Liza; Or, "A Nest of Nobles" Part 3

My Spirit's waves, as towards the moon, Towards thee, love, flow: Its waters stirred by thee alone In weal or woe.

My heart replete with love that grieves But yields no cry, I suffer--cold as yonder moon Thou pa.s.sest by.

Panshine sang the second stanza with more than usual expression and feeling; in the stormy accompaniment might be heard the rolling of the waves. After the words, "I suffer!" he breathed a light sigh, and with downcast eyes let his voice die gradually away. When he had finished; Liza praised the air, Maria Dmitrievna said, "Charming!" and Gedeonovsky exclaimed, "Enchanting!--the words and the music are equally enchanting!" Lenochka kept her eyes fixed on the singer with childish reverence. In a word, the composition of the young _dilettante_ delighted all who were in the room. But outside the drawing-room door, in the vestibule, there stood, looking on the floor, an old man who had just come into the house, to whom, judging from the expression of his face and the movements of his shoulders, Panshine's romance, though really pretty, did not afford much pleasure. After waiting a little, and having dusted his boots with a coa.r.s.e handkerchief, he suddenly squeezed up his eyes, morosely compressed his lips, gave his already curved back an extra bend, and slowly entered the drawing-room.

"Ah! Christophor Fedorovich, how do you do?" Panshine was the first to exclaim, as he jumped up quickly from his chair. "I didn't suspect you were there. I wouldn't for any thing have ventured to sing my romance before you. I know you are no admirer of the light style in music."

"I didn't hear it," said the new-comer, in imperfect Russian. Then, having bowed to all the party, he stood still in an awkward att.i.tude in the middle of the room.

"I suppose, Monsieur Lemm," said Maria Dmitrievna, "you have come to give Liza a music lesson."

"No; not Lizaveta Mikhailovna, but Elena Miknailovna."

"Oh, indeed! very good. Lenochka, go up-stairs with Monsieur Lemm."

The old man was about to follow the little girl, when Panshine stopped him.

"Don't go away when the lesson is over, Christopher Fedorovich," he said. "Lizaveta Mikhailovna and I are going to play a duet--one of Beethoven's sonatas."

The old man muttered something to himself, but Panshine continued in German, p.r.o.nouncing the words very badly--

"Lizaveta Mikhailovna has shown me the sacred cantata which you have dedicated to her--a very beautiful piece! I beg you will not suppose I am unable to appreciate serious music. Quite the reverse. It is sometimes tedious; but, on the other hand, it is extremely edifying."

The old man blushed to the ears, cast a side glance at Liza, and went hastily out of the room.

Maria Dmitrievna asked Panshine to repeat his romance; but he declared that he did not like to offend the ears of the scientific German, and proposed to Liza to begin Beethoven's sonata. On this, Maria Dmitrievna sighed, and, on her part, proposed a stroll in the garden to Gedeonovsky.

"I want to have a little more chat with you," she said, "about our poor Fedia, and to ask for your advice."

Gedeonovsky smiled and bowed, took up with two fingers his hat, on the brim of which his gloves were neatly laid out, and retired with Maria Dmitrievna.

Panshine and Eliza remained in the room. She fetched the sonata, and spread it out. Both sat down to the piano in silence. From up-stairs there came the feeble sound of scales, played by Lenochka's uncertain fingers.

_Note to p_. 36.

It is possible that M. Panshine may have been inspired by Heine's verses:--

Wie des Mondes Abbild zittert In den wilden Meereswogen, Und er selber still und sicher Wandelt an dem Himmelshogen.

Also wandelst du, Geliebte, Still und sicher, und es zittert Nur dein Abbild mir im Herzen, Weil mein eignes Herz erschuttert.

V.

Christoph Theodor Gottlieb Lemm was born in 1786, in the kingdom of Saxony, in the town of Chemnitz. His parents, who were very poor, were both of them musicians, his father playing the hautboy, his mother the harp. He himself, by the time he was five years old, was already practicing on three different instruments. At the age of eight, he was left an orphan, and at ten, he began to earn a living by his art.

For a long time he led a wandering life, playing in all sorts of places--in taverns, at fairs, at peasants' marriages, and at b.a.l.l.s.

At last he gained access to an orchestra, and there, steadily rising higher and higher, he attained to the position of conductor. As a performer he had no great merit, but he understood music thoroughly.

In his twenty-eighth year, he migrated to Russia. He was invited there by a great seigneur, who, although he could not abide music himself, maintained an orchestra from a love of display. In his house Lemm spent seven years as a musical director, and then left him with empty hands. The seigneur, who had squandered all his means, first offered Lemm a bill of exchange for the amount due to him; then refused to give him even that; and ultimately never paid him a single farthing.

Lemm was advised to leave the country, but he did not like to go home penniless from Russia--from the great Russia, that golden land of artists. So be determined to remain and seek his fortune there.

During the course of ten years, the poor German continued to seek his fortune. He found various employers, he lived in Moscow, and in several county towns, he patiently suffered much, he made acquaintance with poverty, he struggled hard.[A] All this time, amidst all the troubles to which he was exposed, the idea of ultimately returning home never quitted him. It was the only thing that supported him. But fate did not choose to bless him with this supreme and final piece of good fortune.

[Footnote A: Literally, "like a fish out of ice:" as a fish, taken out of a river which has been frozen over, struggles on the ice.]

At fifty years of age, in bad health and prematurely decrepid, he happened to come to the town of O., and there he took up his permanent abode, managing somehow to obtain a poor livelihood by giving lessons.

He had by this time entirely lost all hope of quilting the hated soil of Russia.

Lemm's outward appearance was not in his favor. He was short and high-shouldered, his shoulder-blades stuck out awry, his feet were large and flat, and his red hands, marked by swollen veins, had hard, stiff fingers, tipped with nails of a pale blue color. His face was covered with wrinkles, his cheeks were hollow, and he had pursed-up lips which he was always moving with a kind of chewing action--one which, joined with his habitual silence, gave him an almost malignant expression. His grey hair hung in tufts over a low forehead. His very small and immobile eyes glowed dully, like coals in which the flame has just been extinguished by water. He walked heavily, jerking his clumsy frame at every step. Some of his movements called to mind the awkward shuffling of an owl in a cage, when it feels that it is being stared at, but can scarcely see anything itself out of its large yellow eyes, blinking between sleep and fear. An ancient and inexorable misery had fixed its ineffaceable stamp on the poor musician, and had wrenched and distorted his figure--one which, even without that, would have had but little to recommend it; but in spite of all that, something good and honest, something out of the common run, revealed itself in that half-ruined being, to any one who was able to get over his first impressions.

A devoted admirer of Bach and Handel, thoroughly well up to his work, gifted with a lively imagination, and that audacity of idea which belongs only to the Teutonic race, Lemm might in time--who can tell?--have been reckoned among the great composers of his country, if only his life had been of a different nature. But he was not born under a lucky star. He had written much in his time, and yet he had never been fortunate enough to see any of his compositions published.

He did not know how to set to work, how to cringe at the right moment, how to proffer a request at the fitting time. Once, it is true, a very long time ago, one of his friends and admirers, also a German, and also poor, published at his own expense two of Lemm's sonatas. But they remained untouched on the shelves of the music shops; silently they disappeared and left no trace behind, just as if they had been dropped into a river by night.

At last Lemm bade farewell to every thing Old age gained upon him, and he hardened, he grew stiff in mind, just as his fingers had stiffened.

He had never married, and now he lived alone in O., in a little house not far from that of the Kalitines, looked after by an old woman-servant whom he had taken out of an alms-house. He walked a great deal, and he read the Bible, also a collection of Protestant hymns, and Shakspeare in Schlegel's translation. For a long time he had composed nothing; but apparently Liza, his best pupil, had been able to arouse him. It was for her that he had written the cantata to which Panshine alluded. The words of this cantata were borrowed by him from his collection of hymns, with the exception of a few verses which he composed himself. It was written for two choruses: one of the happy, one of the unhappy. At the end the two united and sang together, "Merciful Lord, have pity upon us, poof sinners, and keep us from all evil thoughts and worldly desires." On the t.i.tle-page, very carefully and even artistically written, were the words, "Only the Righteous are in the Right. A Sacred Cantata. Composed, and dedicated to Elizaveta Kalitine, his dear pupil, by her teacher, C.T.G, Lemm."

The words "Only the Righteous are in the Right." and "To Elizaveta Kalitine" were surrounded by a circle of rays. Underneath was written, "For you only. Fur Sie allein." This was why Lemm grew red and looked askance at Liza; he felt greatly hurt when Panshine began to talk to him about his cantata.

IV.

Panshine struck the first chords of the sonata, in which he played the ba.s.s, loudly and with decision, but Liza did not begin her part. He stopped and looked at her--Liza's eyes, which were looking straight at him, expressed dissatisfaction; her lips did not smile, all her countenance was severe, almost sad.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Why have you not kept your word?" she said. "I showed you Christopher Fedorovich's cantata only on condition that you would not speak to him about it."

"I was wrong, Lizaveta Mikhailovna--I spoke without thinking."

"You have wounded him and me too. In future he will distrust me as well as others."

"What could I do, Lizaveta Mikhailovna? From my earliest youth I have never been able to see a German without feeling tempted to tease him."

"What are you saying, Vladimir Nikolaevich? This German is a poor, lonely, broken man; and you feel no pity for him! you feel tempted to tease him!"

Panshine seemed a little disconcerted.

"You are right, Lizaveta Mikhailovna," he said "The fault is entirely due to my perpetual thoughtlessness. No, do not contradict me. I know myself well. My thoughtlessness has done me no slight harm. It makes people suppose that I am an egotist."

Panshine made a brief pause. From whatever point he started a conversation, he generally ended by speaking about himself, and then his words seemed almost to escape from him involuntarily, so softly and pleasantly did he speak, and with such an air of sincerity.

"It is so, even in your house," he continued. "Your mamma, it is true, is most kind to me. She is so good. You--but no, I don't know what you think of me. But decidedly your aunt cannot abide me. I have vexed her by some thoughtless, stupid speech. It is true that she does not like me, is it not?"