The First Violin Part 38

Great gravity, eager attention on the part of the children, who pressed up to him as he opened it; then the last wrapper was torn off, and to my utter amazement and bewilderment Karl drew forth a white woolly animal of indefinite race, on a green stand. The look which crossed his face was indescribable; the shout of laughter which greeted the discovery penetrated even to my ears.

With my face pressed against the window I watched; it was really too interesting. But my spying was put an end to. A speech appeared to be made to Frau Schmidt, to which she answered by a frosty smile and an elaborate courtesy. She was apparently saying good-night, but, with the instinct of a housekeeper, set a few chairs straight, pulled a table-cloth, and pushed a footstool to its place, and in her tour round the room her eyes fell upon the windows. She came and put the shutters to. In one moment it had all flashed from my sight--tree and faces and lamp-light and brightness.

I raised my chin from my hands, and found that I was cold, numb, and stiff. I lighted the lamp, and pa.s.sed my hands over my eyes; but could not quite find myself, and instead of getting to some occupation of my own, I sat with Richter's "Through Ba.s.s and Harmony" before me and a pen in my hand, and wondered what they were doing now.

It was with the remembrance of this evening in my mind to emphasize my loneliness that I woke on Christmas morning.

At post-time my landlady brought me a letter, scented, monogrammed, with the Roman post-mark. Adelaide wrote:

"I won't wish you a merry Christmas. I think it is such nonsense.

Who does have a merry Christmas now, except children and paupers?

And, all being well--or rather ill, so far as I am concerned--we shall meet before long. We are coming to Elberthal. I will tell you why when we meet. It is too long to write--and too vexatious" (this word was half erased), "troublesome. I will let you know when we come, and our address. How are you getting on?

"ADELAIDE."

I was much puzzled with this letter, and meditated long over it.

Something lay in the background. Adelaide was not happy. It surely could not be that Sir Peter gave her any cause for discomfort. Impossible! Did he not dote upon her? Was not the being able to "turn him round her finger" one of the princ.i.p.al advantages of her marriage? And yet, that she should be coming to Elberthal of her own will, was an idea which my understanding declined to accept. She must have been compelled to it--and by nothing pleasant. This threw another shadow over my spirit.

Going to the window, I saw again how lonely I was. The people were pa.s.sing in groups and throngs; it was Christmas-time; they were glad.

They had nothing in common with me. I looked inside my room--bare, meager chamber that it was--the piano the only thing in it that was more than barely necessary, and a great wonder came over me.

"What is the use of it all? What is the use of working hard? Why am I leading this life? To earn money, and perhaps applause--some time. Well, and when I have got it--even supposing, which is extremely improbable, that I win it while I am young and can enjoy it--what good will it do me? I don't believe it will make me very happy. I don't know that I long for it very much. I don't know why I am working for it, except because Herr von Francius has a stronger will than I have, and rather compels me to it. Otherwise--

"Well, what should I like? What do I wish for?" At the moment I seemed to feel myself free from all prejudice and all influence, and surveying with a calm, impartial eye possibilities and prospects, I could not discover that there was anything I particularly wished for. Had something within me changed during the last night?

I had been so eager before; I felt so apathetic now. I looked across the way. I dimly saw Courvoisier s.n.a.t.c.h up his boy, hold him in the air, and then, gathering him to him, cover him with kisses. I smiled. At the moment I felt neutral--experienced neither pleasure nor pain from the sight. I had loved the man so eagerly and intensely--with such warmth, fervor, and humility. It seemed as if now a pause had come (only for a time, I knew, but still a pause) in the warm current of delusion, and I contemplated facts with a dry, unmoved eye. After all--what was he? A man who seemed quite content with his station--not a particularly good or n.o.ble man that I could see; with some musical talent which he turned to account to earn his bread. He had a fine figure, a handsome face, a winning smile, plenty of presence of mind, and an excellent opinion of himself.

Stay! Let me be fair--he had only a.s.serted his right to be treated as a gentleman by one whom he had treated in every respect as a lady. He did not want me--nor to know anything about me--else, why could he laugh for very glee as his boy's eyes met his? Want me? No! he was rich already.

What he had was sufficient for him, and no wonder, I thought, with a jealous pang.

Who would want to have anything to do with grown-up people, with their larger selfishnesses, more developed self-seeking--robust jealousies and full-grown exactions and sophistications, when they had a beautiful little one like that? A child of one's own--not any child, but that very child to love in that ideal way. It was a relation that one scarcely sees out of a romance; it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw.

His life was sufficient to him. He did not suffer as I had been suffering. Suppose some one were to offer him a better post than that he now had. He would be glad, and would take it without a scruple. Perhaps, for a little while some casual thought of me might now and then cross his mind--but not for long; certainly in no importunate or troublesome manner. While I--why was I there, if not for his sake? What, when I accepted the proposal of von Francius, had been my chief thought? It had been, though all unspoken, scarcely acknowledged--yet a whispered force--"I shall not lose sight of him--of Eugen Courvoisier." I was rightly punished.

I felt no great pain just now in thinking of this. I saw myself, and judged myself, and remembered how Faust had said once, in an immortal pa.s.sage, half to himself, half to Mephisto:

"Entbehren sollst du; sollst entbehren."

And that read both ways, it comes to the same thing.

"Entbehren sollst du; sollst entbehren."

It flitted rhythmically through my mind on this dreamful morning, when I seemed a stranger to myself; or rather, when I seemed to stand outside myself, and contemplate, calmly and judicially, the heart which had of late beaten and throbbed with such vivid, and such unreasoning, unconnected pangs. It is as painful and as humiliating a description of self-vivisection as there is, and one not without its peculiar merits.

The end of my reflections was the same as that which is, I believe, often arrived at by the talented cla.s.s called philosophers, who spend much learning and science in going into the questions about whose skirts I skimmed; many of them, like me, after summing up, say, _Cui bono?_

So pa.s.sed the morning, and the gray cloud still hung over my spirits. My landlady brought me a slice of _kuchen_ at dinner-time, for Christmas, and wished me _guten appet.i.t_ to it, for which I thanked her with gravity.

In the afternoon I turned to the piano. After all it was Christmas-day.

After beginning a bravura singing exercise, I suddenly stopped myself, and found myself, before I knew what I was about, singing the "Adeste Fidelis"--till I could not sing any more. Something rose in my throat--ceasing abruptly, I burst into tears, and cried plentifully over the piano keys.

"In tears, Fraulein May! _Aber_--what does that mean?"

I looked up. Von Francius stood in the door-way, looking not unkindly at me, with a bouquet in his hand of Christmas roses and ferns.

"It is only because it is Christmas," said I.

"Are you quite alone?"

"Yes."

"So am I."

"You! But you have so many friends."

"Have I? It is true, that if friends count by the number of invitations that one has, I have many. Unfortunately I could not make up my mind to accept any. As I pa.s.sed through the flower-market this morning I thought of you--naturally. It struck me that perhaps you had no one to come and wish you the Merry Christmas and Happy New-year which belongs to you of right, so I came, and have the pleasure to wish it you now, with these flowers, though truly they are not _Maiblumchen_."

He raised my hand to his lips, and I was quite amazed at the sense of strength, healthiness, and new life which his presence brought.

"I am very foolish," I remarked; "I ought to know better. But I am unhappy about my sister, and also I have been foolishly thinking of old times, when she and I were at home together."

"_Ei!_ That is foolish. Those things--old times and all that--are the very deuce for making one miserable. Strauss--he who writes dance music--has made a waltz, and called it 'The Good Old times.' _Lieber Himmel!_ Fancy waltzing to the memory of old times. A requiem or a funeral march would have been intelligible."

"Yes."

"Well, you must not sit here and let these old times say what they like to you. Will you come out with me?"

"Go out!" I echoed, with an unwilling shrinking from it. My soul preferred rather to shut herself up in her case and turn surlily away from the light outside. But, as usual, he had his way.

"Yes--out. The two loneliest people in Elberthal will make a little zauberfest for themselves. I will show you some pictures. There are some new ones at the exhibition. Make haste."

So calm, so matter-of-fact was his manner, so indisputable did he seem to think his proposition, that I half rose; then I sat down again.

"I don't want to go out, Herr von Francius."

"That is foolish. Quick! before the daylight fades and it grows too dark for the pictures."

Scarcely knowing why I complied, I went to my room and put on my things. What a shabby sight I looked! I felt it keenly; so much, that when I came back and found him seated at the piano, and playing a wonderful in-and-out fugue of immense learning and immense difficulty, and quite without pathos or tenderness, I interrupted him incontinently.

"Here I am, Herr von Francius. You have asked the most shabbily dressed person in Elberthal to be your companion. I have a mind to make you hold to your bargain, whether you like it or not."

Von Francius turned, surveying me from head to foot, with a smile. All the pedagogue was put off. It was holiday-time. I was half vexed at myself for beginning to feel as if it were holiday-time with me too.

We went out together. The wind was raw and cold, the day dreary, the streets not so full as they had been. We went along the street past the Tonhalle, and there we met Courvoisier alone. He looked at us, but though von Francius raised his hat, he did not notice us. There was a pallid change upon his face, a fixed look in his eyes, a strange, drawn, subdued expression upon his whole countenance. My heart leaped with an answering pang. That mood of the morning had fled. I had "found myself again," but again not "happily."

I followed von Francius up the stairs of the picture exhibition. No one was in the room. All the world had other occupations on Christmas afternoon, or preferred the stove-side and the family circle.

Von Francius showed me a picture which he said every one was talking about.