The First Violin Part 31

He roused himself, sat up, and looked at me with an ambiguous half smile.

"Most punctual of men! most worthy, honest, fidgety old friend," said he, with still the same suppressed smile, "how I honor you! How I wish I could emulate you! How I wish I were like you! and yet, Friedel, old boy, you have missed something this afternoon."

"So! I should like to know what you have been doing. Give an account of yourself."

"I have erred and gone astray, and have found it pleasant. I have done that which I ought not to have done, and am sorry, for the sake of morality and propriety, to have to say that it was delightful; far more delightful than to go on doing just what one ought to do. Say, good Mentor, does it matter? For this occasion only. Never again, as I am a living man."

"I wish you would speak plainly," said I, first putting the lamp and then myself upon the table. I swung my legs about and looked at him.

"And not go on telling you stories like that of Munchausen, in Arabesks, eh? I will be explicit; I will use the indicative mood, present tense.

Now then. I like Cologne; I like the cathedral of that town; I like the Hotel du Nord; and, above all, I love the railway station."

"Are you raving?"

"Did you ever examine the Cologne railway station?" he went on, lighting a cigar. "There is a great big waiting-room, which they lock up; there is a delightful place in which you may get lost, and find yourself suddenly alone in a deserted wing of the building, with an impertinent porter, who doesn't understand one word of Eng--of your native tongue--"

"Are you mad?" was my varied comment.

"And while you are in the greatest distress, separated from your friends, who have gone on to Elberthal (like mine), and struggling to make this porter understand you, you may be encountered by a mooning individual--a native of the land--and you may address him. He drives the fumes of music from his brain, and looks at you, and finds you charming--more than charming. My dear Friedhelm, the look in your eyes is quite painful to see. By the exercise of a little diplomacy, which, as you are charmingly nave, you do not see through, he manages to seal an alliance by which you and he agree to pa.s.s three or four hours in each other's society, for mutual instruction and entertainment. The entertainment consists of cutlets, potatoes--the kind called kartoffeln frittes, which they give you very good at the Nord--and the wine known to us as Doctorberger. The instruction is varied, and is carried on chiefly in the aisle of the Kolner Dom, to the sound of music. And when he is quite spell-bound, in a magic circle, a kind of golden net or cloud, he pulls out an earthly watch, made of dust and dross ('More fool he,' your eye says, and you are quite right), and sees that time is advancing. A whole army of horned things with stings, called feelings of propriety, honor, correctness, the right thing, etc., come in thick battalions in _sturmschritt_ upon him, and with a hasty word he hurries her--he gets off to the station. There is still an hour, for both are coming to Elberthal--an hour of unalloyed delight; then"--he snapped his fingers--"a drosky, an address, a crack of the whip, and _ade_!"

I sat and stared at him while he wound up this rhodomontade by singing:

"Ade, ade, ade!

Ja, Scheiden und Meiden thut Weh!"

"You are too young and fair," he presently resumed, "too slight and sober for apoplexy; but a painful fear seizes me that your mental faculties are under some slight cloud. There is a vacant look in your usually radiant eyes; a want of intelligence in the curve of your rosy lips--"

"Eugen! Stop that string of fantastic rubbish! Where have you been, and what have you been doing?"

"I have not deserved that from you. Haven't I been telling you all this time where I have been and what I have been doing? There is a brutality in your behavior which is to a refined mind most lamentable."

"But where have you been, and what have you done?"

"Another time, _mein lieber_--another time!"

With this misty promise I had to content myself. I speculated upon the subject for that evening, and came to the conclusion that he had invented the whole story, to see whether I would believe it (for we had all a reprehensible habit of that kind), and very soon the whole circ.u.mstance dropped from my memory.

On the following morning I had occasion to go to the public eye hospital. Eugen and I had interested ourselves to procure a ticket for free, or almost free, treatment as an out-patient for a youth whom we knew--one of the second violins--whose sight was threatened, and who, poor boy, could not afford to pay for proper treatment. Eugen being busy, I went to receive the ticket.

It was the first time I had been in the place. I was shown into a room with the light somewhat obscured, and there had to wait some few minutes. Every one had something the matter with his or her eyes--at least so I thought, until my own fell upon a girl who leaned, looking a little tired and a little disappointed, against a tall desk at one side of the room.

She struck me on the instant as no feminine appearance had ever struck me before. She, like myself, seemed to be waiting for some one or something. She was tall and supple in figure, and her face was girlish and very innocent-looking; and yet, both in her att.i.tude and countenance there was a little pride, some hauteur. It was evidently natural to her, and sat well upon her. A slight but exquisitely molded figure, different from those of our stalwart Elberthaler _Madchen_--finer, more refined and distinguished, and a face to dream of. I thought it then, and I say it now. Ma.s.ses, almost too thick and heavy, of dark auburn hair, with here and there a glint of warmer hue, framed that beautiful face--half woman's, half child's. Dark-gray eyes, with long dark lashes and brows; cheeks naturally very pale, but sensitive, like some delicate alabaster, showing the red at every wave of emotion; something racy, piquant, unique, enveloped the whole appearance of this young girl. I had never seen anything at all like her before.

She looked wearily round the room, and sighed a little. Then her eyes met mine; and seeing the earnestness with which I looked at her, she turned away, and a slight, very slight, flush appeared in her cheek.

I had time to notice (for everything about her interested me) that her dress was of the very plainest and simplest kind, so plain as to be almost poor, and in its fashion not of the newest, even in Elberthal.

Then my name was called out. I received my ticket, and went to the probe at the theater.

CHAPTER XIX.

"Wishes are pilgrims to the vale of tears."

A week--ten days pa.s.sed. I did not see the beautiful girl again--nor did I forget her. One night at the opera I found her. It was "Lohengrin"--but she has told all that story herself--how Eugen came in late (he had a trick of never coming in till the last minute, and I used to think he had some reason for it)--and the recognition and the cut direct, first on her side, then on his.

Eugen and I walked home together, arm in arm, and I felt provoked with him.

"I say, Eugen, did you see the young lady with Vincent and the others in the first row of the parquet?"

"I saw some six or eight ladies of various ages in the first row of the parquet. Some were old and some were young. One had a knitted shawl over her head, which she kept on during the whole of the performance."

"Don't be so maddening. I said the young lady with Vincent and Fraulein Sartorius. By the bye, Eugen, do you know, or have you ever known her?"

"Who?"

"Fraulein Sartorius."

"Who is she?"

"Oh, bother! The young lady I mean sat exactly opposite to you and me--a beautiful young girl; an _Englanderin_--fair, with that hair that we never see here, and--"

"In a brown hat--sitting next to Vincent. I saw her--yes."

"She saw you too."

"She must have been blind if she hadn't."

"Have you seen her before?"

"I have seen her before--yes."

"And spoken to her?"

"Even spoken to her."

"Do tell me what it all means."

"Nothing."

"But, Eugen--"

"Are you so struck with her, Friedel? Don't lose your heart to her, I warn you."

"Why?" I inquired, wilily, hoping the answer would give me some clew to his acquaintance with her.