Sunrise Part 27

The last phrase was uttered in a low voice, though there was no by-stander. But Calabressa, with a lofty gesture, replied,

"My friend, we are not always on commissions. Sometimes we have a little liberty--a little money--a notion in our head. And if one cannot exactly travel _en prince_, _n'importe!_ we have our little excursion. And if one has one's sweetheart to see? Do you know, friend Beratinsky, that I have been dining with Natalie--the little Natalushka, as, she used to be called?"

Beratinsky glanced quickly at him with the black, piercing eyes.

"Ah, the beautiful child! the beautiful child!" Calabressa exclaimed, as if he was addressing some one not present. "The mouth sweet, pathetic, like that in t.i.tian's a.s.sumption: you have seen the picture in the Venice Academy? But she is darker than t.i.tian's Virgin; she is of the black, handsome Magyar breed, like her mother. You never saw her mother, Beratinsky?"

"No," said the other, rather surlily. "Come, sit down and have a cigar."

"A cigarette--a cigarette and a little cognac, if you please," said Calabressa, when the three companions had gone along to the middle of the hall and taken their seats. "Ah, it was such a surprise to me: the sight of her grown to be a woman, and the perfect, beautiful image of her mother--the very voice too--I could have thought it was a dream."

"Did you come here to talk of nothing but Lind's daughter?" said Beratinsky, with scant courtesy.

"Precisely," remarked Calabressa, in absolute good-humor. "But before that a word."

He glanced round this a.s.semblage of foreign-looking persons, no doubt guessing at the various nationalities indicated by physique and complexion--Prussian, Pole, Rhinelander, Swiss, and what not. If the company, in English eyes, might have looked Bohemian--that is to say, unconventional in manner and costume--the Bohemianism, at all events, was of a well-to-do, cheerful, good-humored character. There was a good deal of talking besides the music.

"These gentlemen," said Calabressa, in a low voice, "are they friends--are they with us?"

"Only one or two," said Beratinsky.

"You do not come here to proselytize, then?"

"One must amuse one's self sometimes," said the little, fat, black-haired Pole, somewhat gruffly.

"Then one must take care what one says!"

"I presume that is generally the case, friend Calabressa."

But Calabressa was not offended. He was interested in what was going on.

"Par exemple," he said, in his airy way, "que vient faire la le drole?"

The music had come to an end, and the spectacled professor had retired amidst a thunder of applause. His successor, who had attracted Calabressa's attention, was a gentleman who had mounted on a high easel an immense portfolio of cartoons roughly executed in crayon; and as he exhibited them one by one, he pointed out their characteristics with a long stick, after the manner of a showman. His demeanor was serious; his face was grave; his tone was simple and business-like. But as he unfolded these rude drawings, Calabressa, who understood but little German, was more and more astonished to find the guttural laughter around him increase and increase until the whole place resounded with roars, while some of the old Herren held their sides in pain, as the tears of the gigantic mirth streamed down their cheeks. Those who were able hammered loud applause on the table before them; others rolled in their chairs; many could only lie back and send their merriment up to the reverberating roof in shrill shrieks and yells.

"In the name of Heaven, what is it all about?" said Calabressa. "Have the people gone mad?"

"Ill.u.s.trations of German proverbs," said Beratinsky, who, despite his surly manner, was himself forced to smile.

Well, Calabressa had indeed come here to talk about Lind's daughter; but it was impossible, amidst this wild surging to and fro of Olympian laughter. At last, however, the showman came to an end of his cartoons, and solemnly made his bow, and amidst tumultuous cheering resumed his place among his companions.

There was a pause, given over to chatter and joking, and Calabressa quickly embraced this opportunity.

"You are a friend of the little Natalushka--of the beautiful Natalie, I should say, perhaps?"

"Lind's daughter does not choose to have many friends," said Beratinsky, curtly.

This was not promising; and, indeed, the corpulent little Pole showed great disinclination to talk about the young lady who had so laid hold of Calabressa's heart. But Calabressa was not to be denied, when it was the welfare of the daughter of Natalie Berezolyi that was concerned.

"Yes, yes, friend Beratinsky, of course she is very much alone. It is rather a sad thing for a young girl to be so much alone."

"And if she chooses to be alone?" said Beratinsky, with a sharpness that resembled the snarl of a terrier.

Perhaps it was to get rid of the topic that Beratinsky here joined in a clamorous call for "Nageli! Nageli!" Presently a fresh-colored young Switzer, laughing and blushing tremendously, went up to the platform and took his seat at the piano, and struck a few noisy chords. It was a Tyrolese song he sung, with a jodel refrain of his own invention:

"Hat einer ein Schatzerl, So bleibt er dabei, Er nimmt sie zum Weiberl, Und liebt sie recht treu.

Dann fangt man die Wirthschaft Gemeinschaftlich an, Und liebt sich, und herzt sich So sehr als man kann!"

Great cheering followed the skilfully executed jodel. In the midst of it, one of the members rose and said, in German,

"Meine Herren! You know our good friend Nageli is going to leave us; perhaps we shall not see him again for many years. I challenge you to drink this toast: 'Nageli, and his quick return!' I say to him what some of the shopkeepers in our Father-land say to their customers, 'Kommen Sie bald wieder!'"

Here there was a great shouting of "Nageli! Nageli!" until one started the chorus, which was immediately and sonorously sung by the whole a.s.semblage,

"Hoch soll er leben!

Hoch soll er leben!

Dreimal hoch!"

Another pause, chiefly devoted to the ordering of Hochheimer and the lighting of fresh cigars. The souls of the sons of the Father-land were beginning to warm.

"Friend Beratinsky," said the anxious-hearted albino, "perhaps you know that many years ago I knew the mother of Natalie Lind; she was a neighbor--a companion--of mine: and I am interested in the little one. A young girl sometimes has need of friends. Now, you are in a position--"

"Friend Calabressa, you may save your breath," said the other, coldly.

"The young lady might have had my friendship if she had chosen. She did not choose. I suppose she is old enough--and proud enough--to choose her own friends. Yes, yes, friend Calabressa, I have heard. But we will say nothing more: now listen to this comical fellow."

Calabressa was not thinking of the young Englishman who now sat down at the piano; a strange suspicion was beginning to fill his mind. Was it possible, he began inwardly to ask, that Vincent Beratinsky had himself aspired to marry the beautiful Hungarian girl?

This good-looking young English fellow, with a gravity equal to that of the sham showman, explained to his audience that he was composing an operetta, of which he would give them a few pa.s.sages. He was a skilful pianist. He explained, as his fingers ran up and down the keys, that the scene was in Ratcliffe Highway. A tavern: a hornpipe. Jack ash.o.r.e.

Unseemly squabbles: here there were harsh discords and shrill screams.

Drunkenness: the music getting very helpless. Then the daylight comes--the chirping of sparrows--Jack wanders out--the breath of the morning stirs his memories--he thinks of other days. Then comes in Jack's song, which neither Calabressa nor any one else present could say was meant to be comic, or pathetic, or a demoniac mixture of both. The accompaniment which the handsome young English fellow played was at once rhythmical, and low and sad, like the wash of waves:

"Oh, the days were long, And the summers were long, When Jane and I went courtin'; The hills were blue beyond the sky; The heather was soft where we did lie; We kissed our fill, did Jane and I, When Jane and I went courtin'.

"When Jane and I went courtin', Oh, the days were long, And the summers were long!

We walked by night beyond the quay; Above, the stars; below, the sea; And I kissed Jane, and Jane kissed me, When Jane and I went courtin'.

"But Jane she married the sodger-chap; An end to me and my courtin'.

And I took ship, and here I am; And where I go, I care not a d.a.m.n-- Rio, Jamaica, Seringapatam-- Good-bye to Jane and the courtin'."

This second professor of gravity was abundantly cheered too when he rose from the piano; for the music was quaint and original with a sort of unholy, grotesque pathos running through it. Calabressa resumed:

"My good Beratinsky, what is it that you have heard?"

"No matter. Natalie Lind has no need of your good offices, Calabressa.

She can make friends for herself, and quickly enough, too."

Calabressa's eyes were not keen, but his ears were; he detected easily the personal rancor in the man's tone.