The First Violin Part 25

"Oh, indeed! I--I wasn't aware--" began Karl, looking at Eugen in such a peculiar manner--half respectful, half timid, half ashamed--that I could no longer contain my feelings, but burst into such a shout of laughter as I had not enjoyed for years. After a moment, Eugen joined in; we laughed peal after peal of laughter, while poor Karl stood feebly looking from one to the other of the company--speechless--crestfallen.

"I beg your pardon." he said, at last, "I won't intrude any longer.

Good--"

He was making for the door, but Eugen made a dash after him, turned him round, and pushed him into a chair.

"Sit down, man," said he, stifling his laughter. "Sit down, man; do you think the poor little chap will hurt you?"

Karl cast a distrustful glance sideways at my nursling and spoke not.

"I'm glad to see you," pursued Eugen. "Why didn't you come before?"

At that Karl's lips began to twitch with a humorous smile; presently he too began to laugh, and seemed not to know how or when to stop.

"It beats all I ever saw or heard or dreamed of," said he, at last.

"That's what brought you home in such a hurry every night. Let me congratulate you, Friedel! You make a first-rate nurse; when everything else fails I will give you a character as _Kindermadchen_; clean, sober, industrious, and not given to running after young men." With which he roared again, and Sigmund surveyed him with a somewhat severe, though scarcely a disapproving, expression. Karl seated himself near him, and, though not yet venturing to address him, cast various glances of blandishment and persuasion upon him.

Half an hour pa.s.sed thus, and a second knock was followed by the entrance of Frau Schmidt.

"Good evening, gentlemen," she remarked, in a tone which said unutterable things--scorn, contempt, pity--all finely blended into a withering sneer, as she cast her eyes around, and a slight but awful smile played about her lips. "Half past eight, and that blessed baby not in bed yet. I knew how it would be. And you all smoking, too--_naturlich!_ You ought to know better, Herr Courvoisier--you ought, at any rate," she added, scorn dropping into heart-piercing reproach.

"Give him to me," she added, taking him from me, and apostrophizing him.

"You poor, blessed lamb! Well for you that I'm here to look after you, that have had children of my own, and know a little about the sort of way that you ought to be brought up in."

Evident signs of uneasiness on Karl's part, as Frau Schmidt, with the same extraordinary contortion of the mouth--half smile, half sneer--brought Sigmund to his father, to say good-night. That process over, he was brought to me, and then, as if it were a matter which "understood itself," to Karl. Eugen and I, like family men, as we were, had gone through the ceremony with willing grace. Karl backed his chair a little, looked much alarmed, shot a queer glance at us, at the child, and then appealingly up into the woman's face. We, through our smoke, watched him.

"He looks so very--very--" he began.

"Come, come, _mein Herr_, what does that mean? Kiss the little angel, and be thankful you may. The innocent! You ought to be delighted," said she, standing with grenadier-like stiffness beside him.

"He won't bite you, Karl," I said, rea.s.suringly. "He's quite harmless."

Thus encouraged, Herr Linders stooped forward and touched the cheek of the child with his lips; then, as if surprised, stroked it with his finger.

"_Lieber Himmel!_ how soft! Like satin, or rose leaves!" he murmured, as the woman carried the child away, shut the door and disappeared.

"Does she tackle you in that way every night?" he inquired next.

"Every evening," said Eugen. "And I little dare open my lips before her.

You would notice how quiet I kept. It's because I am afraid of her."

Frau Schmidt, who had at first objected so strongly to the advent of the child, was now devoted to it, and would have resented exceedingly the idea of allowing any one but herself to put it to bed, dress or undress it, or look after it in general. This state of things had crept on very gradually; she had never said how fond she was of the child, but put her kindness upon the ground that as a Christian woman she could not stand by and see it mishandled by a couple of _men_, and oh! the unutterable contempt upon the word "men." Under this disguise she attempted to cover the fact that she delighted to have it with her, to kiss it, fondle it, admire it, and "do for it." We knew now that no sooner had we left the house than the child would be brought down, and would never leave the care of Frau Schmidt until our return, or until he was in bed and asleep. She said he was a quiet child, and "did not give so much trouble." Indeed, the little fellow won a friend in whoever saw him. He had made another conquest to-night. Karl Linders, after puffing away for some time, inquired, with an affectation of indifference:

"How old is he--_der kleine Bengel_?"

"Two--a little more."

"Handsome little fellow!"

"Glad you think so."

"Sure of it. But I didn't know, Courvoisier--so sure as I live, I knew nothing about it!"

"I dare say not. Did I ever say you did?"

I saw that Karl wished to ask another question; one which had trembled upon my own lips many a time, but which I had never asked--which I knew that I never should ask. "The mother of that child--is she alive or dead? Why may we never hear one word of her? Why this silence, as of the grave? Was she your wife? Did you love her? Did she love you?"

Questions which could not fail to come to me, and about which my thoughts would hang for hours. I could imagine a woman being very deeply in love with Courvoisier. Whether he would love very deeply himself, whether love would form a mainspring of his life and actions, or whether it took only a secondary place--I speak of the love of woman--I could not guess. I could decide upon many points of his character. He was a good friend, a high-minded and a pure-minded man; his every-day life, the turn of his thoughts and conversation, showed me that as plainly as any great adventure could have done. That he was an ardent musician, an artist in the truest and deepest sense, of a quixotically generous and unselfish nature--all this I had already proved. That he loved his child with a love not short of pa.s.sion was patent to me every day. But upon the past, silence so utter as I never before met with. Not a hint; not an allusion; not one syllable.

Little Sigmund was not yet two and a half. The story upon which his father maintained so deep a silence was not, could not, be a very old one. His behavior gave me no clew as to whether it had been a joyful or a sorrowful one. Mere silence could tell me nothing. Some men are silent about their griefs; some about their joys. I knew not in which direction his disposition lay.

I saw Karl look at him that evening once or twice, and I trembled lest the blundering, good-natured fellow should make the mistake of asking some question. But he did not; I need not have feared. People were not in the habit of putting obtrusive questions to Eugen Courvoisier. The danger was somehow quietly tided over, the delicate ground avoided.

The conversation wandered quietly off to commonplace topics--the state of the orchestra; tales of its doings; the tempers of our different conductors--Malperg of the opera; Woelff of the ordinary concerts, which took place two or three times a week, when we fiddled and the public ate, drank, and listened; lastly, von Francius, _koniglicher Musik-direktor_.

Karl Linders gave his opinion freely upon the men in authority. He had nothing to do with them, nothing to hope or fear from them; he filled a quiet place among the violoncellists, and had attained his twenty-eighth year without displaying any violent talent or tendency to distinguish himself, otherwise than by getting as much mirth out of life as possible and living in a perpetual state of "carlesse contente."

He desired to know what Courvoisier thought of von Francius; for curiosity--the fault of those idle persons who afterward develop into busybodies--was already beginning to leave its traces on Herr Linders.

It was less known than guessed that the state of things between Courvoisier and von Francius was less peace than armed neutrality. The intense politeness of von Francius to his first violinist, and the punctilious ceremoniousness of the latter toward his chief, were topics of speculation and amus.e.m.e.nt to the whole orchestra.

"I think von Francius would be a fiend if he could," said Karl, comfortably. "I wouldn't stand it if he spoke to me as he speaks to some people."

"Oh, they like it!" said Courvoisier; and Karl stared. "Girls don't object to a little bullying; anything rather than be left quite alone,"

Courvoisier went on, tranquilly.

"Girls!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Karl.

"You mean the young ladies in the chorus, don't you?" asked Courvoisier, unmovedly. "He does bully them, I don't deny; but they come back again."

"Oh, I see!" said Karl, accepting the rebuff.

He had not referred to the young ladies of the chorus.

"Have you heard von Francius play?" he began next.

"_Naturlich!_"

"What do you think of it?"

"I think it is superb!" said Courvoisier.

Baffled again, Karl was silent.

"The power and the daring of it are grand," went on Eugen, heartily. "I could listen to him for hours. To see him seat himself before the piano, as if he were sitting down to read a newspaper, and do what he does, without moving a muscle, is simply superb--there's no other word. Other men may play the piano; he takes the key-board and plays with it, and it says what he likes."

I looked at him, and was satisfied. He found the same want in von Francius' "superb" manipulation that I did--the glitter of a diamond, not the glow of a fire.

Karl had not the subtlety to retort, "Ay, but does it say what we like?"

He subsided again, merely giving a meek a.s.sent to the proposition, and saying, suggestively: