The First Violin Part 16

"That is too funny, that you should instruct me in such things. Why, I have a ticket for all the proben, as any one can have who chooses to pay two thalers at the _sa.s.se_. I have a mind to hear this. They say the orchestra are going to rebel against von Francius. And I am going to the concert to-morrow, too. One can not hear too much of such fine music; and when one's friend sings, too--"

"What friend of yours is going to sing?" I inquired, coldly.

"Why, you, you _allerliebster kleiner Engel_," said she, in a tone of familiarity, to which I strongly objected.

I could say no more against her going, but certainly displayed no enthusiastic desire for her company.

The probe, we found, was to be in the great saal; it was half lighted, and there were perhaps some fifty people, holders of probe-tickets, seated in the parquet.

"You are going to sing well to-night," said von Francius, as he handed me up the steps--"for my sake and your own, _nicht wahr_?"

"I will try," said, I, looking round the great orchestra, and seeing how full it was--so many fresh faces, both in chorus and orchestra.

And as I looked, I saw Courvoisier come in by the little door at the top of the orchestra steps and descend to his place. His face was clouded--very clouded; I had never seen him look thus before. He had no smile for those who greeted him. As he took his place beside Helfen, and the latter asked him some question, he stared absently at him, then answered with a look of absence and weariness.

"Herr Courvoisier," said von Francius--and I, being near, heard the whole dialogue--"you always allow yourself to be waited for."

Courvoisier glanced up. I with a new, sudden interest, watched the behavior of the two men. In the face of von Francius I thought to discover dislike, contempt.

"I beg your pardon; I was detained," answered Courvoisier, composedly.

"It is unfortunate that you should be so often detained at the time when your work should be beginning."

Unmoved and unchanging, Courvoisier heard and submitted to the words, and to the tone in which they were spoken--sarcastic, sneering, and unbelieving.

"Now we will begin," pursued von Francius, with a disagreeable smile, as he rapped with his baton upon the rail. I looked at Courvoisier--looked at his friend, Friedhelm Helfen. The former was sitting as quietly as possible, rather pale, and with the same clouded look, but not deeper than before; the latter was flushed, and eyed von Francius with no friendly glance.

There seemed a kind of slumbering storm in the air. There was none of the lively discussion usual at the proben. Courvoisier, first of the first violins, and from whom all the others seemed to take their tone, sat silent, grave and still. Von Francius, though quiet, was biting. I felt afraid of him. Something must have happened to put him into that evil mood.

My part did not come until late in the second part of the oratorio. I had almost forgotten that I was to sing at all, and was watching von Francius and listening to his sharp speeches. I remembered what Anna Sartorius had said in describing this haupt-probe to me. It was all just as she had said. He was severe; his speeches roused the phlegmatic blood, set the professional instrumentalists laughing at their amateur co-operators, but provoked no reply or resentment. It was extraordinary, the effect of this man's will upon those he had to do with--upon women in particular.

There was one haughty-looking blonde--a Swede--tall, majestic, with long yellow curls, and a face full of pride and high temper, who gave herself decided airs, and trusted to her beauty and insolence to carry off certain radical defects of harshness of voice and want of ear. I never forgot how she stared me down from head to foot on the occasion of my first appearance alone, as if to say, "What do you want here?"

It was in vain that she looked haughty and handsome. Addressing her as Fraulein Hulstrom, von Francius gave her a sharp lecture, and imitated the effect of her voice in a particularly soft pa.s.sage with ludicrous accuracy. The rest of the chorus was t.i.ttering audibly, the musicians, with the exception of Courvoisier and his friend, nudging each other and smiling. She bridled haughtily, flashed a furious glance at her mentor, grew crimson, received a sarcastic smile which baffled her, and subsided again.

So it was with them all. His blame was plentiful; his praise so rare as to be almost an unknown quant.i.ty. His chorus and orchestra were famed for the minute perfection and precision of their play and singing.

Perhaps the performance lacked something else--pa.s.sion, color. Von Francius, at that time at least, was no genius, though his talent, his power, and his method were undeniably great. He was, however, not popular--not the Harold, the "beloved leader" of his people.

It was to-night that I was first shown how all was not smooth for him; that in this art union there were splits--"little rifts within the lute," which, should they extend, might literally in the end "make the music mute." I heard whispers around me. "Herr von Francius is angry."--"_Nicht wahr_?"--"Herr Courvoisier looks angry too."--"Yes, he does."--"There will be an open quarrel there soon."--"I think so."--"They are both clever; one should be less clever than the other."--"They are so opposed."--"Yes. They say Courvoisier has a party of his own, and that all the orchestra are on his side."--"So!" in accents of curiosity and astonishment--"_Ja wohl!_ And that if von Francius does not mind, he will see Herr Courvoisier in his place,"

etc., etc., without end. All which excited me much, as the first glimpse into the affairs of those about whom we think much and know little (a form of life well known to women in general) always does interest us.

These things made me forget to be nervous or anxious. I saw myself now as part of the whole, a unit in the sum of a life which interested me.

Von Francius gave me a sign of approval when I had finished, but it was a mechanical one. He was thinking of other things.

The probe was over. I walked slowly down the room looking for Anna Sartorius, more out of politeness than because I wished for her company.

I was relieved to find that she had already gone, probably not finding all the entertainment she expected, and I was able, with a good conscience, to take my way home alone.

My way home! not yet. I was to live through something before I could take my way home.

I went out of the large saal through the long veranda into the street. A flood of moonlight silvered it. There was a laughing, chattering crowd about me--all the chorus; men and girls, going to their homes or their lodgings, in ones or twos, or in large cheerful groups. Almost opposite the Tonhalle was a tall house, one of a row, and of this house the lowest floor was used as a shop for antiquities, curiosities, and a thousand odds and ends useful or beautiful to artists, costumes, suits of armor, old china, anything and everything. The window was yet lighted. As I paused for a moment before taking my homeward way, I saw two men cross the moonlit street and go in at the open door of the shop.

One was Courvoisier; in the other I thought to recognize Friedhelm Helfen, but was not quite sure about it. They did not go into the shop, as I saw by the bright large lamp that burned within, but along the pa.s.sage and up the stairs. I followed them, resolutely beating down shyness, unwillingness, timidity. My reluctant steps took me to the window of the antiquity shop, and I stood looking in before I could make up my mind to enter. Bits of rococo ware stood in the window, majolica jugs, chased metal dishes and bowls, bits of Renaissance work, tapestry, carpet, a helm with the vizor up, gaping at me as if tired of being there. I slowly drew my purse from my pocket, put together three thalers and a ten groschen piece, and with lingering, unwilling steps, entered the shop. A pretty young woman in a quaint dress, which somehow harmonized with the place, came forward. She looked at me as if wondering what I could possibly want. My very agitation gave calmness to my voice as I inquired,

"Does Herr Courvoisier, a musiker, live here?"

"_Ja wohl!_" answered the young woman, with a look of still greater surprise. "On the third _etage_, straight upstairs. The name is on the door."

I turned away, and went slowly up the steep wooden uncarpeted staircase.

On the first landing a door opened at the sound of my footsteps, and a head was popped out--a rough, fuzzy head, with a pale, eager-looking face under the bush of hair.

"Ugh!" said the owner of this amiable visage, and shut the door with a bang. I looked at the plate upon it; it bore the legend, "Hermann Duntze, Maler." To the second _etage_. Another door--another plate: "Bernhardt Knoop, Maler." The house seemed to be a resort of artists.

There was a lamp burning on each landing; and now, at last, with breath and heart alike failing, I ascended the last flight of stairs, and found myself upon the highest _etage_ before another door, on which was roughly painted up, "Eugen Courvoisier." I looked at it with my heart beating suffocatingly. Some one had scribbled in red chalk beneath the Christian name, "Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter." Had it been done in jest or earnest? I wondered, and then knocked. Such a knock!

"_Herein!_"

I opened the door, and stepped into a large, long, low room. On the table, in the center, burned a lamp, and sitting there, with the light falling upon his earnest young face, was Helfen, the violinist, and near to him sat Courvoisier, with a child upon his knee, a little lad with immense dark eyes, tumbled black hair, and flushed, just awakened face.

He was clad in his night-dress and a little red dressing-gown, and looked like a spot of almost feverish, quite tropic brightness in contrast with the grave, pale face which bent over him. Courvoisier held the two delicate little hands in one of his own, and was looking down with love unutterable upon the beautiful, dazzling child-face. Despite the different complexion and a different style of feature too, there was so great a likeness in the two faces, particularly in the broad, n.o.ble brow, as to leave no doubt of the relationship. My musician and the boy were father and son.

Courvoisier looked up as I came in. For one half moment there leaped into his eyes a look of surprise and of something more. If it had lasted a second longer I could have sworn it was welcome--then it was gone. He rose, turned the child over to Helfen, saying, "One moment, Friedel,"

then turned to me as to some stranger who had come on an errand as yet unknown to him, and did not speak. The little one, from Helfen's knee, stared at me with large, solemn eyes, and Helfen himself looked scarcely less impressed.

I have no doubt I looked frightened--I felt so--frightened out of my senses. I came tremulously forward, and offering my pieces of silver, said, in the smallest voice which I had ever used:

"I have come to pay my debt. I did not know where you lived, or I should have done it long before."

He made no motion to take the money, but said--I almost started, so altered was the voice from that of my frank companion at Koln, to an icy coldness of ceremony:

"_Mein Fraulein_, I do not understand."

"You--you--the things you paid for. Do you not remember me?"

"Remember a lady who has intimated that she wishes me to forget her? No, I do not."

What a horribly complicated revenge! thought I, as I said, ever lower and lower, more and more shamedfacedly, while the young violinist sat with the child on his knee, and his soft brown eyes staring at me in wonder:

"I think you must remember. You helped me at Koln, and you paid for my ticket to Elberthal, and for something that I had at the hotel. You told me that was what I owed you."

I again tendered the money; again he made no effort to receive it, but said:

"I am sorry that I do not understand to what you refer. I only know it is impossible that I could ever have told you you owed me three thalers, or three anything, or that there could, under any circ.u.mstances, be any question of money between you and me. Suppose we consider the topic at an end."

Such a voice of ice, and such a manner, to chill the boldest heart, I had never yet encountered. The cool, unspeakable disdain cut me to the quick.

"You have no right to refuse the money," said I, desperately. "You have no right to insult me by--by--" An appropriate peroration refused itself.

Again the sweet, proud, courteous smile; not only courteous, but courtly; again the icy little bow of the head, which would have done credit to a prince in displeasure, and which yet had the deference due from a gentleman to a lady.

"You will excuse the semblance of rudeness which may appear if I say that if you unfortunately are not of a very decided disposition, I am.

It is impossible that I should ever have the slightest intercourse with a lady who has once unequivocally refused my acquaintance. The lady may honor me by changing her mind; I am sorry that I can not respond. I do not change my mind."