Sacred and Profane Love Part 2

'I have a home on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, and I loathe it.'

'Why do you loathe it?'

'Ah! For what it has witnessed--for what it has witnessed.' He sighed.

'Suppose we discuss something else.'

You must remember my youth, my inexperience, my lack of adroitness in social intercourse. I talked quietly and slowly, like my aunt, and I know that I had a tremendous air of sagacity and self-possession; but beneath that my brain and heart were whirling, bewildered in a delicious, dazzling haze of novel sensations. It was not I who spoke, but a new being, excessively perturbed into a consciousness of new powers. I said:

'You say you are friendless, but I wonder how many women are dying for love of you.'

He started. There was a pause. I felt myself blushing.

'Let me guess at your history,' he said. 'You have lived much alone with your thoughts, and you have read a great deal of the finest romantic poetry, and you have been silent, especially with men. You have seen little of men.'

'But I understand them,' I answered boldly.

'I believe you do,' he admitted; and he laughed. 'So I needn't explain to you that a thousand women dying of love for one man will not help that man to happiness, unless he is dying of love for the thousand and first.'

'And have you never loved?'

The words came of themselves out of my mouth.

'I have deceived myself--in my quest of sympathy,' he said.

'Can you be sure that, in your quest of sympathy, you are not deceiving yourself tonight?'

'Yes,' he cried quickly, 'I can.' And he sprang up and almost ran to the piano. 'You remember the D flat Prelude?' he said, breaking into the latter part of the air, and looking at me the while. 'When I came to that note and caught your gaze'--he struck the B flat and held it--'I knew that I had found sympathy. I knew it! I knew it! I knew it! Do you remember?'

'Remember what?'

'The way we looked at each other.'

'Yes,' I breathed, 'I remember.'

'How can I thank you? How can I thank you?'

He seemed to be meditating. His simplicity, his humility, his kindliness were more than I could bear.

'Please do not speak like that,' I entreated him, pained. 'You are the greatest artist in the world, and I am n.o.body--n.o.body at all. I do not know why I am here. I cannot imagine what you have seen in me. Everything is a mystery. All I feel is that I am in your presence, and that I am not worthy to be. No matter how long I live, I shall never experience again the joy that I have now. But if you talk about thanking me, I must run away, because I cannot stand it--and--and--you haven't played for me, and you said you would.'

He approached me, and bent his head towards mine, and I glanced up through a mist and saw his eyes and the short, curly auburn locks on his forehead.

'The most beautiful things, and the most vital things, and the most lasting things,' he said softly, 'are often mysterious and inexplicable and sudden. And let me tell you that you do not know how lovely you are.

You do not know the magic of your voice, nor the grace of your gestures.

But time and man will teach you. What shall I play?'

He was very close to me.

'Bach,' I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, pointing impatiently to the piano.

I fancied that Bach would spread peace abroad in my soul.

He resumed his place at the piano, and touched the keys.

'Another thing that makes me more sure that I am not deceiving myself to-night,' he said, taking his fingers off the keys, but staring at the keyboard, 'is that you have not regretted coming here. You have not called yourself a wicked woman. You have not even accused me of taking advantage of your innocence.'

And ere I could say a word he had begun the Chromatic Fantasia, smiling faintly.

And I had hoped for peace from Bach! I had often suspected that deep pa.s.sion was concealed almost everywhere within the restraint and the apparent calm of Bach's music, but the full force of it had not been shown to me till this glorious night. Diaz' playing was tenfold more impressive, more effective, more revealing in the hotel parlour than in the great hall. The Chromatic Fantasia seemed as full of the magnificence of life as that other Fantasia which he had given an hour or so earlier.

Instead of peace I had the whirlwind; instead of tranquillity a riot; instead of the poppy an alarming potion. The rendering was masterly to the extreme of masterliness.

When he had finished I rose and pa.s.sed to the fireplace in silence; he did not stir.

'Do you always play like that?' I asked at length.

'No,' he said; 'only when you are there. I have never played the Chopin Fantasia as I played it to-night. The Chopin was all right; but do not be under any illusion: what you have just heard is Bach played by a Chopin player.'

Then he left the piano and went to the small table where the gla.s.ses were.

'You must be in need of refreshment,' he whispered gaily. 'Nothing is more exhausting than listening to the finest music.'

'It is you who ought to be tired,' I replied; 'after that long concert, to be playing now.'

'I have the physique of a camel,' he said. 'I am never tired so long as I am sure of my listeners. I would play for you till breakfast to-morrow.'

The decanter contained a fluid of a pleasant green tint. He poured very carefully this fluid to the depth of half an inch in one gla.s.s and three-quarters of an inch in another gla.s.s. Then he filled both gla.s.ses to the brim with water, accomplishing the feat with infinite pains and enjoyment, as though it had been part of a ritual.

'There!' he said, offering me in his steady hand the gla.s.s which had received the smaller quant.i.ty of the green fluid. 'Taste.'

'But what is it?' I demanded.

'Taste,' he repeated, and he himself tasted.

I obeyed. At the first mouthful I thought the liquid was somewhat sinister and disagreeable, but immediately afterwards I changed my opinion, and found it ingratiating, enticing, and stimulating, and yet not strong.

'Do you like it?' he asked.

I nodded, and drank again.

'It is wonderful,' I answered. 'What do you call it?'

'Men call it absinthe,' he said.

'But--'

I put the gla.s.s on the mantelpiece and picked it up again.

'Don't be frightened,' he soothed me. 'I know what you were going to say. You have always heard that absinthe is the deadliest of all poisons, that it is the curse of Paris, and that it makes the most terrible of all drunkards. So it is; so it does. But not as we are drinking it; not as I invariably drink it.'