Three Soldiers Part 75

"He had another think comin'." They both laughed.

Andrews walked off, vaguely angry. There were many soldiers on the Boulevard Montparna.s.se. He turned into a side street, feeling suddenly furtive and humble, as if he would hear any minute the harsh voice of a sergeant shouting orders at him.

The silver in his breeches pocket jingled with every step.

Andrews leaned on the bal.u.s.trade of the balcony, looking down into the square in front of the Opera Comique. He was dizzy with the beauty of the music he had been hearing. He had a sense somewhere in the distances of his mind of the great rhythm of the sea. People chattered all about him on the wide, crowded balcony, but he was only conscious of the blue-grey mistiness of the night where the lights made patterns in green-gold and red-gold. And compelling his attention from everything else, the rhythm swept through him like sea waves.

"I thought you'd be here," said Genevieve Rod in a quiet voice beside him.

Andrews felt strangely tongue-tied.

"It's nice to see you," he blurted out, after looking at her silently for a moment.

"Of course you love Pelleas."

"It is the first time I've heard it."

"Why haven't you been to see us? It's two weeks.... We've been expecting you."

"I didn't know...Oh, I'll certainly come. I don't know anyone at present I can talk music to."

"You know me."

"Anyone else, I should have said."

"Are you working?"

"Yes.... But this hinders frightfully." Andrews yanked at the front of his tunic. "Still, I expect to be free very soon. I'm putting in an application for discharge."

"I suppose you will feel you can do so much better.... You will be much stronger now that you have done your duty."

"No... by no means."

"Tell me, what was that you played at our house?"

"'The Three Green Riders on Wild a.s.ses,'" said Andrews smiling.

"What do you mean?"

"It's a prelude to the 'Queen of Sheba,'" said Andrews. "If you didn't think the same as M. Emile f.a.guet and everyone else about St. Antoine, I'd tell you what I mean."

"That was very silly of me.... But if you pick up all the silly things people say accidentally... well, you must be angry most of the time."

In the dim light he could not see her eyes. There was a little glow on the curve of her cheek coming from under the dark of her hat to her rather pointed chin. Behind it he could see other faces of men and women crowded on the balcony talking, lit up crudely by the gold glare that came out through the French windows from the lobby.

"I have always been tremendously fascinated by the place in La Tentation where the Queen of Sheba visited Antoine, that's all," said Andrews gruffly.

"Is that the first thing you've done? It made me think a little of Borodine."

"The first that's at all pretentious. It's probably just a steal from everything I've ever heard."

"No, it's good. I suppose you had it in your head all through those dreadful and glorious days at the front.... Is it for piano or orchestra?"

"All that's finished is for piano. I hope to orchestrate it eventually.... Oh, but it's really silly to talk this way. I don't know enough.... I need years of hard work before I can do anything.... And I have wasted so much time.... That is the most frightful thing. One has so few years of youth!"

"There's the bell, we must scuttle back to our seats. Till the next intermission." She slipped through the gla.s.s doors and disappeared.

Andrews went back to his seat very excited, full of unquiet exultation.

The first strains of the orchestra were pain, he felt them so acutely.

After the last act they walked in silence down a dark street, hurrying to get away from the crowds of the Boulevards.

When they reached the Avenue de l'Opera, she said: "Did you say you were going to stay in France?"

"Yes, indeed, if I can. I am going tomorrow to put in an application for discharge in France."

"What will you do then?"

"I shall have to find a job of some sort that will let me study at the Schola Cantorum. But I have enough money to last a little while."

"You are courageous."

"I forgot to ask you if you would rather take the Metro."

"No; let's walk."

They went under the arch of the Louvre. The air was full of a fine wet mist, so that every street lamp was surrounded by a blur of light.

"My blood is full of the music of Debussy," said Genevieve Rod, spreading out her arms.

"It's no use trying to say what one feels about it. Words aren't much good, anyway, are they?"

"That depends."

They walked silently along the quais. The mist was so thick they could not see the Seine, but whenever they came near a bridge they could hear the water rustling through the arches.

"France is stifling," said Andrews, all of a sudden. "It stifles you very slowly, with beautiful silk bands.... America beats your brains out with a policeman's billy."

"What do you mean?" she asked, letting pique chill her voice.

"You know so much in France. You have made the world so neat...."

"But you seem to want to stay here," she said with a laugh.

"It's that there's nowhere else. There is nowhere except Paris where one can find out things about music, particularly.... But I am one of those people who was not made to be contented."

"Only sheep are contented."