The First Violin Part 27

"But what's the end of it? Is that the whole story?"

"I thought I might as well help you a bit," said I, rather awkwardly.

"You were not like other people, you see--it was the child, I think. I was as much amazed as Karl, if I didn't show it so much, and after that--"

"After that?"

"Well. There was the child, you see, and things seemed quite different somehow. I've been very comfortable" (this was my way of putting it) "ever since, and I am curious to see what the boy will be like in a few years. Shall you make him into a musician too?"

Courvoisier's brow clouded a little.

"I don't know," was all he said. Later, I learned the reason of that "don't know."

"So it was no love affair," said Eugen again. "Then I have been wrong all the time. I quite fancied it was some girl--"

"What could make you think so?" I asked, with a whole-hearted laugh. "I tell you I don't know what it is to be in love. The other fellows are always in love. They are in a constant state of _Schwaramerei_ about some girl or other. It goes in epidemics. They have not each a separate pa.s.sion. The whole lot of them will go mad about one young woman. I can't understand it. I wish I could, for they seem to enjoy it so much."

"You heathen!" said he, but not in a very bantering tone.

"Why, Eugen, do you mean to say that you are so very susceptible? Oh, I beg your pardon," I added, hastily, shocked and confused to find that I had been so nearly overstepping the boundary which I had always marked out for myself. And I stopped abruptly.

"That's like you, Friedhelm," said he, in a tone which was in some way different from his usual one. "I never knew such a ridiculous, chivalrous, punctilious fellow as you are. Tell me something--did you never speculate about me?"

"Never impertinently, I a.s.sure you, Eugen," said I, earnestly.

He laughed.

"You impertinent! That is amusing, I must say. But surely you have given me a thought now and then, have wondered whether I had a history, or sprung out of nothing?"

"Certainly, and wondered what your story was; but I do not need to know it to--"

"I understand. Well, but it is rather difficult to say this to such an unsympathetic person; you won't understand it. I have been in love, Friedel."

"So I can suppose."

I waited for the corollary, "and been loved in return," but it did not come. He said, "And received as much regard in return as I deserved--perhaps more."

As I could not cordially a.s.sent to this proposition, I remained silent.

After a pause he went on: "I am eight-and-twenty, and have lived my life. The story won't bear raking up now--perhaps never. For a long time I went on my own way, and was satisfied with it--blindly, inanely, densely satisfied with it; then all at once I was brought to reason--"

He laughed, not a very pleasant laugh. "Brought to reason," he resumed, "but how? By waking one morning to find myself a spoiled man, and spoiled by myself, too."

A pause, while I turned this information over in my mind, and then said, composedly:

"I don't quite believe in your being a spoiled man. Granted that you have made some _fiasco_--even a very bad one--what is to prevent your making a life again?"

"Ha, ha!" said he, ungenially. "Things not dreamed of, Friedel, by your straightforward philosophy. One night I was, take it all in all, straight with the world and my destiny; the next night I was an outcast, and justly so. I don't complain. I have no right to complain."

Again he laughed.

"I once knew some one," said I, "who used to say that many a good man and many a great man was lost to the world simply because nothing interrupted the course of his prosperity."

"Don't suppose that I am an embryo hero of any description," said he, bitterly. "I am merely, as I said, a spoiled man, brought to his senses and with life before him to go through as best he may, and the knowledge that his own fault has brought him to what he is."

"But look here! If it is merely a question of name or money," I began.

"It is not merely that; but suppose it were, what then?"

"It lies with yourself. You may make a name either as a composer or performer--your head or your fingers will secure you money and fame."

"None the less should I be, as I said, a spoiled man," he said, quietly.

"I should be ashamed to come forward. It was I myself who sent myself and my prospects _caput_;[A] and for that sort of obscurity is the best taste and the right sphere."

[Footnote A: _Caput_--a German slang expression with the general significance of the English "gone to smash," but also a hundred other and wider meanings, impossible to render in brief.]

"But there's the boy," I suggested. "Let him have the advantage."

"Don't, don't!" he said, suddenly, and wincing visibly, as if I had touched a raw spot. "No; my one hope for him is that he may never be known as my son."

"But--but--"

"Poor little beggar! I wonder what will become of him," he uttered, after a pause, during which I did not speak again.

Eugen puffed fitfully at his cigar, and at last knocking the ash from it and avoiding my eyes, he said, in a low voice:

"I suppose some time I must leave the boy."

"Leave him!" I echoed, intelligently.

"When he grows a little older--before he is old enough to feel it very much, though, I must part from him. It will be better."

Another pause. No sign of emotion, no quiver of the lips, no groan, though the heart might be afaint. I sat speechless.

"I have not come to the conclusion lately. I've always known it," he went on, and spoke slowly. "I have known it--and have thought about it--so as to get accustomed to it--see?"

I nodded.

"At that time--as you seem to have a fancy for the child--will you give an eye to him--sometimes, Friedel--that is, if you care enough for me--"

For a moment I did not speak. Then I said:

"You are quite sure the parting must take place?"

He a.s.sented.

"When it does, will you give him to me--to my charge altogether?"

"What do you mean?"