Charles Auchester Volume II Part 2

"His theory,--oh, it was in this way! Strings first, of course, violet, indigo, blue,--violin, violoncello, double-ba.s.s,--upon these you repose; the vault is quite perfect. Green, the many-sounded kinds of wood, spring-hued flutes, deeper, yet softer, clarinetti, ba.s.soons the darkest tone, not to be surpa.s.sed in its shade,--another vault.

The bra.s.s, of course, is yellow; and if the horns suggest the paler dazzle, the trumpets take the golden orange, and the red is left for the trombones,--vivid, or dun and dusk."[3]

"Oh, my goodness! I don't wonder he said it was a dream!"

"It certainly would be dangerous to think of it in any other light!"

"And you a German!" I cried. "Did you think I meant it?"

"You would mean it," he retorted, "if you knew what lip-distorting and ear-distracting work it is practising this same trombone."

"But what is your reason, then, for choosing it, when you might choose _mine_?"

"Do you not know that Seraphael has written as no one else for the trombone? And he was heard to sigh, and to say, 'I shall never find any one to play these pa.s.sages!'"

"Oh, Delemann! and that was the reason you took it up? How I love you for it!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Wretch.

[2] Brotherhood.

[3] The theory of the correspondence of tones and colors is an old one. Gardner, in his "Music of Nature," traces it in the following manner, which will be interesting as contrasted with the above:--

WIND INSTRUMENTS.

Trombone--deep red.

Trumpet--scarlet.

Clarinet--orange.

Oboe--yellow.

Ba.s.soon--deep yellow.

Flute--sky blue.

Diapason--deeper blue.

Double diapason--purple.

Horn--violet.

STRINGED INSTRUMENTS.

Violin--pink.

Viola--rose.

Violoncello--red.

Double-ba.s.s--crimson.

Laura Bridgman, the blind and deaf mute, it will be remembered, likened the tone of the trumpet to scarlet.

CHAPTER II.

All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal meaning; how seldom _this_ escapes in language worthy, while _that_ tells best in words. I was a good deal exhausted for several days after I entered the school, and saw very little except my own stuntedness and deficiency in the mirror of contemplation. For Anastase took me to himself awfully the first morning, all alone; examined me, tortured me, made me blush and hesitate and groan; bade me be humble and industrious; told me I was not so forward as I might be; drenched me with medicinal advices that lowered my mental system; and, finally, left me in possession of a minikin edition of what I had conceived myself the day before, but which he deprived me of at present, if not annihilated forever.

It was doubtless a very good thing to go back to the beginning, if he intended to re-create me; but it happened that such trans.m.u.tation could not take place twice, and it had already occurred once. Still, I was absolved from obvious discomfiture to the regenerator by my silent adaptations to his behavior.

That which would a.s.suredly become a penance to the physique in dark or wintry weather, remained still a charming matutinal romance; namely, that we all rose at four o'clock, except any one who might be delicate, and that we practised a couple of hours before we got anything to eat,--I mean formally, for, in fact, we almost all smuggled into our compartments wherewithal to keep off the natural, which might not amalgamate with the spiritual, constraining appet.i.te.

Those early mornings were ineffaceably effective for me; I advanced more according to my desires than I had ever advanced before, and I laid up a significant store of cool, sequestered memories. I could, however, scarcely realize my own existence under these circ.u.mstances, until the questioner within me was subdued to "contemplation" by my first "adventure."

I had been a week in durance, if not vile, very void, for I had seen nothing of the Cerinthias nor of their interesting young advocate, except at table,--though certainly on these latter occasions we surfeited ourselves with talk that whetted my curiosity to a double edge. On the first Sunday, however, I laid hold of him coming out of church, when we had fulfilled our darling duties in the choir,--for the choir of our little perfect temple, oak-shaded and sunlit, was composed entirely of Cecilians, and I have not time in this place to dilate upon its force and fulness. Delemann responded joyously to my welcome; and when I asked him what was to be our task on Sunday, he answered that the rest of the day was our own, and that if I pleased we would go together and call upon that Maria and her little sister, of whom I knew all that could be gained out of personal intercourse.

"Just what I wished," said I; "how exactly you guessed it!"

"Oh, but I wanted to go myself!" answered Franz, laughing, "for I have an errand thither;" and together we quitted the church garden, with its sheltering lime shadow, for the sultry pavement.

It cannot have been five minutes that we walked, before we came in front of one of those narrowest and tallest of the droll abodes I was pretty well used to now, since I had lived with Aronach. We went upstairs, too, in like style to that of the old apprentice home, and even as there, did not rest until nearly at the top. Delemann knocked at a door, and, as if perfectly accustomed to do so, walked in without delay. The room we entered was slightly furnished, but singularly in keeping with each other were the few ornaments, unsurpa.s.sably effective. Also a light clearness threw up and out each decoration from the delicate hue of the walls and the mild fresco of their borders, unlike anything I had yet seen, and startling, in spite of the simplicity of the actual accommodations, from their excelling taste. Upon brackets stood busts, three or four, and a single vase of such form that it could only have been purchased in Italy. At the window were a couch and reading-desk, also a table ready prepared with some kind of noonday meal; and at the opposite end of the apartment rose from the polished floor the stove itself, entirely concealed under lime-branches and oak-leaves. The room, too, was not untenanted, for upon the couch, though making no use whatever of the desk, lay a gentleman, who was reading, nevertheless, a French newspaper. He was very fine,--grand-looking, I thought; his dress appeared courtly, so courtly was his greeting. "You have not come for me, I know," he observed to Delemann, having seated us; "but the girls, having dined, are gone to rest: we don't find it easy to dispense with our siesta.

You will surely eat first, for you must be hungry, and I am but just come in." He was, in fact, waiting for the soup, which swiftly followed us; and so we sat down together. Franz then produced a little basket, which I had noticed him to carry very carefully as we came along; but he did not open it, he placed it by his side upon the table. It was covered, and the cover was tied down with green ribbon.

I was instantly smitten curious; but a great stay to my curiosity was the deportment of our host. I had seen a good many musicians by this time, and found them every one the alone civilized and polished of the human race; but there were evidences of supremacy in a few that I detected not even in the superior many. Some had enthralled me more than this young Cerinthia for I now know he was young, though at that time he appeared extremely my elder, and I could have believed him even aged; but there was about him an una.s.suming n.o.bility that bespoke the highest of all educations,--that according to the preparations and purposes of nature. He seemed to live rationally, and I believe he did, though he was not to the immediate perception large-hearted. He ate, himself, with the frugality of Ausonia, but pressed us with cordial attention; and for me, I enjoyed my dinner immensely, though I had not come there to eat. Franz did not talk to him about his sisters, as I should have perhaps wished, and I dared not mention them, for there was that in Cerinthia's hazy, l.u.s.trous eyes that made me afraid to be as audacious as my disposition permitted. Presently, while we were drinking to each other, I heard little steps in the pa.s.sage; and as I expected an apparition, I was not surprised when there entered upon those light feet a little girl, who, the first moment reminded me of Laura, but not the next, for her face was unlike as my own. She was very young, indeed, but had a countenance unusually formed, though the head was infantine,--like enough to our entertainer to belong to him, like as to delicacy of extremities and emerald darkness of eye. She wore a short white frock and two beautiful plaits of thick bright hair kept and dressed like that of a princess. She took no notice of me, but courtesyed to Delemann with an alien air most strange to me, and then ran past him to her brother, whom she freely caressed, at the same time, as it were, to hide her face. "Look up! my shy Josephine," said he, "and make another courtesy to that young gentleman, who is a great friend and connoisseur of the Chevalier Seraphael." Josephine looked back at me from beneath her heavy eyelashes, but still did not approach. Then I said, "How is your sister, Miss Josephine? I am only a little friend of the Chevalier,--she is the great one."

"I know," replied she, in a sage child's voice, then looking up at her brother, "Maria is tired, and will not come in here, Joseph."

"She is lying down, then?"

"No, she is brushing her hair." We all laughed at this.

"But run to tell her that Franz Delemann is here, and Carl Auchester with him; or if you cannot remember this name, Delemann's alone will do."

"But she knows, for we heard them come in, and she said she should stay in her room; but that if Mr. Delemann had a letter for her I might carry it there."

"I don't know whether there is a letter in here, Josephine, but this basket came for her."

"How pretty!" said Josephine; and she stretched her tiny hand, a smile just shining over her face that reminded me of her beautiful sister. I saw she was anxious to possess herself of it, but I could not resist my own desire to be the bearer.

"Let me take it to her!" I exclaimed impulsively. Cerinthia looked up, and Franz, too, surprised enough; but I did not care, I rose. "She can send me back again, if she is angry," I pleaded; and Cerinthia fairly laughed.

"Oh, you may go! She will not send you back, though I should certainly be sent back if _I_ took such a liberty."

"Neither would she admit me," said Delemann.

"Why, you came last Sunday," put in little Josephine and then she looked at me, with one little finger to her lip.

"Come too!"

So we went, she springing before me to a door which she left ajar as she entered, while I discreetly remained outside.

"May he come, Maria?" I heard her say; and then I heard that other voice.

"Who, dear little Josephine,--which of them?"

"The little boy."