The First Violin

“Lohengrin” had no more attraction for me. I felt in pain that was almost physical, and weak with excitement as at last the curtain fell and we left our places.

“You were very quiet,” said Vincent, as we walked home. “Did you not enjoy it?”

“Very much, thank you. It was very beautiful,” said I, faintly.

“So Herr Courvoisier was not at the soirée,” said the loud, rough voice of Anna Sartorius.

“No,” was all Vincent said.

“Did you have anything new? Was Herr von Francius there too?”

“Yes; he was there too.”

I pondered. Brinks whistled loudly the air of Elsa’s “Brautzug,” as we paced across the Lindenallée. We had not many paces to go. The lamps were lighted, the people were thronging thick as in the daytime. The air was full of laughter, talk, whistling and humming of the airs from the opera. My ear strained eagerly through the confusion. I could have caught the faintest sound of Courvoisier’s voice had it been there, but it was not. And we came home; Vincent opened the door with his latch-key, said, “It has not been very brilliant, has it? That tenor is a stick,” and we all went to our different rooms. It was in such wise that I met Eugen Courvoisier for the second time.

CHAPTER XI

“Will you sing?”

The theater season closed with that evening on which “Lohengrin” was performed. I ran no risk of meeting Courvoisier face to face again in that alarming, sudden manner. But the subject had assumed diseased proportions in my mind. I found myself confronted with him yet, and week after week. My business in Elberthal was music – to learn as much music and hear as much music as I could: wherever there was music there was also Eugen Courvoisier – naturally. There was only one städtische Kapelle in Elberthal. Once a week at least – each Saturday – I saw him, and he saw me at the unfailing instrumental concert to which every one in the house went, and to absent myself from which would instantly set every one wondering what could be my motive for it. My usual companions were Clara Steinmann, Vincent, the Englishman, and often Frau Steinmann herself. Anna Sartorius and some other girl students of art usually brought sketch-books, and were far too much occupied in making studies or caricatures of the audience to pay much attention to the music. The audience were, however, hardened; they were used to it. Anna and her friends were not alone in the practice. There were a dozen or more artists or soi-disant artists busily engaged with their sketch-books. The concert-room offered a rich field to them. One could at least be sure of one thing – that they were not taking off the persons at whom they looked most intently. There must be quite a gallery hidden away in some old sketch-books – of portraits or wicked caricatures of the audience that frequented the concerts of the Instrumental Musik Verein. I wonder where they all are? Who has them? What has become of the light-hearted sketchers? I often recall those homely Saturday evening concerts; the long, shabby saal with its faded out-of-date decorations; its rows of small tables with the well-known groups around them; the mixed and motley audience. How easy, after a little while, to pick out the English, by their look of complacent pleasure at the delightful ease and unceremoniousness of the whole affair; their gladness at finding a public entertainment where one’s clothes were not obliged to be selected with a view to outshining those of every one else in the room; the students shrouded in a mystery, secret and impenetrable, of tobacco smoke. The spruce-looking school-boys from the Gymnasium and Realschule, the old captains and generals, the Fräulein their daughters, the gnädigen Frauen their wives; dressed in the disastrous plaids, checks, and stripes, which somehow none but German women ever got hold of. Shades of Le Follet! What costumes there were on young and old for an observing eye! What bonnets, what boots, what stupendously daring accumulation of colors and styles and periods of dress crammed and piled on the person of one substantial Frau Generalin, or Doctorin or Professorin! The low orchestra – the tall, slight, yet commanding figure of von Francius on the estrade; his dark face with its indescribable mixture of pride, impenetrability and insouciance; the musicians behind him – every face of them well known to the audience as those of the audience to them: it was not a mere “concert,” which in England is another word for so much expense and so much vanity – it was a gathering of friends. We knew the music in which the Kapelle was most at home; we knew their strong points and their weak ones; the passage in the Pastoral Symphony where the second violins were a little weak; that overture where the blaseninstrumente came out so well – the symphonies one heard – the divine wealth of undying art and beauty! Those days are past: despite what I suffered in them they had their joys for me. Yes; I suffered at those concerts. I must ever see the one face which for me blotted out all others in the room, and endure the silent contempt which I believed I saw upon it. Probably it was my own feeling of inward self-contempt which made me believe I saw that expression there. His face had for me a miserable, basilisk-like attraction. When I was there he was there, I must look at him and endure the silent, smiling disdain which I at least believed he bestowed upon me. How did he contrive to do it? How often our eyes met, and every time it happened he looked me full in the face, and never would give me the faintest gleam of recognition! It was as though I looked at two diamonds, which returned my stare unwinkingly and unseeingly. I managed to make myself thoroughly miserable – pale and thin with anxiety and self-reproach I let this man, and the speculation concerning him, take up my whole thoughts, and I kept silence, because I dreaded so intensely lest any question should bring out the truth. I smiled drearily when I thought that there certainly was no danger of any one but Miss Hallam ever knowing it, for the only person who could have betrayed me chose now, of deliberate purpose, to cut me as completely as I had once cut him.

As if to show very decidedly that he did intend to cut me, I met him one day, not in the street, but in the house, on the stairs. He sprung up the steps, two at a time, came to a momentary pause on the landing, and looked at me. No look of surprise, none of recognition. He raised his hat; that was nothing; in ordinary politeness he would have done it had he never seen me in his life before. The same cold, bright, hard glance fell upon me, keen as an eagle’s, and as devoid of every gentle influence as the same.

I silently held out my hand.

He looked at it for a moment, then with a grave coolness which chilled me to the soul, murmured something about “not having the honor,” bowed slightly, and stepping forward, walked into Vincent’s room.

I was going to the room in which my piano stood, where I had my music lessons, for they had told me that Herr von Francius was waiting. I looked at him as I went into the room. How different he was from that other man; darker, more secret, more scornful-looking, with not less power, but so much less benevolence.

I was distrait, and sung exceedingly ill. We had been going through the solo soprano parts of the “Paradise Lost.” I believe I sung vilely that morning. I was not thinking of Eva’s sin and the serpent, but of other things, which, despite the story related in the Book of Genesis, touched me more nearly. Several times already had he made me sing through Eva’s stammering answer to her God’s question:

“Ah, Lord!.. The Serpent!The beautiful, glittering Serpent,With his beautiful, glittering words,He, Lord, did lead astrayThe weak Woman!”

“Bah!” exclaimed von Francius, when I had sung it some three or four times, each time worse, each time more distractedly. He flung the music upon the floor, and his eyes flashed, startling me from my uneasy thoughts back to the present. He was looking at me with a dark cloud upon his face. I stared, stooped meekly, and picked up the music.

“Fräulein, what are you dreaming about?” he asked, impatiently. “You are not singing Eva’s shame and dawning terror as she feels herself undone. You are singing – and badly, too – a mere sentimental song, such as any school-girl might stumble through. I am ashamed of you.”

“I – I,” stammered I, crimsoning, and ashamed for myself too.

“You were thinking of something else,” he said, his brow clearing a little. “Na! it comes so sometimes. Something has happened to distract your attention. The amiable Miss Hallam has been a little more amiable than usual.”

“No.”

“Well, well. ’S ist mir egal. But now, as you have wasted half an hour in vanity and vexation, will you be good enough to let your thoughts return here to me and to your duty? or else – I must go, and leave the lesson till you are in the right voice again.”

“I am all right – try me,” said I, my pride rising in arms as I thought of Courvoisier’s behavior a short time ago.

“Very well. Now. You are Eva, please remember, the first woman, and you have gone wrong. Think of who is questioning you, and – ”

“Oh, yes, yes, I know. Please begin.”

He began the accompaniment, and I sung for the fifth time Eva’s scattered notes of shame and excuse.

“Brava!” said he, when I had finished, and I was the more startled as he had never before given me the faintest sign of approval, but had found such constant fault with me that I usually had a fit of weeping after my lesson; weeping with rage and disappointment at my own shortcomings.

“At last you know what it means,” said he. “I always told you your forte was dramatic singing.”

“Dramatic! But this is an oratorio.”

“It may be called an oratorio, but it is a drama all the same. What more dramatic, for instance, than what you have just sung, and all that goes before? Now suppose we go on. I will take Adam.”

Having given myself up to the music, I sung my best with earnestness. When we had finished von Francius closed the book, looked at me, and said:

“Will you sing the ‘Eva’ music at the concert?”

“I?”

He bowed silently, and still kept his eyes fixed upon my face, as if to say, “Refuse if you dare.”

“I – I’m afraid I should make such a mess of it,” I murmured at last.

“Why any more than to-day?”

“Oh! but all the people!” said I, expostulating; “it is so different.”

He gave a little laugh of some amusement.

“How odd! and yet how like you!” said he. “Do you suppose that the people who will be at the concert will be half as much alive to your defects as I am? If you can sing before me, surely you can sing before so many rows of – ”

“Cabbages? I wish I could think they were.”

“Nonsense! What would be the use, where the pleasure, in singing to cabbages? I mean simply inhabitants of Elberthal. What can there be so formidable about them?”

I murmured something.

“Well, will you do it?”

“I am sure I should break down,” said I, trying to find some sign of relenting in his eyes. I discovered none. He was not waiting to hear whether I said “yes” or “no,” he was waiting until I said “yes.”

“If you did,” he replied, with a friendly smile, “I should never teach you another note.”

“Why not?”

“Because you would be a coward, and not worth teaching.”

“But Miss Hallam?”

“Leave her to me.”

I still hesitated.

“It is the premier pas qui coûte,” said he, keeping a friendly but determined gaze upon my undecided face.

“I want to accustom you to appearing in public,” he added. “By degrees, you know. There is nothing unusual in Germany for one in your position to sing in such a concert.”

“I was not thinking of that; but that it is impossible that I can sing well enough – ”

“You sing well enough for my purpose. You will be amazed to find what an impetus to your studies, and what a filip to your industry will be given by once singing before a number of other people. And then, on the stage – ”

“But I am not going on the stage.”

“I think you are. At least, if you do otherwise you will do wrong. You have gifts which are in themselves a responsibility.”

“I – gifts – what gifts?” I asked, incredulously. “I am as stupid as a donkey. My sisters always said so, and sisters are sure to know; you may trust them for that.”

“Then you will take the soprano solos?”

“Do you think I can?”

“I don’t think you can; I say you must. I will call upon Miss Hallam this afternoon. And the gage– fee – what you call it? – is fifty thalers.”

“What!” I cried, my whole attitude changing to one of greedy expectation. “Shall I be paid?”

“Why, natürlich,” said he, turning over sheets of music, and averting his face to hide a smile.

“Oh! then I will sing.”

“Good! Only please to remember that it is my concert, and I am responsible for the soloists; and pray think rather more about the beautiful glittering serpent than about the beautiful glittering thalers.”

“I can think about both,” was my unholy, time-serving reply.

Fifty thalers. Untold gold!

CHAPTER XII

“Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter.”

It was the evening of the haupt-probe, a fine moonlight night in the middle of May – a month since I had come to Elberthal, and it seemed so much, so very much more.

To my astonishment – and far from agreeable astonishment – Anna Sartorius informed me of her intention to accompany me to the probe. I put objections in her way as well as I knew how, and said I did not think outsiders were admitted. She laughed, and said:

“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 sasse. 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 Fräulein Hulstrom, von Francius gave her a sharp lecture, and imitated the effect of her voice in a particularly soft passage with ludicrous accuracy. The rest of the chorus was tittering 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 quantity. His chorus and orchestra were famed for the minute perfection and precision of their play and singing. Perhaps the performance lacked something else – passion, 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 passage 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 étage, 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 étage. 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 étage 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, noble 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.