The First Violin Part 65

"It is kind of you to say so. For your sake, I wish it had been any one but myself who had been thus thrown together with you. I promise you faithfully that as soon as ever we can land I will only wait to see you safely into a train and then I will leave you and--"

He was suddenly silenced. I had composed my face to an expression of indifference as stony as I knew how to a.s.sume, and with my hands folded in my lap, had steeled myself to look into his face and listen to him.

I could find nothing but a kind of careless mockery in his face--a hard half smile upon his lips as he went on saying the hard things which cut home and left me quivering, and which he yet uttered as if they had been the most harmless pleasantries or the merest whipped-cream compliments.

It was at this moment that the wind, rising again in a brief spasm, blew a tress of my loosened hair across his face. How it changed! flushed crimson. His lips parted--a strange, sudden light came into his eyes.

"I beg your pardon!" said I, hastily, started from my a.s.sumed composure, as I raised my hand to push my hair back. But he had gathered the tress together--his hand lingered for one moment--a scarcely perceptible moment--upon it, then he laid it gently down upon my shoulder.

"Then I will leave you," he went on, resuming the old manner, but with evident effort, "and not interfere with you any more."

What was I to think? What to believe? I thought to myself that had he been my lover and I had intercepted such a glance of his to another woman my peace of mind had been gone for evermore. But, on the other hand, every cool word he said gave the lie to his looks--or did his looks give the lie to his words? Oh, that I could solve the problem once for all, and have done with it forever!

"And you, Miss Wedderburn--have you deserted Germany?"

"I have been obliged to live in England, if that is what you mean--I am living in Germany at present."

"And art--_die Kunst_--that is cruel!"

"You are amusing yourself at my expense, as you have always delighted in doing," said I, sharply, cut to the quick.

"_Aber, Fraulein May!_ What do you mean?"

"From the very first," I repeated, the pain I felt giving a keenness to my reproaches. "Did you not deceive me and draw me out for your amus.e.m.e.nt that day we met at Koln? You found out then, I suppose, what a stupid, silly creature I was, and you have repeated the process now and then, since--much to your own edification and that of Herr Helfen, I do not doubt. Whether it was just, or honorable, or kind, is a secondary consideration. Stupid people are only invented for the amus.e.m.e.nt of those who are not stupid."

"How dare you, how dare you talk in that manner?" said he, emphatically, laying his hand upon my shoulder, and somehow compelling my gaze to meet his. "But I know why--I read the answer in those eyes which dare everything, and yet--"

"Not quite everything," thought I, uncomfortably, as the said eyes sunk beneath his look.

"Fraulein May, will you have the patience to listen while I tell you a little story?"

"Oh, yes!" I responded, readily, as I hailed the prospect of learning something more about him.

"It is now nearly five years since I first came to Elberthal. I had never been in the town before. I came with my boy--may G.o.d bless him and keep him!--who was then two years old, and whose mother was dead--for my wife died early."

A pause, during which I did not speak. It was something so wonderful to me that he should speak to me of his wife.

"She was young--and very beautiful," said he. "You will forgive my introducing the subject?"

"Oh, Herr Courvoisier!"

"And I had wronged her. I came to Friedhelm Helfen, or rather was sent to him, and, as it happened, found such a friend as is not granted to one man in a thousand. When I came here, I was smarting under various griefs; about the worst was that I had recklessly destroyed my own prospects. I had a good career--a fair future open to me. I had cut short that career, annihilated that future, or any future worth speaking of, by--well, something had happened which divided me utterly and uncompromisingly and forever from the friends, and the sphere, and the respect and affection of those who had been parents and brother and sister to me. Then I knew that their good opinion, their love, was my law and my highest desire. And it was not their fault--it was mine--my very own.

"The more I look back upon it all, the more I see that I have myself to thank for it. But that reflection, as you may suppose, does not add to the delights of a man's position when he is humbled to the dust as I was then. Biting the dust--you have that phrase in English. Well, I have been biting the dust--yes, eating it, living upon it, and deservedly so, for five years; but nothing ever can, nothing ever will, make it taste anything but dry, bitter, nauseating to the last degree."

"Go on!" said I, breathlessly.

"How kind you are to listen to the dull tale! Well, I had my boy Sigmund, and there were times when the mere fact that he was mine made me forget everything else, and thank my fate for the simple fact that I lived and was his father. His father--he was a part of myself, he could divine my every thought. But at other times, generally indeed, I was sick of life--that life. Don't suppose that I am one of those high-flown idiots who would make it out that no life is worth living: I knew and felt to my soul that the life from which I had locked myself out and then dropped the key as it were here in midstream, was a glorious life, worth living ten times over.

"There was the sting of it. For three years I lived thus, and learned a great deal, learned what men in that position are--learned to respect, admire, and love some of them--learned to understand that man--_der Mensch_--is the same, and equally to be honored everywhere. I also tried to grow accustomed to the thought, which grew every day more certain to me, that I must live on so for the future--to plan my life, and shape out a certain kind of repentance for sins past. I decided that the only form my atonement could take was that of self-effacement--"

"That is why you never would take the lead in anything."

"Exactly. I am naturally fond of leading. I love beyond everything to lead those who I know like me, and like following me. When I was _haupt_--I mean, I knew that all that by-gone mischief had arisen from doing what I liked, so I dropped doing what I liked, and began to do what I disliked. By the time I had begun to get a little into training three years had pa.s.sed--these things are not accomplished in a day, and the effects of twenty-seven years of selfishness are not killed soon. I was killing them, and becoming a machine in the process.

"One year the Lower Rhenish Musikfest was to be held at Koln. Long before it came off the Cologne Orchestra had sent to us for contingents, and we had begun to attend some of the proben regularly once or twice a week.

"One day Friedhelm and I had been at a probe. The 'Tower of Babel' and the 'Lenore' Symphony were among the things we had practiced. Both of them, the 'Lenore' particularly, had got into my head. I broke lose for one day from routine, from drudgery and harness. It was a mistake.

Friedhelm went off, shrugging his dear old shoulders, and I at last turned up, mooning at the Kolner Bahnof. Well--you know the rest. Nay, do not turn so angrily away. Try to forgive a fallen man one little indiscretion. When I saw you I can not tell what feeling stole warm and invigorating into my heart; it was something quite new--something I had never felt before: it was so sweet that I could not part with it.

Fraulein May, I have lived that afternoon over again many and many a time. Have you ever given a thought to it?"

"Yes, I have," said I, dryly.

"My conduct after that rose half from pride--wounded pride, I mean, for when you cut me, it did cut me--I own it. Partly it arose from a worthier feeling--the feeling that I could not see very much of you or learn to know you at all well without falling very deeply in love with you. You hide your face--you are angry at that--"

"Stop. Did you never throughout all this give a thought to the possibility that I might fall in love with you?"

I did not look at him, but he said, after a pause:

"I had the feeling that if I tried I could win your love. I never was such a presumptuous fool as to suppose that you would love me unasked--or even with much asking on my part--_bewahre!_"

I was silent, still concealing my face. He went on:

"Besides, I knew that you were an English lady. I asked myself what was the right thing to do, and I decided that though you would consider me an ill-mannered, churlish clown, I would refuse those gracious, charming advances which you in your charity made. Our paths in life were destined to be utterly apart and divided, and what could it matter to you--the behavior of an insignificant fiddler? You would forget him just when he deserved to be forgotten, that is--instantly.

"Time went on. You lived near us. Changes took place. Those who had a right to arbitrate for me, since I had by my own deed deprived myself of that right, wrote and demanded my son. I had shown myself incapable of managing my own affairs--was it likely that I could arrange his? And then he was better away from such a black sheep. It is true. The black sheep gave up the white lambling into the care of a legitimate shepherd, who carried it off to a correct and appropriate fold. Then life was empty indeed, for, strange though it may seem, even black sheep have feelings--ridiculously out of place they are too."

"Oh, don't speak so harshly!" said I, tremulously, laying my hand for an instant upon his.

His face was turned toward me; his mien was severe, but serene; he spoke as of some far-past, distant dream.

"Then it was in looking round my darkened horizon for Sigmund, I found that it was not empty. You rose trembling upon it like a star of light, and how beautiful a star! But there! do not turn away. I will not shock you by expatiating upon it. Enough that I found what I had more than once suspected--that I loved you. Once or twice I nearly made a fool of myself; that Carnival Monday--do you remember? Luckily Friedel and Karl came in, but in my saner moments I wors.h.i.+ped you as a n.o.ble, distant good--part of the beautiful life which I had gambled with--and lost. Be easy! I never for one instant aspired to you--never thought of possessing you: I was not quite mad. I am only telling you this to explain, and--"

"And you renounced me?" said I in a low voice.

"I renounced you."

I removed my hand from my eyes, and looked at him. His eyes, dry and calm, rested upon my face. His countenance was pale; his mouth set with a grave, steady sweetness.

Light rushed in upon my mind in a radiant flood--light and knowledge. I knew what was right; an unerring finger pointed it to me. I looked deep, deep into his sad eyes, read his innermost soul, and found it pure.

"They say you have committed a crime," said I.

"And I have not denied, can not deny it," he answered, as if waiting for something further.

"You need not," said I. "It is all one to me. I want to hear no more about that. I want to know if your heart is mine."

The wind wuthered wearily; the water rushed. Strange, inarticulate sounds of the night came fitfully across ear and sense, as he answered me: