The Happy End Part 36

The voice, except for its resemblance to his own, did not absorb his attention; it was the song itself that thrilled and held him. He had never before heard music at once so clear and capable of such depths.

He realized instinctively, with a tightening of his heart, that he was listening to one of the great songs of which Janin had spoken. It hung for a minute or more in his hearing, thrilling every nerve, and then died away. It stopped actually, but its harmony rang in Harry Baggs'

brain. Instantly it had become an essential, a permanent part of his being. It filled him with a violent sense of triumph, a richness of possession that gave birth to a new unconquerable pride.

He rose, waited for a short s.p.a.ce; but nothing more followed. He was glad of that; he had no wish to blur the impressions of the first. Harry Baggs hurried up the road and crossed the field to where he had left French Janin. The latter was still sleeping, crumpled against the vegetation. Baggs grasped the thin shoulder, shook him into consciousness.

"I have just heard something," he said. "Listen! What is it?"

He sang without further preliminary, subst.i.tuting a blank phrasing for uncomprehended words; but the melody swept without faltering to its conclusion. Janin answered irritably, disturbed by his rude awakening:

"The Serenade from Don Giovanni--Mozart. Well, what about it?"

"It's wonderful!" Harry Baggs declared. "Are there any more as great?"

"It is good," Janin agreed, his interest stirred; "but there are better--the Dio Possente, the Brindisi from Hamlet. Once I led the finale of Hamlet. I saw the Director----"

"I'll get every one," the boy interrupted.

"There are others now, newer--finer still, I'm told; but I don't know."

Janin rose and steadied himself against the fence. "Give me a start.

I've been getting confused lately; I don't seem to keep a direction like I could. From Don Giovanni: _'Deh vieni alla finestra_'--'Come to the window' 's about it. I'm glad you're not a tenor; they're delicate and mean. But you are a fine boy, Harry; you'll take the old man up along with you!"

He talked in a rapid faint voice, like his breathing. Harry Baggs grasped his arm and led him down to their shanty. French Janin entered first, and immediately the other heard a thin complaint from within:

"Somebody's got that nice bed you made me."

Harry Baggs went into the hut and, stooping, shook a rec.u.mbent shape.

"Get out of the old man's place!" he commanded.

A string of m.u.f.fled oaths responded.

"There's no reserved rooms here."

"Get out!" Baggs insisted.

The shape heaved up obscurely and the boy sent him reeling through the door. French Janin sank with weary relief on the straw and bagging. He grasped the thick young arm above him.

"We won't be long in this," he declared; "diamond studs!"

He fell asleep instantly, with his fingers caught in Harry Baggs'

sleeve. The latter, with the supreme egotism of youth, of a single ambition, loosened the hand and moved out of the narrow confinement of the shanty. He wanted s.p.a.ce, the sky, into which to sing his imaginary triumphant songs.

VII

The next day moved toward its end without arresting incident. Janin and Harry Baggs had walked to the public road, where they stood leaning against the rail fence. The smoke from Baggs' pipe uprose in unbroken spheres; the evening was definitely hot. French Janin said:

"In the town to-day I asked about that house here at the bend. It seems he's got money; comes for a couple of months in the spring--just like us--and then goes to Europe like as not. Perhaps he knows a voice."

The blind man fell silent, contemplative.

"Trouble is," he broke out fretfully, "we've got nothing to sing. That about the 'd.a.m.n old n.i.g.g.e.r' won't do. You ought to know something like the Serenade.

"Well," he added after a moment, "why not? I could teach you the words--it's Italian; you've nearly got the air. It's all wrong and backward; but this isn't the Conservatoire. You can forget it when you have started; sing exercises again."

"When can we begin?" Harry Baggs asked.

"We'll brush our clothes up best we can," Janin proceeded, absorbed in his planning, "and go up to the porch of an evening. 'Mr.

Brinton'--that's his name--I'll say, 'I'm M. Janin, once of the orchestra at the Opera Comique, and I'd like you to listen to a pupil of mine. I've heard them all and this boy is better----'" He stopped; took morphia.

"Can't you stop that for a day?" Harry Baggs demanded desperately.

"Can't you?"

He watched with bitter rebellion the inevitable slackening of the other's being, the obfuscation of his mind. Janin hung over the fence, with hardly more semblance of life than an incredibly tattered and empty garment.

"Come on, you old fool!" Baggs exclaimed, burning with impatience, balked desire; he half carried him brusquely to his bed.

Yet, under the old man's fluctuating tuition, he actually began the Serenade within twenty-four hours. "_Deh vieni alla finestra_," French Janin p.r.o.nounced. "_Deh vieni_----" Harry Baggs struggled after him. His brow grew wet with the intensity of his effort; his tongue, it seemed to him, would never accomplish the desired syllables.

Janin made a determined effort to live without his drug; the abstinence emphasized his fragility and he was cold, even in the heart of the long sunny day; but the effort stayed him with a flickering vitality, bred visions, renewed hopes of the future. He repeated the names of places, opera houses--the San Carlo, in Naples; the Scala--unknown to Harry Baggs, but which came to him with a strange vividness. The learning of the Serenade progressed slowly; French Janin forgot whole phrases, some of which returned to memory; one entire line he was forced to supply from imagination.

At last the boy could sing it with a degree of intelligence; Janin translated and reconstructed the scene, the characters.

"You ought to have some good clothes," he told Harry Baggs; he spoke again of the necessity of a diamond stud.

"Well, I haven't," the other stated shortly. "They'll have to listen to me without looking."

He borrowed a rusted razor and subjected himself to the pain of an awkward shaving; then inadequately washed his sole shirt and looped the frayed collar with a nondescript tie.

The night was immaculate; the moon, past the full, cast long segments of light and shadow across the countryside. Harry Baggs drew a deep breath:

"We might as well go."

French Janin objected; he wasn't ready; he wasn't quite sure of what he was going to say. Then:

"I haven't anything to show. Perhaps they will laugh at me--at Janin, of the Opera Comique. I couldn't allow that."

"I'm going to sing," the boy reminded him; "if it's any good they won't laugh. If what you say's right they'll have to believe you."

"I feel bad to-night, too, in my legs."

"Get your violin."

A fresh difficulty arose: French Janin positively refused to play on his present instrument before a critical audience.

"It's as thin as a cat," he protested. "Do you want me to make a show of myself?"

"All right; I'll sing alone. Come on!"

Janin's legs were uncertain; he stumbled over the path to the road and stopped at the fence. He expressed fresh doubts, the hesitation of old age; but Harry Baggs silenced him, forced him on. A cold fear possessed the boy, which he resolutely suppressed: if Janin were wrong, his voice worthless, if they laughed, he was done. Opportunity, he felt, would never return. With his voice scorned, no impetus remained; he had no other interest in life, no other power that could subdue the slight inward flaw.