sala Tarone, with a wicker-covered flask, like those in the picture, on the table before them.

"'You seem, somehow,' said Edward, when they had swallowed two or three gla.s.ses of the Italian wine, and Theodore was still sitting silent and thoughtful,--'you seem, somehow, as if that picture had produced a different impression, and a far less pleasant one, on you than on me.'

"'I delight in that picture as much as anybody,' answered Theodore.

'But the extraordinary thing about it is, that it chances to represent a scene in my early life, with the utmost exactness, so that the very characters in it are absolute portraits of the real actors in that scene. You will admit that even pleasant reminiscences affect us strangely when they come bursting in upon us in this utterly unexpected sort of manner, as if evoked by the wand of an enchanter.'

"'What a very extraordinary affair,' said Edward. 'You say this picture represents an incident, in your own life? It seems probable enough that the two ladies and the _abbate_ are likenesses of real people: but that they should ever have had anything to do with _you_ is certainly amazing enough. Do tell me all about it. We are not pressed for time, and n.o.body is likely to come in and disturb us at this hour of the day.'

"'I should rather like to tell you about it,' said Theodore, 'only I shall have to go a longish way back, to the time when I was a mere boy.'

"Please go on, then, and tell me about it,' said Edward. 'I don't know much about your early life; and if it does take some time in telling we shall only have to send for another bottle of this Italian wine; n.o.body will be the worse for that, neither we nor Signor Tarone.'

"'n.o.body who knows me,' said Theodore, 'need feel any surprise at my having thrown everything else overboard, and devoted myself, body and soul, to the glorious art, music. Even when I was a mere child, music was the only thing I really cared about. I would hammer all day, and all night, too, if people would have allowed me, upon my uncle's old rattle-trap of a piano. Music was at an extremely low ebb in the little place where we lived; there was n.o.body to give me any instruction but an old, conceited, self-opinionated organist. His music was of the lifeless, mathematical order. He wearied my soul with a lot of ugly gloomy _toccatas_ and _fugues_. However, I did not let this discourage me, but laboured faithfully on. The old fellow would often gird at me in bitter and unsparing terms; but he had only to sit down and play me something in his severely accurate manner, to reconcile me to life and art in a moment. Often the most wonderful ideas would come into my head on such occasions; many of Sebastian Bach's works, for instance, and they above all others, would fill me with a weird awe, as if they were legends about spirits and enchanters. But a perfect paradise opened upon me when, as happened in winter, the town band gave a concert, a.s.sisted by a few local amateurs, and I was allowed to play the kettledrums in the symphony, a favour granted to me on account of the accuracy of my time. It was many a day before I knew what wretched and ludicrous affairs those concerts were. My master, the organist, generally played a couple of pianoforte concertos of Wolff or Emanuel Bach; one of the bandsmen tortured himself--and his hearers--with some violin solo of Stamitz, and the excise officer blew terrifically on a flute, and wasted so much breath in the process, that he kept blowing out the candles on his desk, so that they had to be constantly lighted up again. Nothing in the shape of singing could be accomplished, and this was a source of deep regret to my uncle, a "great" amateur musician. He remembered the days when the choir-masters of the four churches used to sing "Lottchen am Hofe" at the concerts, and he used to refer, with high approbation, to the fine spirit of religious tolerance which actuated those musicians, who laid aside their religious differences, and united in these performances, coming together, irrespective of creed, on a common basis of art. For, besides the Catholic and the Evangelical communities, the Protestants themselves were divided into French and German churches. The French choir-master used to take the part of "Charlotte," and my uncle used to say he sang it--spectacles on nose--in the loveliest falsetto that ever issued from a human throat.

"'There dwelt amongst us, at this period, a certain "court-singer,"

retired on pension, whose name was Mademoiselle Meibel. She was a demoiselle of some five-and-fifty summers, but my uncle thought it would be only a proper thing if she could be induced to emerge occasionally from her pensioned retirement, so far as to sing a solo now and then at our concerts. After giving herself the proper amount of airs, and saying "no" a sufficient number of times, she graciously yielded, so that we got the length of including an occasional "_Aria di Bravura_" in our programmes. She was an extraordinary-looking creature, Mademoiselle Meibel. I can see her little wizened figure at this moment as if she were here before my eyes. She used to come forward on to the platform, very grave and dignified, her music in her hand, dressed in nearly all the colours of the rainbow, and make a ceremonious dip of the upper part of her body to the audience. She used to have on a miraculous sort of head-gear, with Italian porcelain flowers stuck on the front of it; and, as she sung, these flowers used to nod and quiver in the oddest fas.h.i.+on. When she ended her solo--received always by the audience with boundless applause--she would hand her music, with a glance of pride, to my master, who was accorded the privilege of dipping his forefinger and thumb into the little box, in the shape of a pug dog, which she at such times produced, and took snuff from with a courtly air. She had a most disagreeable, quavering voice, and introduced all kinds of horrible, vulgar grace-notes and flourishes; and you can imagine the ludicrous effect which this, in combination with her external appearance, produced on me. My uncle was loud in encomiums, but this was incomprehensible to me, and I sided all the more with my organist, who despised all vocal music, and used to mimic old Mademoiselle Meibel in the most entertaining style.

"'The more I coincided with my master in considering all singing to be an inferior province of the musical art, the higher waxed his estimate of my musical endowments. He taught me counterpoint with untiring, indefatigable pains and zeal, and ere long I was able to write the correctest of _fugues_ and _toccatas_.

"'On my nineteenth birthday, I was playing one of those compositions of mine to my uncle, when the waiter of our princ.i.p.al hotel came in, and announced that two foreign ladies, who had just arrived in the town, were coming to see us.

"Before my uncle had time to throw off his large-flowered dressing-gown and dress himself, the ladies were in upon us.

"You know the electrical effect which any unusual apparition of this sort has upon people who live in small provincial places, but the one which now appeared to me was really such as to produce on me the effect of the wave of some enchanter's wand.

"'Picture to yourself two tall, handsome Italian girls, dressed in the latest fas.h.i.+ons, walking up to my uncle, with a combination of artistic ease and charming courtesy of manner, and talking away to him in voices which were extremely loud, and yet remarkably beautiful in tone. What was the curious language they were speaking? Now and then but only now and then it sounded something like German.

"'My uncle didn't understand a word of it. He stepped back, completely nonplussed, and pointed in silence to the sofa; they sat down there and talked to each other. _That_ was real music. Ultimately they managed to explain to my uncle that they were singers on a tour, intended giving some concerts, and had been recommended to apply to him as a person who could a.s.sist them in the necessary arrangements. While they had been talking to each other I had gathered their names; Lauretta, who seemed to be the elder of the two, kept talking away to my bewildered uncle, with immense energy and eager gesticulation, glancing about her with beaming eyes the while. Without being to be called "stout," she was luxuriant of figure to a degree which was at that time something wholly novel to my inexperienced--and admiring--eyes. Teresina, taller and slighter, with a long earnest face, spoke, in the intervals, very little, but much more comprehensibly. Every now and then she would smile, in a curious way, as if a good deal amused at the aspect of my poor uncle, who kept shrinking into his flowered dressing-gown as a snail does into its sh.e.l.l, vainly trying to stick away a certain string belonging to his nether garments, which would keep fluttering out every now and then, to the length of an ell or so.

"'At last they rose to go. My uncle had promised to arrange a concert for the next day but one, and he and I (whom he had presented to them as a young _virtuoso_) were invited to go and take chocolate with the sisters that evening.

"'When the time came, we walked slowly and solemnly up the stairs accordingly. We both felt very queer: somewhat as if we were going forward to undertake some rather perilous adventure, for which we were by no means adequately prepared.

"After my uncle, who had carefully prepared himself beforehand, had spoken much and learnedly about music--(n.o.body understood a word he said, neither he himself, nor we others)--after I had burnt my tongue, three times, terribly with the scalding chocolate smiling at my tortures with the stoicism of a Scaevola--Lauretta said she would sing something. Teresina took the guitar tuned it, and struck two or three handfuls of chords. I had never heard the instrument before, and was much impressed by the strange, mysterious effect of its hollow vibrations.

"'Lauretta commenced a note, very _piano_, swelled it out to a ringing _fortissimo_, and then broke out into a bold warbling _cadenza_, extending over an octave and a half. I remember the words of the beginning of her aria:--

"Sento l'amica speme."

"'My blood seemed to pause in my veins! I never had had an idea that there could be anything like this, and as Lauretta soared on her bright pinions of song, higher and higher, and as the beams of those beautiful tones shone brighter and brighter upon me, all the music within me--dead and dormant hitherto--caught fire, and blazed on high in glorious and mighty flames.

"'Ah! that was the first time in my life that I ever heard _music_!

Next the sisters sang together, some of those earnest, quiet, deep-drawn duets of Abbate Steffani'e. Teresina's rich, exquisitely beautiful contralto stirred the depths of my soul. I could not keep back my tears, they rolled down my cheeks. My uncle blew his nose a great deal, and cast reproachful looks at me. It was no use; I couldn't control myself. This seemed to please the sisters; they asked about my musical studies. I felt utterly disgusted with all I had done, and declared, in my enthusiasm, that I had never heard music before.

"'"_Il buon fanciullo!_" said Lauretta, very sweetly and tenderly.

"'When I got home I felt almost out of my mind. I seized all the _toccatas_ and _fugues_ which I had so laboriously carpentered together (as well as forty-five Variations on a Thema in Canon, which the organist had composed for me, and presented to me in a beautifully written MS.), and s.h.i.+ed the whole boiling of them into the fire. I laughed sardonically as this ma.s.s of double counterpoint crackled and blazed, and went sparkling out into ashes. Then I sat down to the instrument, and tried, first to imitate the guitar, and then to play, and next to sing, the melodies which I had heard the sisters execute.

At last, about midnight, my uncle came out of his bedroom crying, "For the love of heaven stop that caterwauling, be off to your bed, and let's try to get some sleep," with which he blew out the lights and left me in the dark. I had nothing for it but obey; but in my dreams I thought I had solved the secret of song, and was singing the "Sento l'Amica Speme" in the most exquisite style myself.

"'Next morning my uncle had got together everybody who could play on string or wind instruments, to a rehearsal in the concert-room, and a proud man he felt himself to be able to turn out such a fine show of performers. The rehearsal was anything but a success, however. Lauretta essayed a grand scena, but we had not got many bars into the recitative when everything was at sixes and sevens; none of the players had the slightest idea of accompanying. Lauretta screamed, stormed, wept, with rage and disgust. The organist was at the piano, and him she attacked with her bitterest objurgations. He rose from his seat, and walked slowly, and with much composure, out at the door. The band-master, at whom she had hurled an "_asino tedesco_" put his violin under his arm, and c.o.c.ked his cap martially over one ear; he, too, was making for the door, his men, uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g their mouthpieces, and sticking their bows in among their strings, preparing to follow him. Only the amateurs were left, looking at each other, almost with tears in their eyes, the exciseman saying, "Oh, dear me! how very much I do feel a thing of this sort!"

"'But all my natural bashfulness had abandoned me. I stopped the band-master; I entreated and implored him; in the anguish of the moment I promised I would write him six minuets, with double trios each, for the county-ball. I succeeded in pacifying him. He went back to his music-stand; the bandsmen followed his example, and the orchestra was ready to commence operations once more. All except the organist; his place at the piano was vacant. I found him strolling--a calm, contemplative man--up and down in the market-place, by no process whatever to be prevailed upon to cross the threshold of the concert-room any more.

"'Teresina had been looking on at all this, biting her lips to keep back her laughter. Lauretta was now just as conciliatory as she had previously been the contrary. She thanked me most warmly for all I had done. She asked if I could play the piano, and, ere I knew where I was, I found myself occupying the organist's vacant place, with the score before me. Up to this time I had never accompanied a singer, or directed an orchestra. Teresina sat down beside me, and indicated the various _tempi_ to me. Lauretta gave me an encouraging "bravo!" now and then; the orchestra began to understand, and things went better. At the second rehearsal all was clear, and the sensation the sisters produced at the concert was indescribable.

"'There were going to be great doings at the Residenz, on the occasion of the prince's return from abroad, and the sisters were engaged to sing there; in the meantime they decided on remaining in our little town, and giving one or two more concerts. The admiration of the towns-folk for them amounted to a species of insanity. Only old Mdlle.

Meibel would take a reflective pinch out of her pug-dog snuff-box, and remark that screeching of that sort was not singing. My organist was no more to be seen, and I by no means regretted his absence. I was the happiest creature on earth. I sat with the sisters all day long, playing their accompaniments, and writing out the parts from the scores for the concerts at the Residenz. Lauretta was my ideal; all her naughty tempers, her artistic outbreaks of fury, impatience with her accompanyist, and so forth, I bore like a lamb. I began to learn Italian, and wrote a _canzonetta_ or two. How I rose to the empyrean when Lauretta sang my compositions, and even praised them! I often felt as if I had never thought and written those things, but as if the ideas streamed out for the first time when she sang them. With Teresina I did not get on so well. She sang very seldom; didn't seem to take much interest in me or my doings, and sometimes gave me the impression of laughing at me behind my back.

"'The time arrived at last when they had to leave us: then it was that I fully realized what Lauretta had become to me, and how impossible it was for me to be parted from her. After she had been unusually _smorfiosa_ with me, she would be kind and caressing, but always in such a fas.h.i.+on that, although my blood would seethe, the coldness which I could feel that she brought to bear upon me was sufficient to prevent me from throwing myself at her feet with pa.s.sionate avowals of love.

"'I had a pretty fair tenor voice then: it had never had any cultivation, but it was beginning to improve, and I used to sing, with Lauretta, numbers of those tender Italian duets whose name is legion.

We were singing one of those duets one day; the time of her departure was at hand--

"Senza di te, ben mio!

Vivere non poss' io."

"'Who could have resisted this? I threw myself at Lauretta's feet, wild with despair.

"'She helped me to rise. "Why should we part, dear friend?" she said. I listened in delighted amazement. She said I had much better go with her and Teresina to the Residenz. If I meant to devote myself to music altogether, I should have to quit my little native town some day or other.

"'Picture to yourself a person who has bidden good-bye to life and hope, and is falling down some black, fathomless abyss; but, at the very instant when he expects the crash which is to dash him in pieces, lo and behold! he is in a beautiful bower of roses, with hundreds of little many-tinted lights dancing round him, and saying, "Darling!

you're still alive, you see!" These were my sensations at that moment.

To go with them to the Residenz was the one prominent, tangible idea of my life.

"'I shan't weary you by describing how I set about proving to my uncle the absolute necessity of my going to the Residenz--no such very great distance, when all was said. He agreed at last, and said he would go with me! Here was an unexpected baulk to my little plans. I dared not tell him I was going with the ladies; but luckily one of his attacks of bronchitis came to my rescue.

"'I started off in the stage-coach, but got out at the first change of horses, and waited there for the coming of my G.o.ddesses. I had plenty of money in my pocket, so that I was able to make all my arrangements.

My idea was to escort the ladies on horseback, like a paladin of Romance; so I managed to hire a steed--not particularly grand to look at, but, as his owner a.s.sured me, a good serviceable animal,--and at the appointed time I mounted him, and rode out to meet the two _cantatrices_. Ere long, their little double-seated phaeton was seen coming quietly along. The two sisters were on the front seat, and behind sat their maid, little fat Gianna, a brown Neapolitan. The carriage was crammed with all sorts of boxes, band-boxes, portmanteaus, and so forth, and two pug-dogs, on Gianna's lap, yapped at me as I rode up.