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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Melomaniacs, by James Huneker
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Melomaniacs
+
+Author: James Huneker
+
+Release Date: August 22, 2009 [EBook #29751]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MELOMANIACS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards, Barbara Kosker and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This
+file was produced from images generously made available
+by The Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+MELOMANIACS
+
+[Illustration]
+
+JAMES HUNEKER
+
+
+
+
+  MELOMANIACS
+
+  BY
+
+  JAMES HUNEKER
+
+
+
+
+  Come, let us march against the powers of heaven,
+  And set black streamers in the firmament,
+  To signify the slaughter of the Gods.
+
+                              _Marlowe_
+
+
+
+
+  NEW YORK
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+  1902
+
+
+
+
+  _Copyright, 1902, by_
+  CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS
+
+  _All rights reserved_
+
+  PUBLISHED, FEBRUARY, 1902
+
+
+  University Press:
+
+  JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
+
+
+
+
+  TO
+
+  PHILIP HALE
+
+
+
+
+  CONTENTS
+                                                          Page
+
+  THE LORD'S PRAYER IN B                                     1
+
+  A SON OF LISZT                                            11
+
+  A CHOPIN OF THE GUTTER                                    19
+
+  THE PIPER OF DREAMS                                       31
+
+  AN EMOTIONAL ACROBAT                                      63
+
+  ISOLDE'S MOTHER                                           73
+
+  THE RIM OF FINER ISSUES                                   99
+
+  AN IBSEN GIRL                                            118
+
+  TANNHÄUSER'S CHOICE                                      141
+
+  THE RED-HEADED PIANO PLAYER                              158
+
+  BRYNHILD'S IMMOLATION                                    172
+
+  THE QUEST OF THE ELUSIVE                                 183
+
+  AN INVOLUNTARY INSURGENT                                 196
+
+  HUNDING'S WIFE                                           206
+
+  THE CORRIDOR OF TIME                                     224
+
+  AVATAR                                                   240
+
+  THE WEGSTAFFES GIVE A MUSICALE                           255
+
+  THE IRON VIRGIN                                          268
+
+  DUSK OF THE GODS                                         280
+
+  SIEGFRIED'S DEATH                                        294
+
+  INTERMEZZO                                               307
+
+  A SPINNER OF SILENCE                                     315
+
+  THE DISENCHANTED SYMPHONY                                324
+
+  MUSIC THE CONQUEROR                                      347
+
+
+
+
+  MELOMANIACS
+
+
+
+
+THE LORD'S PRAYER IN B
+
+
+At the close of the first day they brought Baruch into the great Hall of
+the Oblates, sometime called the Hall of the Unexpected. The young man
+walked with eyes downcast. Aloft in the vast spaces the swinging domes
+of light made more reddish his curly beard, deepened the hollows on
+either side of his sweetly pointed nose, and accented the determined
+corners of his firmly modelled lips. He was dressed in a simple tunic
+and wore no Talith; and as he slowly moved up the wide aisle the Grand
+Inquisitor, visibly annoyed by the resemblance, said to his famulus,
+"The heretic dares to imitate the Master." He crossed himself and
+shuddered.
+
+Mendoza abated not his reserve as he drew near the long table before the
+Throne. Like a quarry that is at last hemmed in, the Jew was quickly
+surrounded by a half thousand black-robed monks. The silence--sick,
+profound, and awful--was punctuated by the low, sullen tapping of a
+drum. Its droning sound reminded the prisoner of life-blood dripping
+from some single pore; the tone was B, and its insistent, muffled,
+funereal blow at rhythmic intervals would in time have worn away rock.
+Mendoza felt a prevision of his fate; being a musician he knew of
+music's woes and warnings. And he lifted eyes for the first time since
+his arrest in a gloomy, star-lit street of Lisbon.
+
+He saw bleached, shaven faces in a half circle; they seemed like skulls
+fastened on black dummies--so immobile their expression, so deadly
+staring their eyes. The brilliant and festal appearance of the scene
+oppressed him and his eyeballs ached. Symphonies of light were massed
+over the great high walls; glistening and pendulous, they illuminated
+remote ceilings. There was color and taunting gaiety in the decoration;
+the lofty panels contained pictures from the classic poets which seemed
+profane in so sacred an edifice, and just over the Throne gleamed the
+golden tubes of a mighty organ. Then Baruch Mendoza's eyes, half blinded
+by the strange glory of the place to which he had been haled,
+encountered the joyful and ferocious gaze of the Grand Inquisitor. Again
+echoed dolefully the tap of the drum in the key of B, and the prisoner
+shuddered.
+
+A voice was heard: "Baruch Mendoza, thou art before the Throne, and one
+of the humblest of God's creatures asks thee to renounce thy vile
+heresies." Baruch made no answer. The voice again modulated high, its
+menace sweetly hidden.
+
+"Baruch Mendoza, dost thou renounce?" The drum counted two taps. Baruch
+did not reply. For the third time the voice issued from the lips of the
+Grand Inquisitor, as he drew the hood over his face.
+
+"Baruch Mendoza, dog of a Jew, dog of a heretic, believer in no creed,
+wilt thou recant the evil words of thy unspeakable book, prostrate
+thyself before the altar of the Only God, and ask His forgiveness?
+Answer, Baruch Mendoza!"
+
+The man thus interrogated wondered why the Hall of the Oblates was
+adorned with laughing Bacchantes, but he responded not. The drum tapped
+thrice, and there was a burst of choral music from the death-like monks;
+they chaunted the _Dies Iræ_, and the sonorous choir was antiphonally
+answered with anxious rectitude from the gallery, while the organ blazed
+out its frescoed tones. And Baruch knew that his death-hymn was being
+sung.
+
+To him, a despiser of the vesture of things, to him the man with the
+spiritual inner eye, whose philosophy was hated and feared because of
+its subtle denial of the God in high heaven, to Baruch Mendoza the
+universe had seemed empty with an emptiness from which glared no divine
+Judge--his own people's Jahveh--no benignant sufferer appeared on the
+cross. He saw no future life except in the commingling of his substance
+with the elements; and for this contumacious belief, and his timidly
+bold expression of it, he had been waylaid and apprehended in the gloomy
+star-lit street of Lisbon.
+
+The single tap of the drum warned him; the singing had ceased. And this
+bitter idealist, this preacher of the hollowness of the real, wondered
+where were the sable trappings of woe, the hideous envisagement of them
+that are condemned with mortuary symbols in garbs of painted flame to
+the stake, faggot, axe, and headsman. None of these were visible, and
+the gentle spirit of the prisoner became ruffled, alarmed. He expected
+violence but instead they offered churchly music. Restless, his nerves
+fretted, he asked himself the reason. He did not fear death, for he
+despised life; he had no earthly ties; his life's philosophy had been
+fittingly enunciated; and he knew that even though a terrible death
+overtook him his seed had fallen on ripe soil. As he was a descendant
+from some older system that denied the will to live, so would he in turn
+beget disciples who would be beaten, burned and reviled by the great foe
+to liberty--the foe that strangled it before Egypt's theocracy, aye!
+before the day of sun-worshippers invoking their round, burning god,
+riding naked in the blue. Baruch pondered these things, and had almost
+lost his grasp on time and space when something jarred his
+consciousness.
+
+It was the tap of the drum, sombre, dull, hollow and threatening; he
+shivered as he heard its percussive note, and with a start remembered
+that the _Dies Iræ_ had been chaunted in the same key. Once more he
+wondered.
+
+A light touch on the shoulder brought him realization. He stood almost
+alone; the monks were gliding down the great Hall of the Oblates and
+disappearing through a low arched door, the sole opening in the huge
+apartment. One remained, a black friar, absolutely hooded.
+
+Baruch followed him. The pair noiselessly traversed the wonderful hall
+with its canopies of light, its airy arches, massive groinings and
+bewildering blur of color and fragrance; the air was thick and grateful
+with incense. Exactly in the middle of the hall there rested on the
+floor a black shadow, a curiously shaped shadow. It was a life-sized
+crucifix which Baruch had not seen before. To it he was led by the black
+friar, who motioned him to the floor; then this unbelieving Jew and
+atheist laid himself humbly down, and with outstretched arms awaited his
+end.
+
+In few rapid movements the prisoner was chained to the cross; and with a
+penetratingly sweet smile the friar gave him a silent blessing, while
+Baruch's eyes followed the dazzling tracery on the ceiling, and caught a
+glimpse of the golden, gleaming organ tubes above the Throne of
+Judgment.
+
+The stillness was so profound that he heard the soft sighs of the
+candles, the forest of unnumbered candles; the room was windless. Again
+the singular fancy overtook him that the key of B ruled the song of the
+lights, and he stirred painfully because certain sounds irritated him,
+recalling as a child his vague rage at the Kol Nidrei, which was sung in
+the key of B at the synagogue.
+
+He closed his eyes a moment and opened them with fright, for the drum
+sounded near his head, though he could not turn to see it. Suddenly he
+was encircled by ten monks and chaunting heard. Mendoza noticed the
+admirable monotone, the absolute, pitch, and then, with a leap of his
+heart, the key color B again; and the mode was major.
+
+The hooded monks sang in Latin the Lord's Prayer. "Our Father," they
+solemnly intoned--"Our Father who art in Heaven; hallowed be thy name.
+Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven. Give us
+this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses as we forgive
+those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but
+deliver us from evil. Amen."
+
+Baruch tried to sleep. The rich voices lulled him into temporary rest;
+he seemed to have slept hours. But he knew this was impossible, for the
+monks were singing the Lord's Prayer when he awoke. He grew exasperated;
+why need they pray over him? Why did they not take him to his damp cell
+to rot or to be eaten by vermin? This blaze of light was unendurable; it
+penetrated his closed eyelids, painted burning visions on his brain, and
+the music--the accursed music--continued. Again the Lord's Prayer was
+solemnly intoned, and noticing the freshness of the voices he opened his
+eyes, counted ten cowled monks around him; and the key they sang was B,
+the mode major.
+
+Another set, Baruch thought, as he remarked the stature of the singers,
+and sought oblivion. All that night and all next day he chased sleep,
+and the morning of the third day found him with half mad gaze, sleepless
+and frantic. When from deadly exhaustion he would half faint into stupor
+the hollow, sinister sound of the drum stunned his ears, while rich,
+churchly voices of men would intone "Pater noster, qui es in cœlis!"
+and always in the agonizing key of B.
+
+This tone became a monstrous serpent that plunged its fangs into
+Baruch's brain and hissed one implacable tone, the tone B. The drum
+roared the same tone; the voices twined about the crucified Jew and beat
+back sleep, beat back death itself.
+
+The evening of the fourth day Baruch Mendoza was more pallid than his
+robe; his eyes looked like twin stars, they so glittered, and the fire
+in them was hardly of this earth. His cheek-bones started through the
+skin; beard and hair hung in damp masses about the ghastly face and
+head; his lips were parted in a contemptuous grin, and there was a
+strained, listening look on the countenance: he was listening for the
+key that was slaying him, and he saw it now, saw it in the flesh, a
+creeping, crawling, shapeless thing that slowly strangled his life. All
+his soul had flown to his ears, all his senses were lodged in the one
+sense of hearing, and as he heard again and again the Lord's Prayer in
+the key of B the words that compose it separated themselves from the
+tone and assumed an individual life. The awful power of the spoken word
+assailed him, and "Our Father who art in heaven" became for Baruch a
+divine gigantic cannibal, devouring the planets, the stars, the
+firmament, the cosmos, as he created them. The heavens were copper, and
+there gleamed and glared the glance of an eyeball burning like a sun,
+and so threatening that the spirit of the atheist was consumed as a
+scroll in the flame. He cried aloud, "If there is a God, let Him come
+from on high and save me!" The drum sounded more fiercely, a monk
+moistened with water the tortured man's lips, and Baruch groaned when
+the cowled choir chaunted, "Pater noster, qui es in cœlis!"
+
+"Give us this day our daily bread." He asked himself if he had ever
+known hunger and thirst; then other letters of fire came into his brain,
+but through the porches of his ears. "And forgive us our trespasses as
+we forgive those who trespass against us." Could he, he whispered to
+his soul--could he forgive these devils that sang like angels? He almost
+shivered in his attempt to smile; and loathing life heard with sardonic
+amusement: "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil!"
+
+"Amen," groaned Baruch Mendoza. Again the drum boomed dolorously, and
+monkish voices intoned: "Pater noster, qui es in cœlis!"
+
+There was no dawn, no eve in this brassy hell of music. The dripping
+monotone of voices, the dreary pelting of the drum never ceased; and the
+soul of the unbeliever was worn slowly away. The evening of the seventh
+day the Grand Inquisitor, standing at his side, noticed with horror the
+resemblance to the Master, and piously crossed himself.
+
+Seeing the end was nigh, for there was thin froth on the shrivelled gums
+of the man, the mild-voiced Inquisitor made a sign to the black friar,
+and in a moment the music that had never ceased for six days was no
+longer heard, though the air continued to hum with the vibrations of the
+diabolical tone. The black friar knelt beside the dying one, and drawing
+an ivory crucifix from his habit held it to Mendoza's face. Baruch,
+aroused by the cessation of the torturing tonality, opened his eyes,
+which were as black as blood, saw the symbol of Christianity, and with a
+final effort forced from his cracked lips:
+
+"Thou traitor!" As he attempted to blaspheme the sacred image he died,
+despairingly invoking Adonai.
+
+Then rolled forth in rich, triumphant tones the music of "Our Father who
+art in heaven," while the drum sonorously sounded in the key of B, and
+the mode was major.
+
+
+
+
+A SON OF LISZT
+
+    It originated in the wicked vanity of Sir William Davenant
+    himself, who, disdaining his honest but mean descent from
+    the vintner, had the shameless impiety to deny his father
+    and reproach the memory of his mother by claiming
+    consanguinity with Shakespeare.
+
+    --REED'S SHAKESPEARE.
+
+
+Little Holland was very dry.
+
+Little Holland is a shapeless stretch of meadowland pierced by irregular
+canals through which sluggishly flows the water at high tide. Odd shaped
+houses are scattered about, one so near the river that its garden
+overflows in the full of the moon. Dotted around stand conical heaps of
+hay gleaned from this union of land and water. It is called Little
+Holland, for small schooners sail by under the very nose of your house,
+and the hired girl often forgets to serve the salad while flirting with
+the skipper of some sloop. But this August night Little Holland was very
+dry.
+
+As we stood facing the river I curiously examined my host. His face was
+deeply lined by life which had carved a quarter hundred little wrinkles
+about his eyes and the corners of his mouth. His eyes were not true.
+They shifted too much. His thick, brown hair was thrown off his
+forehead in a most exuberantly artistic fashion. His nose jutted well
+into the outer world, and I had to confess that his profile was of a
+certainty striking. But his full face was disappointing. It was too
+narrow; its expression was that of a meagre soul, and his eyes were very
+close together. Yet I liked Piloti; he played the piano well, sang with
+no little feeling, painted neat water sketches and was a capital host.
+
+A sliced cantaloupe moon, full of yellow radiance, arose as we listened
+to the melancholy fall of the water on the muddy flats, and I said to
+Piloti, "Come, let us go within; there you will play for me some tiny
+questioning Chopin prelude, and forget this dolorous night." ... He had
+been staring hard at the moon when I aroused him. "As you will; let us
+go indoors by all means, for this moon gives me the spleen." Then we
+moved slowly toward the house.
+
+Piloti was a bachelor; an old woman kept house and he always addressed
+her in the Hungarian tongue. His wants were simple, but his pride was
+Lucifer's. By no means a virtuoso, he had the grand air, the grand
+style, and when he sat down to play one involuntarily stopped breathing.
+He had a habit of smiting the keyboard, and massive chords, clangorous
+harmonies inevitably preluded his performances. I knew some conservatory
+girls who easily could outstrip Piloti technically, but there was
+something which differentiated his playing from that of other pianists.
+Liszt he did very well.
+
+When we came into the shabby drawing-room I noticed a picture of the
+Abbé Liszt over the grand piano, and as Piloti took a seat he threw back
+his head; and my eyes which had rested a moment on the portrait
+involuntarily returned to it, so before I was aware of it I cried out,
+"I say, Piloti, do you know that you look like Liszt?" He blushed
+deeply, and gave me a most curious glance.
+
+"I have heard it said often," he replied, and he crashed into the
+master's B minor Sonata, "The Invitation to Hissing and Stamping," as
+Gumprecht has christened it.
+
+Piloti played the interesting work most vigorously. He hissed, he
+stamped and shook back his locks in true Lisztian style. He rolled off
+the chorale with redundant meaning, and with huge, flamboyant strokes
+went through the brilliant octave finale in B major. As he closed, and I
+sat still, a sigh near at hand caused me to turn, and then I saw the old
+housekeeper, her arms folded, standing in a doorway. The moonlight
+biliously smudged her face, and I noticed her staring eyes. Piloti's
+attention was attracted by my silence, and when he saw the woman he
+uttered a harsh, crackling word. She instantly retired. Turning to me,
+with a nervous laugh, he explained:
+
+"The old fool always is affected by moonlight and music."
+
+We strolled out-of-doors, cigarettes in hand, and the rhythmic
+swish-swash of the river told that the tide was rising. The dried-up
+gullies and canals became silver-streaked with the incoming spray, and
+it needed only a windmill to make the scene as Dutch as a Van Der Neer.
+Piloti was moody. Something worried him, but as I was not in a very
+receptive condition, I forbore questioning him. We walked over the
+closely cut grass until the water was reached. He stopped, tossed his
+cigarette away:
+
+"I am the unhappiest man alive!" At once I became sympathetic.
+
+He looked at me fiercely: "Do you know who I am? Do you know the stock I
+spring from? Will you believe me if I tell you? Can I even trust you?" I
+soothed the excited musician and begged him to confide in me. I was his
+nearest friend and he must be aware of my feelings. He became quieter at
+once; but never shall I forget the look on his face as he reverently
+took off his hat.
+
+"I am the son of Franz Liszt, and I thank God for it!"
+
+"Amen!" I fervently responded.
+
+Then he told me his story. His mother was a Hungarian lady, nobly born.
+She had been an excellent pianist and studied with Liszt at Weimar and
+Buda-Pesth. When Piloti became old enough he was taught the piano, for
+which he had aptitude. With his mother he lived the years of his youth
+and early manhood in London. She always wore black, and after Liszt's
+death Piloti himself went into mourning. His mother sickened and died,
+leaving him nothing but sad memories. It sounded very wretched, and I
+hastened to console him as best I could. I reminded him of the nobility
+of his birth, and that it was greater to be the son of a genius than of
+a duke. "Look at Sir William Davenant," I said; "'O rare Sir William
+Davenant,' as his contemporaries called him. What an honor to have been
+Shakespeare's natural son!" But Piloti shook his head.
+
+"I care little for the legitimacy of my birth; what worries me,
+oppresses me, makes me the most miserable man alive, is that I am not a
+second Liszt. Why can I not play like my father?"
+
+I endeavored to explain that genius is seldom transmitted, and did not
+forget to compliment him on his musical abilities. "You know that you
+play Liszt well. That very sonata in B minor, it pleased me much." "But
+do I play it like a Friedheim?" he persisted. And I held my peace....
+
+Piloti was downcast and I proposed bed. He assented. It was late; the
+foolish-looking young topaz moon had retired; the sky was cloudy, and
+the water was rushing over Little Holland. We did not get indoors
+without wetting our feet. After drinking a parting glass I shook his
+hand heartily, bade him cheer up, and said that study would soon put him
+in the parterre of pianists. He looked gloomy, and nodded good-night. I
+went to my room. As the water was likely to invade the cellar and even
+the ground floor, the bedrooms were all on the second floor. I soon got
+to my bed, for I was tired, and the sadness of this strange household,
+the moaning of the river, the queer isolated feeling, as if I were alone
+far out at sea, all this depressed me, and I actually pulled the covers
+over my head like a frightened child during a thunderstorm.
+
+I must have been sleeping some time when voices penetrated the
+dream-recesses of my brain. As I gradually emerged from darkened slumber
+I became conscious of Piloti's voice. It was pitched a trifle above a
+whisper, but I heard every word. He was talking savagely to some one,
+and the theme was the old one.
+
+"It has gone far enough. I'm sick of it, I tell you. I will kill myself
+in another week. Don't," he said in louder tones and with an
+imprecation--"don't tell me not to. You've been doing that for years."
+
+A long silence ensued; a woman's voice answered:
+
+"My son, my son, you break my heart with your sorrow! Study if you would
+play like your father, study and be brave, be courageous! All will come
+out right. Idle fretting will do no good."
+
+It was the voice of the housekeeper, and she spoke in English. Piloti's
+mother! What family secret was I upon the point of discovering? I
+shivered as I lay in my bed, but could not have forborne listening
+though I should die for it. The voices resumed. They came from the room
+immediately back of mine:
+
+"I tell you, mother, I know the worst. I may be the son of a genius, but
+I am nevertheless a mediocrity. It is killing me! it is killing me!" and
+the voice of this morose monomaniac broke into sobs.
+
+The poor mother cried softly. "If I only had not been Liszt's son,"
+Piloti muttered, "then I would not be so wretched, so cursed with
+ambitions. Alas! why was I ever told the truth?"
+
+"Oh, my son, my son, forgive!" I heard the noise of one dropping on her
+knees. "Oh, my boy, my pride, my hope, forgive me--forgive the innocent
+imposture I've practised on you! My son, I never saw Liszt; you are--"
+
+With an oath Piloti started up and asked in heavy, thick speech: "What's
+this, what's this, woman? Seek not to deceive me. What do you tell me?
+Never saw Liszt! Who, then, was my father? You must speak, if I have to
+drag the words from between your teeth."
+
+"O God! O God!" she moaned, "I dare not tell you--it is too shameful--I
+never saw Liszt--I heard much of him--I adored him, his music--I was
+vain, foolish, doting! I thought, perhaps, you might be a great pianist,
+and if you were told that Liszt was your father--your real father." ...
+
+"My real father--who was he? Quick, woman, speak!"
+
+"He was Liszt's favorite piano-tuner," she whispered.
+
+Dull silence reigned, and then I heard some one slowly descending the
+stairs. The outer door closed, and I rushed to the window. In the misty
+dawn I could see nothing but water. The house was completely hemmed in
+by a noiseless sheet of sullen dirty water. Not a soul was in sight, and
+almost believing that I had been the victim of a nightmare, I went back
+to my bed and fell asleep. I was awakened by loud halloas and rude
+poundings at my window. A man was looking in at me: "Hurry up, stranger;
+you haven't long to wait. The water is up to the top of the porch. Get
+your clothes on and come into my boat!"
+
+It did not take me hours to obey this hint, and I stepped from the
+window to the deck of a schooner. The meadows had utterly disappeared.
+Nothing but water glistened in the sunlight. When I reached the mainland
+I looked back at the house. I could just descry the roof.
+
+Little Holland was very wet.
+
+
+
+
+A CHOPIN OF THE GUTTER
+
+    J'ai vu parfois au fond d'un théâtre banal
+    Qu'enflammait l'orchestre sonore
+    Une fée allumer dans un ciel infernal
+    Une miraculeuse aurore;
+
+    J'ai vu parfois au fond d'un théâtre banal
+    Un être qui n'était que lumière, or et gaze,
+    Terrasser l'énorme Satan;
+    Mais mon cœur que jamais ne visite l'extase,
+
+    Est un théâtre où l'on attend.
+    Toujours, toujours en vain l'être aux ailes gaze.
+
+    --BAUDELAIRE.
+
+
+They watched him until he turned the corner of the Rue Puteaux and was
+lost to them.
+
+He moved slowly, painfully, one leg striking the pavement in
+syncopation, for it was sadly crippled by disease. He twisted his thin
+head only once as he went along the Batignolles. It seemed to them that
+his half face was sneering in the mist. Then the band passed up to the
+warmer lights of the Clichy Quarter, where they drank and argued art far
+into the night They one and all hated Wagner, adoring Chopin's morbid
+music.
+
+Minkiewicz walked up the lower side of the little street called Puteaux
+until he reached a stupid, overgrown building. It was numbered 5, and
+was a shabby sort of pension. The Pole painfully hobbled up the
+evil-smelling stairway, more crooked than a youth's counterpoint, and on
+the floor next to the top halted, breathing heavily. The weather was
+oppressive and he had talked too much to the young men at the brasserie.
+
+"Ah, good boys all," he murmured, trying the door; "good lads, but no
+talent, no originality. Ah!" The door yielded and Minkiewicz was at
+home.
+
+An upright piano, a bed, a shaky washstand and bureau, one feeble chair,
+music--pounds of it--filled the chamber lighted by one candle. The old
+man threw himself on the bed and sighed drearily. Then he went to the
+piano, lifted the lid and ran his fingers over the keyboard. He sighed
+again. He sat down on the chair and closed his eyes. He did not sleep,
+for he arose in a few moments, took off his coat, and lighted a
+cigarette in the flame of the candle. Minkiewicz again placed himself
+before the instrument and played, but with silent fingers. He executed
+the most intricate passages, yet the wind in the room was soundless. He
+sat in his shirt-sleeves, his hat on his head, playing a Chopin concerto
+in dumb profile, and the night wore on....
+
+He was awakened in the morning by the entrance of a grimy garçon who
+grinned and put on the floor an oblong basket. Minkiewicz stirred
+restlessly.
+
+"The absinthe--you have not forgotten it?" he questioned in a weak
+voice.
+
+"Ah, no, sir; never, sir, do I forget the green fairy for the great
+musician, sir," was the answer, evidently a set one, its polite angles
+worn away by daily usance.
+
+The man grasped the proffered glass and swallowed, choking, the
+absinthe. It did him good, for he sat up in bed, his greasy, torn
+nightgown huddled about him, and with long, claw-like fingers he
+uncovered the scanty breakfast. When he had finished it he wiped his
+mouth and hands on the counterpane:
+
+"Charge it as usual."
+
+The waiter packed up the dishes, bade a bon jour, and with a mocking
+gesture left the room. Minkiewicz always had his breakfasts charged.
+
+At noon he crawled out of bed and dressed at a grave tempo. He wore
+always the same shirt, a woollen one, and his wardrobe knew no change.
+It was faded, out of fashion by a full half-century, and his only luxury
+a silk comforter which he knotted loosely about his neck. He had never
+worn a collar since Chopin's death. It was two of the clock when he
+stumbled downstairs. At the doorway he met Bernard the hunchback
+landlord.
+
+"No money to-day, M. Minkiewicz? Well, I suppose not--terribly hard
+times--no money. Will you have a little glass with me?" The musician
+went into the dusky dining-room and drank a pony of brandy with the
+good-natured Alsatian; then he shambled down the Rue Puteaux into the
+Boulevard des Batignolles, and slowly aired himself.
+
+"A great man, M. Minkiewicz; a poet, a pianist, a friend of M.
+Chopin--ah! I admire him much, much," explained Bernard to a
+neighbor....
+
+It was very wet. But the slop and swish of the rain did not prevent the
+brasserie of The Fallen Angels from being filled with noisy drinkers. In
+one corner sat Minkiewicz. He was drinking absinthe. About him clustered
+five or six good-looking young fellows. The chatter in the room was
+terrific, but this group of disciples heard all the master said. He
+scarcely spoke above a whisper, yet his voice cut the hot air sharply.
+
+"You ask me, Henri, how well I knew Frédéric. I could ask you in turn
+how well did you know your mother? I was with him at Warsaw. I, too,
+studied under Elsner. I accompanied him on his first journey to Vienna.
+I was at his first concert. I trembled and cried as he played our
+first--his first concerto in F minor. I wrote--we wrote the one in E
+minor later. I proposed for the hand of Constance Gladowska for
+Frédéric, and he screamed when I brought back the answer. Ah! but I did
+not tell him that Constance, Constantia, had said, 'Sir Friend, why not
+let the little Chopin woo for himself?' and she threw back her head and
+smiled into my eyes. I could have killed her for that subtle look. Yes;
+I know she married an ordinary merchant. What cared I? I loved Frédéric,
+Frédéric only. I never left his side. When it rained, rained as it is
+raining to-night, he would tremble, and often beat me with his
+spider-like hands, but I didn't mind it, for I was stronger then.
+
+"I went with him to Paris. It was I who secured for him from Prince
+Radziwill the invitation to the Rothschild's ball where he won his first
+triumph. I made him practise. I bore his horrible humors, his mad,
+irritating, capricious temper. I wrote down his music for him. Wrote it
+down, did I say? Why, I often composed it for him; yes, I, for he would
+sit and moon away at the piano, insanely wasting his ideas, while I
+would force him to repeat a phrase, repeat it, polish it, alter it and
+so on until the fabric of the composition was complete. Then, how I
+would toil, toil, prune and expand his feeble ideas! Mon Dieu! Frédéric
+was no reformer by nature, no pathbreaker in art; he was a sickly
+fellow, always coughing, always scolding, but he played charmingly. He
+had such fingers! and he knew all our national dances. The mazurek, the
+mazourk, the polonaise and the krakowiak. Ah! but then he had no blood,
+no fire, no muscle, no vitality. He was not a revolutionist. He did not
+discover new forms; all he cared for was to mock the Jews with their
+majufes, and play sugar-water nocturnes.
+
+"I was the artistic mate to this little Pole who allowed that old
+man-woman to deceive him--George Sand, of course. Ah! the old rascal,
+how she hated me. She forbade me to enter their hotel in the Cour
+d'Orléans, but I did--Chopin would have died without me, the delicate
+little vampire! I was his nurse, his mother, his big brother. I fought
+his fight with the publishers, with the creditors. I wrote his
+polonaises, all--all I tell you--except those sickly things in the keys
+of C sharp minor, F minor and B flat minor. Pouf! don't tell me anything
+about Chopin. He write a polonaise? He write the scherzi, the ballades,
+the études?--you make me enraged. I, I made them all and he will get the
+credit for all time, and I am glad of it, for I loved him as a father."
+
+The voice of Minkiewicz became strident as he repeated his old story.
+Some of the clients of The Fallen Angels stopped talking for a moment;
+it was only that crazy Pole again with his thrice-told tale.
+
+Minkiewicz drank another absinthe.
+
+"And were you then a poet as well as a composer?" timidly asked young
+Louis.
+
+"I was the greatest poet Poland ever had. Ask of Chopin's friends, or of
+his living pupils. Go ask Georges Mathias, the old professor of the
+Conservatoire, if Minkiewicz did not inspire Chopin. Who gave him the
+theme for his Revolutionary étude--the one in C minor?" Minkiewicz ran
+his left hand with velocity across the table. His disciples followed
+those marvellously agile fingers with the eyes of the hypnotic....
+
+"I was with Frédéric at Stuttgart. I first heard the news of the capture
+of Warsaw. Pale and with beating heart I ran to the hotel and told him
+all. He had an attack of hysteria; then I rushed to the piano and by
+chance struck out a phrase. It was in C sharp minor, and was almost
+identical with the theme of the C minor study. At once Chopin ceased his
+moaning and weeping and came over to the instrument. 'That's very
+pretty,' he said, and began making a running bass accompaniment. He was
+a born inventor of finger tricks; he took up the theme and gradually we
+fashioned the study as it now stands. But it was first written in C
+sharp minor. Frédéric suggested that it was too difficult for wealthy
+amateurs in that key, and changed it to C minor. More copies would be
+sold, he said. But he spoke no more of Warsaw after that. Why? Ah! don't
+ask me--the true artist, I suppose. Once that his grief is objectified,
+once that his sorrow is translated into tone, the first cause is quite
+forgotten,--Art is so selfish, so beautiful, you know!
+
+"I never left Frédéric but once; the odious Sand woman, who smoked a
+pipe and swore like a cab driver, smuggled the poor devil away to
+Majorca. He came back a sick man; no wonder! You remember the de Musset
+episode. The poet's mother even implored the old dragon to take Alfred
+to Italy. He, too, was coughing--all her friends coughed except Liszt,
+who sneered at her blandishments--and Italy was good for consumptives.
+De Musset went away ailing; he returned a mere shadow. What happened?
+Ah! I cannot say. Possibly his eyes were opened by the things he
+saw--you remember the young Italian physician--I think his name was
+Pagello? It was the same with Chopin. Without me he could not thrive.
+Sand knew it and hated me. I was the sturdy oak, Frédéric the tender
+ivy. I poured out my heart's blood for him, poured it into his music. He
+was a mere girl, I tell you--a sensitive, slender, shrinking, peevish
+girl, a born prudish spinster, and would shiver if any one looked at
+him. Liszt always frightened him and he hated Mendelssohn. He called
+Beethoven a sour old Dutchman, and swore that he did not write piano
+music. For the man who first brought his name before the public, the
+big-hearted German, Robert Schumann--here's to his memory--Chopin had an
+intense dislike. He confessed to me that Schumann was no composer, a
+talented improviser only. I think he was a bit jealous of the man's
+genius. But Freddie loved Mozart, loved his music so madly that it was
+my turn to become jealous.
+
+"And fastidious! Bon Dieu! I tell you that he could not drink, and once
+Balzac told us a piquant story and Frédéric fainted. I remember well how
+Balzac stared and said in that great voice of his: 'Guard well thy
+little damsel, my good Minkiewicz, else he may yet be abducted by a
+tom-cat,' and then he laughed until the window-panes rattled. What a
+brute!...
+
+"I gave my brain to Chopin. When he returned to me from that mad trip to
+the Balearic Islands I had not the heart to scold. He was pallid and
+even coughed in a whisper. He had no money; Sand was angry with him and
+went off to Nohant alone. I had no means, but I took twenty-four little
+piano preludes that I had made while Frédéric was away and sold them for
+ready money. You know them, all the world knows them. They say now that
+he wrote them whilst at Majorca, and tell fables about the rain-drop
+prelude in D flat. A pack of lies! I wrote them and at my old piano
+without strings, the same that I still have in the Rue Puteaux. But I
+sha'n't complain. I love him yet. What was mine was his--is his, even my
+music."
+
+The group became uneasy. It was late. The rain had stopped, and through
+the open doors of The Fallen Angels could be seen the soft-starred sky,
+and melting in the distance were the lights of the Gare Saint-Lazare. It
+was close by the Quarter of Europe, and the women who walked the
+boulevard darted swift glances into the heated rooms of the brasserie.
+
+Minkiewicz drank another absinthe--his last. There was no more money.
+The disciples had spent their all for the master whom they loved as they
+hated the name of Wagner. His slanting eyes--the eyes of the
+Calmuck--were bloodshot; his face was yellow-white. His long, white hair
+hung on his shoulders and there were bubbles about his lips.
+
+"But I often despair. I loved Chopin's reputation too much ever to write
+a line of music after his death. Besides who would have believed me?
+Which one of you believes in his secret heart of hearts one word I have
+spoken to-night? It is difficult to make the world acknowledge that you
+are not an idiot; very difficult to shake its belief that Chopin was not
+a god. Alas! there are no more gods. You say I am a poet, yet how may a
+man be a poet if godless? I know that there is no God, yet I am unhappy
+longing after Him. I awake at the dawn and cry for God as children cry
+for their mother. Curse reason! curse the knowledge that has made a
+mockery of my old faiths! Frédéric died, and dying saw Christ. I look
+at the roaring river of azure overhead and see the cruel sky--nothing
+more. I tell you, my children, it has killed the poet in me, and it will
+kill the gods themselves when comes the crack of doom.
+
+"I dream often of that time--that time John, the poet of Patmos,
+foretold in his Revelations: The time when the Sixth Seal was opened.
+Alas! when the Son of Man cometh out of the clouds and round about the
+throne are the four-winged beasts, what will he see?
+
+"Nothing--nothing, I tell you.
+
+"Unbelief will have killed the very soul of creation itself. And where
+once burned the eye of the Cosmos will be naught but a hideous
+emptiness.
+
+"Hélas! mes enfants, I could drink one more absinthe; my soul grieves
+for my lost faith, my lost music, my lost Frédéric, my lost life." ...
+
+But they went away. It was past the hour of closing and the host was not
+in a humor for parleying.
+
+"Ah! the old pig, the old blasphemer!" he said, shaking his head as he
+locked the doors.
+
+They watched him until he turned the corner of the Rue Puteaux and was
+lost to them.
+
+He moved slowly, painfully, one leg striking the pavement in
+syncopation, for it was sadly crippled by disease. He did not twist his
+thin head as he went along the Batignolles. Then the band passed once
+more up to the warmer lights of the Clichy Quarter and argued art far
+into the night.
+
+They one and all hated Wagner, adoring Chopin's magic music.
+
+
+
+
+THE PIPER OF DREAMS
+
+    The desert of my soul is peopled with black gods,
+    Huge blocks of wood;
+    Brave with gilded horns and shining gems,
+    The black and silent gods
+    Tower in the naked desert of my soul.
+
+    With eyes of wolves they watch me in the night;
+    With eyes like moons.
+    My gods are they; in each the evil grows,
+    The grandiose evil darkens over each
+    And each black god, silent
+    Under the iron skies, dreams
+    Of his omnipotence--the taciturn black gods!
+
+    And my flesh and my brain are underneath their feet;
+    I am the victim, and I perish
+    Under the weight of these nocturnal gods
+    And in the iron winds of their unceasing wrath.
+
+    --LINGWOOD EVANS.
+
+
+I
+
+It was opera night, and the lights burned with an official brilliancy
+that challenged the radiance of the Café Monferino across the asphalt.
+There, all was decorous gaiety; and the doubles of Pilsner never
+vanished from the little round metal tables that overflowed into the
+juncture of the streets Gluck and Halévy. Among the brasseries in Paris
+this the most desirable to lovers of the Bohemian brew. The cooking,
+Neapolitan and Viennese, perhaps explained the presence, one June
+evening in the year 1930, of tall, blond, blue-eyed Illowski, the
+notorious Russian symphonist. With several admirers he sat sipping bocks
+and watched the motley waves of the boulevard wash back strange men and
+women--and again women.
+
+Lenyard spoke first. Young and from New England he was studying music in
+Paris.
+
+"Master, why don't you compose a music drama?" Illowski, gazing into the
+soft blur of light and mist over the Place de l'Opéra, did not answer.
+Scheff burst into laughter. The one who had put the question became
+angry. "Confound it! What have I said, Mr. Dutchman, that seems so funny
+to you?" Illowski put out a long, thin hand,--a veritable flag of truce:
+"Children, cease! I have written something better than a music drama. I
+told Scheff about it before he left St. Petersburg last spring. Don't be
+jealous, Lenyard. There is nothing in the work that warrants
+publicity--yet. It is merely a venture into an unfamiliar region,
+nothing more. But how useless to write for a public that still listens
+to Meyerbeer in the musical catacombs across the street!"
+
+Lenyard's lean, dark features relaxed. He gazed smilingly at the fat and
+careless Scheff. Then Illowski arose. It was late, he said, and his
+head ached. He had been scoring all day--sufficient reason for early
+retirement. The others demurred, though meekly. If their sun set so
+early, how could they be expected to pass the night with any degree of
+pleasure? The composer saw all this; but he was sensibly selfish, and
+buttoning the long frock-coat which hung loosely on his attenuated frame
+shook hands with his disciples, called a carriage and drove away.
+Lenyard and Scheff stared after him and then faced the situation. There
+were many tell-tale porcelain tallies on the table to be settled, and
+neither had much money; so the manœuvring was an agreeable sight for
+the cynical waiter. Finally Lenyard, his national pride rising at the
+spectacle of the Austrian's penuriousness, paid the entire bill with a
+ten-franc piece.
+
+Scheff sank back in his chair and grinningly inquired, "Say, my boy, I
+wonder if Illowski has enough money for his coachman when he reaches the
+mysterious, old dream-barn he calls home?" Lenyard slowly emptied his
+glass: "I don't know, you don't know, and, strictly speaking, we don't
+care. But I'd dearly like to see the score of his new work."
+
+Scheff blinked with surprise. He, too, was thinking of the same dread
+matter. "What, in God's name, do you mean? Speak out. I've been
+frightened long enough. This Illowski is a terrible man, Scheff. Do you
+suspect the stories are true, after all--?" Then both men stood up,
+shook hands and said: "Neshevna will tell us. She knows." ...
+
+
+II
+
+Pavel Illowski was a man for whom the visible world had never existed.
+Born a Malo-Russ, nursed on Little-Russian legends, a dreamer of soft
+dreams until more than a lad, he was given a musical education in
+Moscow, the White City--itself a dream of old Alexander Nevsky's days.
+Within sight of the Kremlin the slim and delicate youth fed upon the
+fatalistic writers of the nineteenth century. He knew Schopenhauer
+before he learned to pronounce German correctly; and the works of
+Bakounin, Herzen, Kropotkin became part of his cerebral tissue.
+Proudhon, Marx, and Ferdinand Lassalle taught him to hate wealth,
+property, power; and then he came across an old volume of Nietzsche in
+his uncle's library. The bent of the boy's genius was settled. He would
+be a composer--had he not, as a bare-headed child, run sobbing after
+Tschaïkowsky's coffin almost to the Alexander Nevsky Monastery in
+1893--but a composer who would mould the destinies of his nation,
+perhaps the destinies of all the world, a second Svarog. He early saw
+the power--insidious, subtle, dangerous power--that lurked in great art,
+saw that the art of the twentieth century, his century, was music. Only
+thirteen when the greatest of all musical Russians died, he read
+Nietzsche a year later; and these men were the two compelling forces of
+his life until the destructive poetry of the mad, red-haired Australian
+poet, Lingwood Evans, appeared. Illowski's philosophy of anarchy was now
+complete, his belief in a social, æsthetic, ethical regeneration of the
+world, fixed. Yet he was no militant reformer; he would bear no
+polemical banners, wave no red flags. A composer of music, he endeavored
+to impart to his work articulate, emotion-breeding and formidably
+dangerous qualities.
+
+Deserting the vague and fugitive experimentings of Berlioz, Wagner,
+Liszt and Richard Strauss, Illowski modelled himself upon Tschaïkowsky.
+He read everything musical and poetical in type, and his first attempt,
+when nearly thirty, was a symphonic setting of a poem by a
+half-forgotten English poet, Robert Browning, "Childe Roland to the Dark
+Tower Came," and the music aroused hostile German criticism. Here is a
+young Russian, declared the critics, who ventures beyond Tschaïkowsky
+and Strauss in his attempts to make music say something. Was not the
+classic Richard Wagner a warning to all who endeavored to wring from
+music a message it possessed not? When Wagner saw that Beethoven--Ah,
+the sublime Beethoven!--could not do without the aid of the human voice
+in his Ninth Symphony, he fashioned his music drama accordingly. With
+the co-operation of pantomime, costume, color, lights, scenery, he
+invented a new art--patched and tinkered one, said his enemies, who
+thought him old-fashioned--and so "Der Ring," "Tristan und Isolde," "Die
+Meistersinger" and "Parsifal" were born. True classics in their devotion
+to form and freedom from the feverishness of the later men headed by
+Richard Strauss--why should any one seek to better them, to supplant
+them? Wagner had been the Mozart of his century. Down with the musical
+Tartars of the East who spiritually invaded Europe to rob her of peace,
+religion, aye, and morals!
+
+Much censure of this kind was aimed at Illowski, who continued calmly.
+Admiring Richard Strauss, he saw that the man did not dare enough, that
+his effort to paint in tone the poetic heroes of the past century,
+himself included, was laudable; but Don Juan, Macbeth, quaint Till
+Eulenspiegel, fantastic Don Quixote were, after all, chiefly concerned
+with a moribund æstheticism. Illowski best liked the Strauss setting of
+"Also Sprach Zarathustra" because it approached his own darling project,
+though it neither touched the stars nor reached the earth. Besides, this
+music was too complicated. A new art must be evolved, not a synthesis of
+the old arts dreamed by Wagner, but an art consisting of music alone: an
+art for the twentieth century, a democratic art in which poet and tramp
+alike could revel. To the profoundest science must be united a clearness
+of exposition that only Raphael has. Even a peasant enjoys Velasquez.
+The Greeks fathomed this mystery: all Athens worshipped its marbles, and
+Phidias was crowned King of Emotions. Music alone lagged in the race,
+music, part speech, part painting, with a surging undertow of passion,
+music had been too long in the laboratories of the wise men. To free it
+from its Egyptian bondage, to make it the tongue of all life, the
+interpreter of the world's desire--Illowski dreamed the dreams of
+madmen.
+
+Chopin, who divined this truth, went first to the people, later to
+Paris, and thenceforward he became the victim of the artificial.
+Beethoven was born too soon in a world grown gray under scholars'
+shackles. The symphony, like the Old Man of the Sea, weighed upon his
+mighty shoulders; music, he believed, must be formal to be understood.
+Illowski, in his many wanderings, pondered these things: saw Berlioz on
+the trail, in his efforts to formulate a science of instrumental
+timbres; saw Wagner captivated by the glow of the footlights; saw Liszt,
+audacious Liszt, led by Wagner, and tribute laid upon his genius by the
+Bayreuth man; saw Tschaïkowsky struggling away from the temptations of
+the music drama only to succumb to the symphonic poem--a new and vicious
+version of that old pitfall, the symphony; saw César Franck, the
+Belgian mystic, narrowly graze the truth in some of his chamber music,
+and then fall victim to the fascinations of the word; as if the word,
+spoken or sung, were other than a clog to the free wings of imaginative
+music! Illowski noted the struggles of these dreamers, noted Verdi
+swallowed by the maelstrom of the theatre; noted Richard Strauss and his
+hesitation at the final leap.
+
+To the few in whom he confided, he admitted that Strauss had been his
+forerunner, having upset the notion that music must be beautiful to be
+music and seeing the real significance of the characteristic, the ugly.
+Had Strauss developed courage or gone to the far East when
+young--Illowski would shrug his high shoulders, gnaw his cigarette and
+exclaim, "Who knows?"
+
+Tolstoy was right after all, this sage, who under cover of fiction
+preached the deadliest doctrines; doctrines that aimed at nothing less
+than the disequilibration of existing social conditions. Tolstoy had
+inveighed bitterly against all forms of artificial art. If the Moujik
+did not understand Beethoven, then all the worse for Beethoven; great
+art should have in it Mozart's sunny simplicities, without Mozart's
+elaborate technical methods. This Illowski believed. To unite the
+intimate soul-searching qualities of Chopin and exclude his alembicated
+art; to sweep with torrential puissance the feelings of the common
+people, whether Chinese or German, Esquimaux or French; to tell them
+things, things found neither in books nor in pictures nor in stone,
+neither above the earth nor in the waters below; to liberate them from
+the tyranny of laws and beliefs and commandments; to preach the new
+dispensation of Lingwood Evans--magnificent, brutal, and
+blood-loving--ah! if Illowski could but discover this hidden
+philosophers stone, this true Arcana of all wisdom, this emotional lever
+of Archimedes, why then the whole world would be his: his power would
+depose Pope and Emperor. And again he dreamed the dreams of madmen--his
+mother had been nearly related to Dostoïewsky....
+
+Of what avail the seed-bearing Bach and his fugues--emotional
+mathematics, all of them! Of what avail the decorative efforts of tonal
+fresco painters, breeders of an hour's pleasure, soon forgotten in the
+grave's muddy disdain! Had not the stage lowered music to the position
+of a lascivious handmaiden? To the sound of cymbals, it postured for the
+weary debauchee. No; music must go back to its origins. The church
+fettered it in its service, knowing full well its good and evil. Before
+Christianity was, it had been a power in hieratic hands. Ancient
+Egyptian priests hypnotized the multitudes with a single silvery sound;
+and in the deepest Indian jungles inspired fakirs induced visions by the
+clapping of shells. Who knows how the Grand Llama of Thibet decrees the
+destinies of millions! Music again, music in some other garb than we now
+sense it. Illowski groaned as he attacked this hermetic mystery. He had
+all the technique of contemporary art at his beck; but not that unique
+tone, the unique form, by which he might become master of the universe
+and gain spiritual dominion over mankind. Yet the secret, so fearfully
+guarded, had been transmitted through the ages. Certain favored ones
+must have known it, men who ruled the rulers of earth. Where could it be
+found? "The jealous gods have buried somewhere proofs of the origins of
+all things, but upon the shores of what ocean have they rolled the stone
+that hides them, O Macareus?" Thus echoed he the fatidical query of the
+French poet....
+
+Illowski left Europe. Some said he had gone to Asia, the mother of all
+religions, of all corruptions. He had been seen in China, and later
+stories were related of his attempts to enter the sacred city, Lhasa. He
+disappeared and many composers and critics were not sorry; his was a too
+commanding personality: he menaced modern art. Thus far church and state
+had not considered his individual existence; he was but one of the
+submerged units of Rurik's vast Slavic Empire which now almost traversed
+the Eastern hemisphere. So he was forgotten and a minor god arose in his
+place--a man who wrote pretty ballets, who declared that the end of
+music was to enthrall the senses; and his ballets were danced over
+Europe, while Illowski's name faded away....
+
+At the end of ten years he returned to St. Petersburg. Thinner, much
+older, his long, spidery arms, almost colorless blond hair and eroded
+features gave him the air of a cenobite who had escaped from some
+Scandinavian wilderness into life. His Oriental reserve, and evident
+dislike of all his former social habits, set the musical world wagging
+its head, recalling the latter days of Dostoïewsky. But Illowski was not
+mad: he simply awaited his opportunity. It came. The morning after his
+first concert he was awakened by fame knocking at his gate, the most
+horrible kind of fame. He was not called a madman by the critics, for
+his music could never have been the product of a crazy brain--he was
+pronounced an arch-enemy to mankind, because he told infamous secrets in
+his music, secrets that had lain buried in the shale of a vanished
+epoch. And, lest the world grow cold, he drove to its very soul the most
+hideous truths. A hypnotist, he conducted his orchestra through
+extraordinary and malevolent forests of tone. The audience went into the
+night, some sobbing, some beating the air like possessed ones, others
+frozen with terror. At the second concert the throngs were so dense that
+the authorities interfered. What poison was being disseminated in the
+air of a concert hall? What new device of the revolutionists? What
+deadly secret did this meagre, dreamy, harmless-looking Russian possess?
+The censors were alert. Critics were instructed by the heads of their
+journals to drive forth this musical anarchist; but criticism availed
+not. A week, and Illowski became the talk of Russia, a month, and Europe
+filled with strange rumors about him. Here was a magician who made the
+dead speak, the living dumb--what were the limits of his power? What his
+ultimate intention? Such a man might be converted into a political force
+would he but range himself on the right side of the throne. If not--why,
+then there was still Siberia and its weary stretches of snow!
+
+When he reached Moscow rioting began in the streets. Leaving, he went
+with his dark-skinned Eastern musicians to the provinces. And the
+government trembled. Peasants threw aside spade, forgot vodka and rushed
+to his free concerts, given in canvas-covered booths; and the impetus
+communicated to this huge, weltering mass of slaving humanity, broke
+wave-like upon the remotest borders of the empire. The church became
+alarmed. Anti-Christ had been predicted for centuries, and latterly by
+the Second Adventists. Was Illowski the one at whose nod principalities
+and powers of earth should tremble and fall? Was he the prince of
+darkness himself? Was the liberation of the seven seals at hand--that
+awful time foretold by the mystic of Patmos? The Metropolitan of the
+Greek church did not long hesitate. A hierarchy that became endangered
+because a fanatic wielded hypnotic powers, must exert its prerogative.
+The aid of the secret police invoked, Illowski was hurried into Austria;
+but with him were his men, and he grimly laughed as he sat in a Viennese
+café and counted the victories of his first campaign.
+
+"It has begun," he told his first violinist, a stolid fellow with black
+blood in his veins.
+
+It had begun. After a concert in Vienna, Illowski was politely bidden to
+leave Austria. The unsettled political condition, the disaffection of
+Czech and Hungarian, were a few of the reasons given for this summary
+retirement. Yet Illowski's orchestra did not play the Rakoczy march! The
+clergy heard of his impieties; a report obtained credence that the
+Russian composer had written music for the black mass, most blasphemous
+of missal travesties. When he was told of this he smiled, for he did not
+aim at attacking mere sectarian beliefs; with Bakounin, he swore that
+there must be total destruction of all existing institutions,
+or--nothing!
+
+He went to Germany believing the countrymen of Nietzsche would receive
+with joy this Overman from the East. There was no longer any
+Bayreuth--the first performance of "Parsifal" elsewhere had killed the
+place and the work. In Munich, the authorities forewarned, Illowski was
+arrested as a dangerous character and sent to Trieste. Thence he shipped
+to Genoa; and once in Italy, free. On the peninsula his progress was
+that of a trailing comet. The feminine madness first manifested itself
+there and swept the countryside with epidemic fury. Wherever he played
+the dancing mania set in, and the soldiery could not put it down by
+force of arms. Nietzsche's dancing philosopher, Zarathustra, was
+incarnated in Illowski's compositions. Like the nervous obsessions of
+mediæval times, this music set howling, leaping and writhing volatile
+Italians, until it began to assume the proportions of a new evangel, an
+hysterical hallucination that bade defiance to law, doctors, even the
+decencies of life. Terrible stories reached the Vatican, and when it was
+related that one of his symphonic pieces delineated Zarathustra's Cave
+with its sinister mockery of prelate and king, the hated Quirinal was
+approached for assistance, and Illowski vanished from Italy.
+
+In the British Isles, the same wicked tales were told of him. He was
+denounced by priest and publican as a subverter of morals. No poet, no
+demagogue, had ever so interested the masses. Musicians of academic
+training held aloof. What had they in common with this charlatan who
+treated the abominable teachings of Walt Whitman symphonically? He could
+not be a respectable man, even if he were a sane. And then the
+unlettered tiller of the soil, drunken mechanic and gutter drab all
+loved his music. What kind of music was it thus to be understood by the
+ignorant?
+
+The police thought otherwise. Illowski gathered crowds--that was
+sufficient to ban him, not as the church does, with bell, book and
+candle, but with stout oaken clubs. Forth he fared, and things came to
+such a pass that not a steamer dared convey him or his band to America.
+By this time the scientific reviews had taken him up as a sort of public
+Illusionist. Disciples of Charcot explained his scores--though not one
+had been published--while the neo-moralists gladly denounced him as a
+follower of the Master Immoralist, a sublimated emotional expression of
+the ethical nihilism of Friedrich Nietzsche. Others, more fanciful, saw
+in his advent and in his art an attempt to overturn nations, life
+itself, through the agency of corrupting beauty and by the arousing of
+illimitable desires. Color and music, sweetness and soft luxuries,
+declared these modern followers of Ambrose and Chrysostom, were the
+agencies of Satan in the undermining of morals. Pulpits thundered. The
+press sneered at the new Pied Piper of Hamelin, and poets sang of him.
+One Celtic bard named him "Master of the Still Stars and of the Flaming
+Door."
+
+For women his music was as the moth's desire. Wherever he went were
+women--women and children. Old legends were revived about the ancient
+gods. The great Pan was said to be abroad; rustling in the night air set
+young folk blushing. An emotional renascence swept like a torrid simoon
+over Europe. Those who had not heard, had not seen him, felt,
+nevertheless, Illowski's subtle influences in their bosoms. The
+fountains of democracy's great deeps were breaking up. Too long had smug
+comfort and utilitarianism ruled a world grown weary of debasing
+commerce. All things must have an end, even wealth; and to the wretched,
+to those in damp mines, to the downcast in exile and in prisons and to
+the muck of humanity his name became a beautiful, illuminated symbol.
+The charges of impiety were answered: "His music makes us dream." Music
+now became ruler of the universe, and the earth hummed tunes; yet
+Illowski's maddening music had been heard by few nations.
+
+Humble, poor, asking nothing, always giving, he soon became a nightmare
+to the orthodox. He preached no heresies, promised no future rewards,
+nor warred he against church or kingdom. He only made music and things
+were not as before; some strange angel had passed that way filling men's
+souls with joy, beauty and bitterness. Duties, vows, beliefs fell away
+like snow in the sun; families, tribes, states grew restless, troops
+were called and churches never closed. A wave of belated paganism rolled
+over the world; thinkers and steersmen of great political and religious
+organizations became genuinely alarmed. So had come the downfall of the
+classical world: a simple apparition in a far away Jewish province, and
+the Cæsars fell supine--their empires cracked like mirrors! To imprison
+Illowski meant danger; to kill him would deify him, for in the blood of
+martyrs blossom the seeds of mighty religions. Far better if he go to
+Paris--Paris, the cradle and the tomb of illusions. There this restless
+demagogue might find his dreams stilled in the scarlet negations and
+frivolous philosophies of the town; thus the germ-plasm of a new
+religion, of a new race, perhaps of a new world, be drowned in the
+drowsy green of a little glass.
+
+Illowski, this Spirit that Denied, this new Mephisto of music, did not
+balk his evil wishers.
+
+"Paris, why not? She refused to understand Berlioz, flouted Wagner, and
+mocked Rodin's marble egotisms, the ferocious, white stillness of his
+Balzac! Perhaps Paris will give me, if not a welcome, at least repose. I
+am tired."
+
+To Paris he went and excepting a few cynical paragraphs received no
+attention. The Conservatoire, the Académie de Musique did not welcome
+officially this gifted son of the Neva; the authorities blandly ignored
+him, though the police were instructed that if he attempted to play in
+front of churches, address mobs or build barricades, he must be
+confined. Paris had no idea of Illowski's real meaning; Paris, even in
+the twentieth century, always hears the news of the world last;
+besides, she conceives no other conquest save one that has for its
+object the several decayed thrones within her gates. Illowski was not
+molested and his men, despite their strange garb and complexion, went
+about freely. The Russian composer of ballets was just then the mode.
+
+Some clever caricatures appeared of Illowski representing him as a
+musical Napoleon, cocked hat, sleek white horse and all. Another gave
+him the goat's beard of Brother Jonathan, with the baton of a Yankee
+band-master; and then it was assured that the much advertised composer
+was a joking American masquerading as a Slav, possibly the vender of
+some new religious cure born in the fanatical bake-ovens of Western
+America. "Faust" alternated with "Les Huguenots" at the Opéra, Pilsner
+beer was on tap at the Café Monferino--why worry over exotic stories
+told of this visitor's abnormal musical powers? And little did anyone
+surmise that he had just given a symphonic setting to Lingwood Evans's
+insurrectionary poem with its ghastly refrain: "I hear the grinding of
+the swords, and He shall come--" Thus did Paris unwittingly harbor the
+poet, philosopher, composer and pontiff of the new dispensation--Pavel
+Illowski. And Lenyard with Scheff was hastening to Auteuil to see
+Neshevna, whose other name was never known.
+
+
+III
+
+Lenyard disliked Neshevna before he saw her; when they met he made no
+attempt to conceal his hatred. He again told himself this, as with
+Scheff he pursued the gravel path leading to the porter's lodge of
+Illowski's house. In Auteuil it overlooked the Seine which flowed a
+snake of sunny silver between its green-ribbed banks. Together the pair
+entered, mounted a low flight of steps and rang the private bell.
+Neshevna opened the door. In the flood of a westering sun the accents of
+her fluid Slavic face and her mannish head set upon narrow
+shoulders--all the disagreeable qualities of the woman--were exaggerated
+by this bath of clear light. Her hard gaze softened when she saw Scheff.
+She spoke to him, not noticing the other:
+
+"The master is not at home." Lenyard contradicted her: "He is; the
+concierge said so."
+
+"The concierge lies; but come in. I will see."
+
+Following her they reached the music room, which was bare of
+instruments, pictures, furniture, all save a tall desk upon which lay a
+heap of music paper. Neshevna made a loping dart to the desk--she was
+like a wolf in her movements--and threw a handkerchief over it. Lenyard
+watched her curiously. Scheff gave one of his good-natured yawns and
+then laughed:
+
+"Neshevna, we come to ask!"
+
+"What?" she gravely inquired. There was a lithe alertness in the woman
+that puzzled Lenyard. Scheff lounged on the window-sill. "Now, Neshevna,
+be a good girl! Don't forget Moscow or your old adorer."
+
+She answered him with sarcastic emphasis: "You fat fool, you and your
+clerical friend there, what do you both want spying upon Illowski like
+police?" Her voice became shrill as she rapidly uttered these questions,
+her green eyes seemed shot with blood. "If you think I'll tell either of
+you anything concerning the new music--"
+
+"That's all we are here to learn."
+
+"All? Imbeciles! As if you or your American could understand Illowski
+and his message!"
+
+"What message?" Lenyard's grave face was not in the least discomposed by
+the Cossack passion of the woman. "What message has Illowski? I've heard
+queer stories, and cannot credit them. You are in his confidence. Tell
+us, we ask in humility, what message can any man's music have but the
+revelation of beauty?"
+
+Lenyard's diplomatic question did not fail of its mark. Neshevna pushed
+back her flamboyant gray hair and walked about the room.
+
+"Mummies!" she suddenly cried. "As if beauty will content a new
+generation fed on something besides the sweetmeats and pap of your
+pretty, meaningless music! Why, man, can't you see that all the arts are
+dead--save music? Don't you know that painting, literature, creeds--aye,
+and the kingdoms are dying for want of new blood, new ideas? Music alone
+is a vital force, an instrument for rescuing the world from its moral
+and spiritual decay. Nietzsche was a potent force in the nineteenth
+century, but not understood. They condemned him to a living death.
+Lingwood Evans, poet, prophet, is now too old to enforce his message--it
+is Illowski, Illowski alone who shall be the destructive Messiah of the
+new millennial. 'He cometh not to save; not peace, but blood!'"
+
+The fire of fanaticism was in her eyes, in her speech. She grasped
+Lenyard by the elbow: "You, you should serve the master. Scheff is too
+fond of pleasure to do anything great. He is to give the signal--that's
+glory enough for him. But you, discontented American, have the stuff in
+you to make a martyr. We need martyrs. You hate me? Good! But you must
+worship Illowski. Art gives place to life, and in Illowski's music is
+the new life. He will sweep the globe from pole to pole, for all men
+understand his tones. Other gods have but prepared the way for him. No
+more misery, no more promises unfulfilled by the rulers of body and
+soul--only music, music like the air, the tides, the mountains, the
+moon, sun, and stars! Your old-fashioned melody and learning, your
+school-boy rules of counterpoint--all these Illowski ignores."
+
+Lenyard eagerly interrupted her: "You say that he does away with melody,
+themes, harmony--how does he replace them, and how does he treat the
+human voice?" Neshevna let his arm fall and went slowly to the tall
+desk. She leaned against it, her hand upon her square chin. Scheff still
+gazed out upon the lawn where splashed a small, movable fountain. To
+Lenyard the air seemed as if charged with electric questionings. His
+head throbbed.
+
+"You ask me something I dare not tell. Even Scheff, who knows some
+things, dares not tell. If Illowski's discovery--which is based on the
+great natural laws of heat, light, gravitation, electricity--if this
+discovery were placed in the hands of fools, the world would perish.
+Music has been so long the plaything of sensuality, the theatre for idle
+men and women, that its real greatness is forgotten. In Illowski's hands
+it is a moral force. He comes to destroy that he may rebuild. He
+accomplishes it with the raw elements themselves. Remember--'I hear the
+grinding of the swords, and He shall come--!'" Neshevna made a nervous
+gesture and disappeared through a door near the tall desk covered with
+music-paper--the desk whereon Illowski plotted the ruin of civilization.
+
+"Now since you have seen the dread laboratory, don't hang around that
+desk; there's nothing there you can understand. The music-paper is
+covered with electrical and chemical formulæ, not notes. I've seen them.
+Lenyard, let's go back to Paris and dine, like sensible men,--which we
+are not." Scheff dragged his friend out of the house, for the other was
+in a stupor. Neshevna's words cleaved his very soul. The American, the
+puritan in him, swiftly rose to her eloquent exhortation. All life was
+corrupt, he had been taught; art was corrupt, a snare, a delusion.
+Yet--was all its appalling power, its sensuous grandeur to be wasted in
+the service of the world, the flesh, the devil? Lenyard paused. "Oh,
+come on, Len. Why do you bother your excitable, sick heart with that
+lunatic's prophecies? Illowski is a big man, a very big man; but he is
+mad, mad! His theories of the decomposition of tone--he only imitates
+the old painter-impressionist of long ago--and his affected
+simplicity--why, he is after the big public, that's all. As to your
+question about what part the human voice plays in his scheme, I may tell
+you now that he doesn't care a farthing for it except as color. He uses
+the voice as he would use any instrumental combination, and he mixes his
+colors so wonderfully that he sometimes polarizes them--they no longer
+have any hue or scent. He should have been a painter not a composer. He
+makes panoramas, psychological panoramas, not music."
+
+"You heard them, saw them?"
+
+"Yes," said Scheff, sourly. "Some of the early ones, and I had brain
+fever for months afterward."
+
+"Yet," challenged Lenyard, "you deny his powers?"
+
+"I don't know what he has written recently," was the sullen answer, "but
+if the newspapers are to be believed, he is crazy. Music all color, no
+rhythm, no themes, and then his preaching of Nietzsche--it's all wrong,
+all wrong, my boy. Art was made for joy. When it is anything else, it's
+a dangerous explosive. Chemically separate certain natural elements and
+they rush together with a thunder-clap. That's what Illowski has done.
+It isn't art. It's science--the science of dangerous sounds. He
+discovered that sound-vibrations rule the universe, that they may be
+turned into a musical Roentgen ray. He presents this in a condensed art,
+an electric form--"
+
+"But the means, man, the methods, the instruments, the form?" Lenyard's
+voice was tense with excitement. The phlegmatic Scheff noticed this and
+soothingly said:
+
+"The means? Why, dear boy, he just hypnotizes people, and promises them
+bank accounts and angel-wings. That's how he does the trick. Here's the
+tramcar. Jump in. I'm dying of thirst. To the Monferino!" ...
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Paris laughed when Illowski announced the performance of his new
+orchestral drama named "Nietzsche." The newspapers printed columns
+about the composer and his strange career. A disused monster music-hall,
+near the Moulin Rouge on Montmartre, was to be the scene of the concert
+and the place was at once christened "Théâtre du Tarnhelm"--for a story
+had leaked out about the ebon darkness in which the Russian's music was
+played. This was surpassing the almost forgotten Richard Wagner.
+Concerts in the dark must be indeed spirituelle. The wits giggled over
+their jokes; and when the kiosks and bare walls were covered by placards
+bearing the names of "Illowski--'Nietzsche,'" with a threatening sword
+beneath them, the excitement became real. Satirical songs were sung in
+the cafés chantants, and several fashionable clerics wove the name of
+Illowski into their Sunday preachments. In a week he was popular, two a
+mystery, three a necessity. The authorities maintained a dignified
+silence--and watched. Politics, Bourbonism, Napoleonism, Boulangerism
+ere this had crept in unawares sporting strange disguises. Perhaps
+Illowski was a friend of the Vatican, of the Czar; perhaps a
+destructive, bomb-throwing Nihilist, for the indomitable revolutionists
+still waged war against the law. Might not this music be the signal for
+a dangerous uprising of some sort?...
+
+Lenyard was asked to sit in a box with Neshevna that last night. Scheff
+refused to join them; he swore that he was tired of music and would
+remain in town. The woman smiled as he said this, then she handed him a
+letter, made a little motion--"the signal."
+
+It was on the esplanade that Neshevna and Lenyard stood. The young man,
+weary with vigils, his face furrowed by curiosity, regarded the city
+below them as it lay swimming in the waves of a sinking sun. He saw the
+crosses of La Trinité as molten copper, then dusk and dwindle in the
+shadows. The twilight seemed to prefigure the fading of the human race.
+Neshevna walked with this dreamer to the rear of the theatre--the
+theatre of the Tarnhelm, that was to darken all civilization. He asked
+for Illowski, but she did not reply; she, too, was steeped in dreams.
+And all the streets were thick with men and women tumbling up to the
+top.
+
+"We sit in a second-tier box," she presently said. "If you get tired,
+or--annoyed, you may go out on the balcony and look down upon the lights
+of Paris, though I fear it will be a dark night. There is no moon," she
+added, her voice dropping to a mumble....
+
+They sat in a dark box that last night. The auditorium, vast and silent
+with the breath-catching silence of thousands, lay below them; but their
+eyes were glued upon a rosy light beginning to break over the space
+where was the stage. It spread, deepened, until it fairly hummed with
+scarlet tones. Gradually emerging from this cruel crimson the image of a
+huge sword became visible. Neshevna touched Lenyard's hand.
+
+"The symbol of his power!" she crooned.
+
+Blending with the color of the light a musical tone made itself seen,
+heard, felt. Lenyard shuddered. At last, the new dispensation was about
+to be revealed, the new gospel preached. It was a single vibratile tone,
+and was uttered by a trumpet. Was it a trumpet? It pealed with the peal
+of bells shimmering high in heaven. No occidental instrument had ever
+such a golden, conquering tone. It was the tone of one who foretold the
+coming, and was full of invincible faith and sweetness. Lenyard closed
+his eyes. That a single tone could so thrill his nerves he would have
+denied. This, then, was the secret. For the first time in the Christian
+world, the beauties of tonal timbres were made audible--almost visible;
+the quality appealed to the eye, the inner eye. Was not the tinted music
+so cunningly merged as to impinge first on the optic nerve? Had the
+East, the Hindus and the Chinese, known of this purely material fact for
+ages, and guarded it in esoteric silence? Here was music based on
+simple, natural sounds, the sounds of birds and air, the subtle sounds
+of silk. For centuries Europe had been on the wrong track with its
+melodic experimenting, its complex of harmonies. Illowski was indeed
+the saviour of music--and Neshevna, her great, green, luminous eyes upon
+him, held Lenyard's hand.
+
+The sound grew in volume, grew less silken, and more threatening, while
+the light faded into mute, misty music like the purring of cats. A
+swelling roar assaulted their ears; nameless creeping things seemed to
+fill the tone. Yet it was in one tonality; there was no harmony, no
+melody. The man's quick ear detected many new, rich timbres, as if made
+by strange instruments. He also recognized interior rhythms, the result
+of color rather than articulate movement. Then came silence, a silence
+that shouted cruelly across the gulfs of blackness, a silence so
+profound as to be appalling. Sound, rhythm, silence--the material from
+which is fashioned the creative stuff of the universe! Lenyard became
+restless; but the grip on his fingers tightened. He felt the oppressive
+dread that precedes the flight of a nightmare; the dread that mankind
+knows when sunk in shallow, horrid sleep. A low, frightened wail mounted
+out of the darkness wherein massed the people. Another tone usurped the
+ear, pierced the eyes. It was a blinding beam of tone, higher and more
+undulating. His heart harshly ticking like a clock, he viewed, as in a
+vision, the march of the nations, the crash of falling theocracies, of
+dying dynasties. On a stony platform, vast and crowded, he knelt in
+sackcloth and ashes; the heavens thundered over the weeping millions of
+Nineveh; and the Lord of Hosts would not be appeased. Stretching to the
+clouds were black, basaltic battlements, and above them reared white
+terraced palaces, as swans that strain their throats to the sky. The day
+of wrath was come. And amid the granitic clashing of the elements,
+Lenyard saw the mighty East resolving into dust. Neshevna pressed his
+hand.
+
+By the waters of Babylon he wandered, and found himself at the base of a
+rude little hill. The shock of the quaking earth, the silent passing of
+the sheeted dead, and the rush of affrighted multitudes told him that
+another cosmic tragedy was at hand. In a flare of lightning he saw
+silhouetted against an angry sky three crosses at the top of the sad
+little hill. He reeled away, his heart almost bursting, when Neshevna
+grasped him. "You saw the death of the gods!" she hoarsely whispered.
+
+He could not answer, for the music showed him a thunder-blasted shore
+fringing a bituminous sea. This sea stirred not, while the air above it
+was frozen in salty silence. Faint, thin light came up through the
+waters, and Lenyard caught a glimpse in the deeps below of sparkling
+pinnacles and bulbous domes of gold; a dead sea rolled over the dead
+cities of the bitter plain. He trembled as Neshevna said, with a
+grinding sob, "That was the death of life."
+
+Lenyard's sombre soul modulated to another dream--the last. Suffocating
+and vague, the stillness waxed and ran over the troubled edges of
+eternity. The Plain, gloomy and implacable, was illuminated on its
+anonymous horizon by one rift of naked, leering light. Over its
+illimitable surface surged and shivered women, white, dazzling,
+numberless. As waves that, lap on lap, sweep fiercely across the
+sky-line, as bisons that furiously charge upon grassy wastes, "as the
+rill that runs from Bulicamé to be portioned out among the sinful
+women," these hordes of savage creatures rose and fell in their mad
+flight across the Plain. No sudden little river, no harsh accent of
+knoll or hill, broke the immeasurable whiteness of bared breast and
+ivoried shoulder. It was a white whirl of women, a ferocious vortex of
+terrified women. Lenyard saw the petrified fear upon the faces of them
+that went into the Pit; and he descried the cruel and looming figure of
+Illowski piping to them as they went into the Pit. The maelstrom of
+faces turned to their dream-master; faces blanched by regret, sunned by
+crime, beaming with sin; faces rusted by vain virtue; wan, weary faces,
+and the triumphant regard of those who loved--all gazed at the Piper as
+vertiginously they boiled by. The world of women passed at his feet
+radiant, guilty, white, glittering and powerless. Lenyard felt the
+inertia of sickness seize him when he saw the capital expression upon
+these futile faces--the expression of insurgent souls that see for the
+last time their conqueror. Not a sign made these mystic brides, not a
+sound; and, as in the blazing music they dashed despairingly down the
+gulf of time, Lenyard was left with eyes strained, pulses jangled,
+lonely and hopeless. He shivered, and his heart halted....
+
+"This is the death of love," shouted Neshevna. But Lenyard heard her
+not; nor did he hear the noise of the people beneath--the veritable
+booming of primordial gorilla-men. And now a corrosive shaft of tone
+rived the building as though its walls had been of gauze and went
+hissing towards Paris, in shape a menacing sword. Like the clattering of
+tumbrils in narrow, stony streets men and women trampled upon each
+other, fleeing from the accursed altar of this arch-priest of
+Beelzebub--Illowski. They over-streamed the sides of Montmartre, as ants
+washed away by water. And the howling of them was heard by the watchers
+in the doomed city below.
+
+Neshevna, her arm clutched by Lenyard's icy fingers, shook him
+violently, and tried to release herself. Finding this impossible she
+dragged her silent burden out upon the crumpling balcony.
+
+Paris was draped in flaming clouds--the blood-red smoke of mad torches.
+Tongues of fire twined about the towers of Notre Dame; where the Opéra
+once stood yawned a blackened hole. The air was shocked by fulminate
+blasts--the signals of the careless Scheff.
+
+And the woman, her mouth filled with exultant laughter, screamed, "Thou
+hast conquered, O Pavel Illowski!"
+
+
+
+
+AN EMOTIONAL ACROBAT
+
+    They were tears which he drummed.
+
+    --HEINE.
+
+
+Perhaps you think because I play upon an instrument of percussion I
+admire that other percussive machine of wood and wire, the piano, or
+consider the tympanum an inferior instrument?
+
+You were never more mistaken, for I despise the piano as a shallow
+compromise between the harp, tympani and those Eastern tinkling
+instruments of crystal and glass, or dulcimers and cymbalum. It has no
+character, no individuality of its own. It is deplorable in conjunction
+with an orchestra, for its harsh, hard, unmalleable tone never blends
+with other instruments. It is a selfish instrument and it makes selfish
+artists of those who devote a lifetime to it.
+
+Bah! I hate you and your pianos. Compare it to the tympani? Never,
+never! It is false, insincere, and smirks and simpers if even a silly
+school girl sits before it. It takes on the color of any composer's
+ideas, and submits like a slave to the whims of any virtuoso. I am
+disgusted. Here am I, an old kettle-drummer--as you say in your
+barbarous English--poor, unknown, forced to earn a beggarly living by
+strumming dance tunes in a variety hall on a hated piano, and often
+accompanying singers, acrobats, and all the riffraff of a vaudeville,
+where a mist of vulgarity hangs like a dirty pearl cloud over all. I
+don't look at my music any more. I know what is wanted. I have rhythmic
+talent. I conduct myself, although there is a butter-faced leader waving
+a silly stick at us while I sit in my den, half under the stage, and
+thrum and think, and blink and thrum.
+
+And what do you suppose I do with my mornings--for I have to rehearse
+every afternoon with odious people who splash their draggled lives with
+feeble, sick music--? I stay in my attic room and play upon my tympani,
+my beloved children. I have three of them, and I play all sorts of
+scores, from the wonderful first measures of Beethoven's Fifth, to
+Saint-Saëns' Arabian music. Ah! those men understand my instrument. It
+is no instrument of percussion to them. It has a soul. It is the heart
+of the orchestra. Its rhythmic throb is the pulse of musical life. What
+are your strings, your scratching, rasping strings! What signifies the
+blare of your brass, or the bilious bleating of your wood-wind! I am the
+centre, the life giver. From me the circulation of warm, musical blood
+emanates. I stand at the back of the orchestra as high as the
+conductor. Ah! he knows it; he looks at me first. How about the Fifth
+Symphony? You now sneer no longer. It is I who outline with mystic taps
+the framework of the story. Wagner, great, glorious, glowing Wagner!--I
+kiss his memory--he appreciated the tympani and their noble mission in
+music....
+
+Yes, I am an educated man, but music snared me away from a worldly
+career. Music and--a woman; but never mind that part of it. Do you know
+Hunding's motif in "Die Walküre"? Ha! ha! I will give it to you. Listen!
+Is it not beautiful? The stern, acrid warrior approaches. And Wagner
+gave it to me, to the tympani. Am I crazy, am I arrogant, to feel as I
+do about my darling dwarf children? Look at their beloved bellies, so
+smooth, so elastic, so resonant! A tiny tap and I set vibrating millions
+of delicate, ethereal sounds, the timbre of which to my ears has color,
+form, substance, nuance, and thrills me even to my old marrow. Is it not
+delicious--that warm, velvety, dull percussion? Is it not delicious, I
+say? How it shimmers and senses about me! You have heard of drummed
+tears? I can make you weep, if I will, with a few melancholy, muffled
+strokes. The drum is the epitome of life. Sound is life. The cave-men
+bruised stones together and heard the first music.
+
+I know your Herbert Spencer thinks differently, but bah! what does he
+know about tympani? Chopin would have been a great tympanist if he had
+not wasted his life foolishly at the piano. When he merely drummed with
+his fingers on the table, Balzac said, he made music, so exquisitely
+sensitive was his touch. Ah me! what a tympanist was lost to the world.
+What shading, what delicacy, what sunlight and shadow he would have made
+flit across my little darlings on their tripods! No wonder I hate the
+piano; and yet, hideous mockery of fate! I play upon an old grand to
+earn my bread and wine. I can't play with an orchestra--it is torture
+for me. They do not understand me; the big noisy boors do not understand
+rhythm or nuance. They play so loud that I cannot be heard, and I will
+never stoop to noisy banging. How I hate these orchestral players! How
+they scratch and blow like pigs and boasters! When I did play with them
+they made fun of my red hair and delicate touch. The leader could not
+understand me, and kept on yelling "Forte, Forte." It was in the Fifth
+of Beethoven, and I became angry and called out in my poor German (ah! I
+hate German, it hurts my teeth): "_Nein, so klopft das Schicksal nicht
+an die Pforte._" You remember Beethoven's words!
+
+Well, everybody laughed at me, and I got mad and covered up my
+instruments and went home. Jackass! he wanted me to bang out that
+wonderful intimation of fate as though it were the milkman knocking at
+the door. I am a poet, and play upon the tympani; the conductor and the
+orchestra are boors. But I do injustice to one of them. He was an
+Alsatian, and spoke bad French. But he was an excellent bassoon player.
+He often called on me and we played duets for bassoon and tympani, and
+then read Amiel's journal aloud and wept. Oh! he had a sensitive soul,
+that bassoon player. He died of the cholera, and now I am alone....
+
+After my failure as an orchestral player I gave a concert in this city,
+and played my concerto for seven drums and wood-wind orchestra. The
+critics laughed me to distraction. Instead of listening to the
+innumerable rhythms and marvellous variety of nuances I offered them,
+they mocked my agile behavior and my curiously colored hair. Even my
+confrères envied and reviled me. I have genius, so am hated and
+despised. Oh, the pity of it all! They couldn't hear the tenderness, the
+fairy-like sobbing made by my wrists, but listened with admiration to
+the tinkling of a piano, with its hard, unchangeable tone. Oh, the
+stupidity of it all!...
+
+But time will have its revenge. I will not stir a finger either. When I
+die the world of tone will realize that a great man has passed away,
+after a wretched, neglected life. I have composed a symphony, and for
+nothing but _Tympani_! Don't smile, because I have explored the most
+fantastic regions of rhythm, hitherto undreamed. Tone, timbre,
+intensity, rhythm, variety in color, all, all will be in it; and how
+much more subtly expressed than by your modern orchestra, with its
+blare, blow, bang and scratch. And what great thoughts I have expressed!
+I have gone beyond Berlioz, Wagner and Richard Strauss. I have
+discovered rhythms, Asiatic in origin, that will plunge you into
+midnight woe; rhythms rescued from the Greeks of old, that will drive
+you into panting dance; rhythms that will make drunkards of sober men,
+warriors of cowards, harlots of angels. I can intoxicate, dazzle, burn,
+madden you. Why? Because all music is rhythm. It is the skeleton, the
+structure of life, love, the cosmos. God! how I will exult, even if my
+skin crackles in hell-fire, when the children of the earth listen to my
+Tympani Symphony, and go crazy with its tappings!...
+
+I have led a shiftless, uneventful life, yet I envy no one, for I am the
+genius of a new art--but stay a moment! An uneventful life, did I say?
+Alas! my life has been one long, desperate effort to forget her, to
+forget my love, my wife. My God! I can see her face now, when she
+flashed across my sight at a provincial circus. It was in France. I was
+a young man drum-mad, and went to the circus to beguile my time, for I
+couldn't practise all day. Then I saw her--"Mlle. Léontine, the Aërial
+Virtuoso of the Century," the playbills called her. She was fair and
+slim, and Heaven had smiled into her eyes.
+
+I am a poet, you see. Her hair was the color of tender wheat and her
+feet twinkled star-wise when she walked. She was my first, my only love,
+my life, my wife. She loved me, she told me so soon after we became
+acquainted, and I believed her; I believe her now, sometimes, when I
+strike softly the skins of my dear little drum children. We soon
+married. There were no impediments on my side; my parents were dead and
+I had a little ready money. I gave it all to her. She took it and bought
+diamonds.
+
+"They were so handy in case of hard luck," she said, and smiled. I
+smiled, too, and kissed her.
+
+I kissed her very often, and was so desperately in love with her that I
+joined the circus and played the drums there; hush! don't tell it to any
+one--and the side-drums at that. I would have even played the piano for
+her, so frantically did I adore her. I was very proud of my wife, my
+Léontine. She did a tremendous act on the trapeze. She swung and made a
+flying leap across the tent and caught a bar, and every time I gave a
+tap on the big drum just as she grasped the trapeze. Oh! it would have
+made your blood shiver to see her slight figure hurtling through space
+and landing safely with my rhythmic accompaniment. And how people
+cheered, and what crowds flocked to view the spectacle! In some towns
+the authorities made us use nets; then the crowds were not nearly so
+large. People like risks. The human animal is happy if it smells blood.
+Léontine noticed the decreased attendance when the safety nets were
+used, and begged the manager to dispense with them.
+
+He often did so, for he loved money as much as she loved fame. She was
+perfectly fearless and laughed at my misgivings, so we usually did the
+act without nets....
+
+We had reached Rouen in our wanderings through the provinces, and I
+mooned about the old town, sauntering through the cathedral, plunged in
+a reverie, for I was happy, happy all the time. Léontine was so good, so
+amiable, so true. She associated with none of the women of the circus
+and with none of the men, except the manager and myself.
+
+The manager reared her; she had been a foundling. She told me this at
+the beginning of our intimacy. We often played games of picking out the
+handsomest houses and châteaux we passed, pretending that her parents
+lived in them. She was very jolly, was my little Léontine, and remained
+with me nearly all the time, except when practising her difficult feats;
+this she did in company with the manager, who attended to the ropes and
+necessary tackling. He was a charming fellow, and very obliging.
+
+One day I was sitting half-asleep in the spring sunshine, with my back
+to one of the tents, awaiting Léontine's return. She was, as usual,
+rehearsing, and I, composing and dreaming. Suddenly a laugh aroused me,
+and I heard a woman's voice:
+
+"But the young idiot never will discover them; he is too blind and too
+fond of drumming."
+
+I tuned up my ears. Another woman answered in a regretful tone:
+
+"See what it is to be fascinating like Léontine; she gets all the boy's
+money, and has the manager besides. She must earn a pretty penny." ...
+
+I sat perfectly cold and still for several moments, then managed to
+wriggle away. I can give you no account of my feelings now, so many
+years have passed; besides, I don't think I felt at all. Every day I
+became more and more thoughtful, and Léontine and the manager rallied me
+on my silence....
+
+At last I made up my mind that it was time to act. We went to Lille and
+gave there our usual display. I had not seen Léontine all day, and when
+the evening came I sent a message telling her I was not hungry and would
+not be home for supper. I could be a hypocrite no longer.
+
+In the evening the regular performance began. I was in a gay humor, and
+the men in the orchestra laughed at my wit, saying that I was more like
+my old self. My wife's aërial act came last on the bill, being the
+event of the show. What a brilliant house we had! I still can smell the
+sawdust, the orange peel, see the myriad of faces and hear the crack of
+the ring-masters' whips, the cries of the clowns and the crash of the
+music....
+
+"She comes, Léontine comes!" shrilled a thousand throats.
+
+Into the ring she dashed on a milk-white horse, and, throwing off her
+drapery, stood bowing.
+
+What a graceful figure she had, and how lovely she looked as she
+clambered aloft to her giddy perch! Breathlessly every one saw her make
+preparations for the flight through the air. The band became silent; all
+necks were strained as she swung lightly to and fro in space, increasing
+the speed to gain necessary momentum for the final launch.
+
+Off she darted, like a thunderbolt--bang! went my drum--a moment too
+soon. The false unaccustomed rhythm shook her nerves and she tumbled
+with her face toward me.
+
+There were no nets....
+
+Later I sought the manager. He was in his room, his head thrust beneath
+pillows. I tapped him on the shoulder; he shuddered when he saw me.
+"'Tis you who should wear black," I said....
+
+
+
+
+ISOLDE'S MOTHER
+
+    Kennst du der Mutter Künste nicht?
+
+    --TRISTAN UND ISOLDE.
+
+
+I
+
+"I'd rather see her in her grave than as Isolde!" Mrs. Fridolin tightly
+closed her large, soft eyes, adding intensity to a declaration made for
+the enlightenment of her companion in a German railway carriage. The
+young woman laughed disagreeably.
+
+"I mean what I say, Miss Bredd; and when you know as much about the
+profession as I do--when you are an older woman--you will see I am
+right. Meg--I should say Margaret--shall never sing Isolde with _my_
+permission. Apart from the dreadfully immoral situation, just think of
+the costume in the garden scene, that chiton of cheese-cloth! And these
+Wagnerites pretend to turn up their nose at 'Faust'! I once told dear,
+old M. Gounod, when Meg was in Paris with Parchesi, his music was
+positively decent compared--"
+
+The train, which had been travelling at a dangerous pace for Germany,
+slackened speed, and the clatter in the compartment ahead caused the
+two women to crane their heads out of the window.
+
+"Bayreuth!" cried the younger theatrically, "Bayreuth, the Mecca of the
+true Wagnerite." Mrs. Fridolin gazed at her, at the neat American belted
+serge suit, the straw sailor hat, the demure mouse colored hair, the
+calm, insolent eyes--eyes that bored like a gimlet. "Oh, you love
+Wagner?" The girl hesitated, then answered in the broadest burr of the
+Middle West, "Well, you see, I haven't heard much of him, except when
+the Thomas Orchestra came over to our place from Chicago. So I ain't
+going to say whether I like him or not till I hear him. But I've written
+lots about the 'Ring'--" "Without hearing it? How very American!"--"And
+I'm a warm admirer of your daughter. Madame Fridolina always seemed to
+me to be a great Wagner singer. Now _she_ can sing the Liebestod better
+than any of the German women--"
+
+"Thank you, my dear; one never goes to Bayreuth for the singing."
+
+"I know that; but as it's my first trip over here I mean to make the
+most of it. I am a journalist, you know, and I'll write lots home about
+Wagner and Fridolina."
+
+"Thanks again, my dear young lady. I'm sure you will tell the truth.
+Margaret was refused the Brünnhilde at the last moment by Madame
+Cosima--that's Mrs. Wagner, you know--and she had to content herself
+with Fricka in 'Rheingold,' and Gutrune in 'Götterdämmerung,' two odious
+parts. But what can she do? The Brünnhilde is Gulbranson. She is a great
+favorite in Bayreuth, and has kept her figure, while poor Meg--wait till
+you see her!"
+
+The train rounded the curve and, leaving behind the strange looking
+theatre, surely a hieratic symbol of Wagner's power, entered the station
+full of gabbling, curious people--Bayreuth at last.
+
+
+II
+
+The atelier was on the ground floor at the end of a German garden full
+of angular desolations. It was a large, bare, dusty apartment, the glare
+of the August sun tempered by green shades nearly obscuring the big
+window facing the north. A young woman sat high on a revolving platform.
+She was very fat. As the sculptor fixed her with his slow glance he saw
+that her head, a pretty head, was too small for her monstrous bulk; her
+profile, pure Greek, the eyes ox-like, the cups full of feeling, with
+heavy accents beneath them. Her face, almost slim, had planes eloquent
+with surface meanings upon the cheeks and chin, while the mouth, sweet
+for a large woman, revealed amiability quite in accord with the
+expression of the eyes. These were the glory of her countenance, these
+and her resonant black hair. Isolate this head from the shoulders, from
+all the gross connotations of the frame, and the trick would be done. So
+thought the sculptor, as the problem posed itself clearly; then he saw
+her figure and doubted.
+
+"I _am_ hopeless, am I not, Herr Arthmann?" Her voice was so frankly
+appealing, so rich in comic intention, that he sat down and laughed. She
+eagerly joined in: "And yet my waist is not so large as Mitwindt's. We
+always call her Bagpipes. She is absurd. And such a chest--! Why, I'm a
+mere child. Anyhow, all Germans like big singers, and all the German
+Wagner singers are big women, are they not, Herr Arthmann? There was
+Alboni and Parepa-Rosa--I know they were not Wagner singers; but they
+were awful all the same--and just look at the Schnorrs, Materna, Rosa
+Sucher, poor Klafsky and--"
+
+"My dear young friend," interrupted the sculptor as he took up a pointer
+and approached a miniature head in clay which stood upon a stand, "my
+dear"--he did not say "friend" the second time--"I remarked nothing
+about your figure being too large for the stage. I was trying to get it
+into harmony with your magnificent shoulders and antique head. That's
+all." His intonation was caressing, the speech of a cultivated man, and
+his accent slightly Scandinavian; at times his voice seemed to her as
+sweetly staccato as a mandolin. He gazed with all his vibrating artistic
+soul into the girl's humid blue eyes; half frightened she looked down at
+her pretty, dimpled hands--the hands of a baby despite their
+gladiatorial size.
+
+"How you do flatter! All foreigners flatter American girls, don't they?
+Now you know you don't think my shoulders magnificent, do you? And my
+waist--O! Herr Arthmann, what shall I do with my waist? As Brünnhilde,
+I'm all right to move about in loose draperies, but as Fricka, as
+Gutrune--Gutrune who falls fainting beside Siegfried's bier! How must I
+look on my back? Oh, dear! and I diet, never drink water at meals, walk
+half the day and seldom touch a potato. And you know what that means in
+Germany! There are times when to see a potato, merely hearing the word
+mentioned, brings tears to my eyes. And yet I get no thinner--just look
+at me!"
+
+He did. Her figure was gigantic. She weighed much over two hundred
+pounds, though the mighty trussing to which she subjected herself, and a
+discreet manner of dressing made her seem smaller. Arthmann was
+critical, and did not disguise the impossibility of the task. He had
+determined on a head and bust, something heroic after the manner of a
+sturdy Brünnhilde. The preparations were made, the skeleton, framework
+of lead pipe for the clay, with crossbar for shoulders and wooden
+"butterflies" in position. On the floor were water-buckets, wet cloths
+and a vast amount of wet clay--clay to catch the fleshly exterior, clay
+to imprison the soul--perhaps, of Fridolina. But nothing had been done
+except a tiny wax model, a likeness full of spirit, slightly encouraging
+to the perplexed artist. The girl was beautiful; eyes, hair, teeth,
+coloring--all enticed him as man. As sculptor the shapeless, hopeless
+figure was a thing for sack-like garments, not for candid clay or the
+illuminating commentary of marble. She drew a silk shawl closer about
+her bare shoulders.
+
+"And Isolde--what shall I do? Frau Cosima says that I may sing it two
+summers from now; but then she promised me Brünnhilde two years ago
+after I had successfully sung Elsa. I know every note of 'Tristan,' for
+I've had over a thousand piano rehearsals, and Herr Siegfried and Caspar
+Dennett both say that in time it will be my great rôle." "Who was it you
+mentioned besides the Prince Imperial?"--they always call Siegfried
+Wagner the Prince Imperial or the Heir Apparent in Bayreuth--"Mr.
+Dennett. He is the celebrated young American conductor--the only
+American that ever conducted in Bayreuth. You saw him the other night at
+Sammett's garden. Don't you remember the smooth faced, very good-looking
+young man?--you ought to model him. He was with Siegfried when he spoke
+to me." "And you say that he admires your Isolde?" persisted Arthmann,
+pulling at his short reddish beard. "Why, of course! Didn't he play the
+piano accompaniments?" "Was his wife always with you?" "Now, Herr
+Arthmann, you are a regular gossipy German. Certainly she wasn't. We in
+America don't need chaperons like your Ibsen women--are you really
+Norwegian or Polish? Is your name, Wenceslaus, Bohemian or Polish?
+Besides, here I am alone in your studio in Bayreuth, the most
+scandal-mongering town I ever heard of. My mother would object very much
+to this sort of thing, and I'm sure we are very proper." "Oh, very,"
+replied the sculptor; "when do you expect your mother? To-morrow, is it
+not?"
+
+The girl nodded. Tired of talking, she watched with cool nervousness the
+movements of the young man; watched his graceful figure, admirable
+poses; his long, brown fingers smoothing and puttering in the clay; his
+sharply etched profile, so melancholy, insincere. "And this Dennett?" he
+resumed. She opened her little mouth. "Please don't yawn, Fridolina," he
+begged. "I wasn't yawning, only trying to laugh. Dennett is on your
+mind. He seems to worry you. Don't be jealous--Wenceslaus; he is an
+awful flirt and once frightened me to death by chasing me around the
+dressing-room at the opera till I was out of breath and black and blue
+from pushing the chairs and tables in his way. And what do you suppose
+he gave as an excuse? Why, he just said he was exercising me to reduce
+my figure, and hadn't the remotest notion of kissing me. Oh, no, he
+hadn't, had he?" She pealed with laughter, her companion regarding her
+with tense lips. "No one but a Yankee girl would have thought of telling
+such a story." "Why, is it improper?" She was all anxiety. "No, not
+improper, but heartless, simply heartless. You have never loved,
+Margaret Fridolina," he said, harshly. "Call me Meg, Wenceslaus, but not
+when mamma is present," was her simple answer. He threw down his wooden
+modelling spatula.
+
+"Oh, this is too much," he angrily exclaimed: "you tell me of men who
+chase you"--"a man Wenceslaus," she corrected him earnestly--"you tell
+me all this and you know I love you; without your love I shall throw up
+sculpture and go to sea as a sailor. Meg, Meg, have you no heart?" "Why,
+you little boy, what have I said to offend you? Why are you so cynical
+when I know you to be so sentimental?" Her voice was arch, an intimate
+voice with liquid inflections. He began pacing the chilly floor of the
+studio.
+
+"Let us be frank. I've only known you two months, since the day we
+accidentally met, leaving Paris for Bayreuth. You have written your
+mother nothing of our engagement--well, provisional engagement, if you
+will--and you insist on sticking to the operatic stage. I loathe it, and
+I confess to you that I am sick with jealousy when I see you near that
+lanky, ill-favored German tenor Burgmann." "What, poor, big me!" she
+interjected, in teasing accents. "Yes, you, Fridolina. I can quite
+sympathize with what you tell me of your mother's dislike for the rôle
+of Isolde. You are not temperamentally suited to it; it is horrible to
+think of you in that second act." "How horrible? My figure, you mean?"
+"Yes, your figure, too, would be absurd." He was brutal now. "And you
+haven't the passion to make anything of the music. You've never loved,
+never will, passionately--" "But I'll sing Isolde all the same," she
+cried. "Not with my permission." "Then without you and your permission."
+She hastily arose and was about to step down from her pedestal when the
+door opened.
+
+"Mother! Why, mamma, you said you weren't coming until Sunday." Mrs.
+Fridolin could not see very well in the heavy shadows after the blinding
+sunlight without. "What are you doing here, Margaret, and of all things
+alone up there on a throne! Is this a rehearsal for the opera?" "I'm not
+alone, mother. This is Wenceslaus--Mr. Wenceslaus Arthmann, the
+sculptor, mamma, and he is doing me in clay. Look at it; isn't it sweet?
+Mr. Arthmann, this is my mother--and who is the young lady, mamma?"
+"Oh, I forgot. I was so confused and put out not finding you at the
+station I drove at once to Villa Wahnfried--" "Villa Wahnfried!" echoed
+two voices in dismayed unison. "Yes, to Frau Cosima, and she directed me
+here." "She directed you here?" "Yes, why shouldn't she? Is there
+anything wrong in that?" asked the stately, high-nosed lady with the
+gray pompadour, beginning to peer about suspiciously. "Oh, no, mamma,
+but how did Frau Cosima know that I was here?" "I don't know, child,"
+was the testy answer. "Come, get down and let me introduce you to my
+charming travelling friend, Miss Bredd." "Miss Saïs Bredd," put in the
+Western girl; "I was named Saïs after my father visited Egypt, but my
+friends call me Louie."--"And Miss Bredd, this is Mister--" "Arthmann,
+madame," said the sculptor. They all shook hands after the singer had
+released her mother from a huge, cavernous hug. "But Meg, Meg, where is
+your chaperon?" Fridolina looked at the young man: "Why, mamma, it was
+the _Hausfrau_ who let you in, of course." Miss Bredd smiled cynically.
+
+
+III
+
+Up the Via Dolorosa toiled a Sunday mob from many nations. The long,
+nebulous avenue, framed on either side by dull trees, was dusty with
+the heels of the faithful ones; and the murmur of voices in divers
+tongues recalled the cluttering sea on a misty beach. Never swerving,
+without haste or rest, went the intrepid band of melomaniacs speaking of
+the singers, the weather and prices until the summit was reached. There
+the first division broke ranks and charged upon the caravansary which
+still stood the attacks of thirsty multitudes after two decades. Lucky
+ones grasped Schoppen of beer and Rhine wine hemmed in by an army of
+expectant throats, for the time was at hand when would sound Donner's
+motive from the balcony: music made by brass instruments warning the
+elect that "Rheingold" was about to unfold its lovely fable of water,
+wood and wind.
+
+Mrs. Fridolin went to the theatre and longed with mother's eyes for the
+curtains to part and discover Fricka. She took her seat unconcernedly;
+she was not an admirer of Wagner, educated as she had been in the florid
+garden of Italian song. The darkness at first oppressed her. When from
+mystic space welled those elemental sounds, not mere music, but the
+sighing, droning, rhythmic swish of the waters, this woman knew that
+something strange and terrible was about to enter into her
+consciousness. The river Rhine calmly, majestically stole over her
+senses; she forgot Bellini, Donizetti, even Gounod and soon she was with
+the Rhine Daughters, with Alberich.... Her heart seemed to stop. All
+sense of identity vanished at a wave of Wagner's wand, as is absorbed
+the _ego_ by the shining mirror of the hypnotist. This, then, was the
+real Wagner--a Wagner who attacked simultaneously the senses, vanquished
+the strongest brain; a Wagner who wept, wooed, sang and surged, ravished
+the soul until it was brought lacerated and captive to the feet of the
+victorious master magician. The eye was promise-crammed, the ears sealed
+with bliss, and she felt the wet of the waters. She breathed hard as
+Alberich scaled the slimy steeps; and the curves described by the three
+swimming mermaids filled her with the joy of the dance, the free
+ecstatic movements of free things in the waves. The filching of the
+Rheingold, the hoarse shout of laughter from Alberich's love-foresworn
+lips, and the terrified cries of the luckless watchers were as real as
+life. Walhall did not confuse her, for now she caught clues to the
+meaning of the mighty epic. Wotan and Fricka--ah, Meg did not look so
+stout, and how lovely her voice sounded!--Loki, mischief-making,
+diplomatic Loki; the giants, Fafner and Fasolt; Freia, and foolish,
+maimed, malicious Mime--these were not mere papier-maché, but
+fascinating deities. She saw the gnomes' underworld, saw the ring, the
+snake and the tarnhelm; she heard the Nibelungs' anvil chorus--so
+different from Verdi's--saw the giants quarrelling over their booty;
+and the sonorous rainbow seemed to bridge the way to a fairer land. As
+the Walhall march died in her ears she found herself outside on the
+dusky, picturesque esplanade and forgot all about Meg, remembering her
+only as Fricka. With the others she slowly trod the path that had been
+pressed by the feet of art's martyrs. Mrs. Fridolin then gave tongue to
+her whirring brain:
+
+"Oh! the magic of it all," she gasped.
+
+"I'm afraid I rather agree with Nordau, Mrs. Fridolin--the whole affair
+reminds me of a tank-drama I once saw in Chicago." It was the cool voice
+of Miss Bredd that sounded in the hot, humming lane punctuated by vague,
+tall trees....
+
+Mrs. Fridolin and her party went to Sammett's for dinner that evening.
+This garden, once Angermann's and made famous by Wagner, is still a
+magnet. The Americans listened calmly to furious disputes, in a
+half-dozen tongues, over the performance to the crashing of dishes and
+the huddling of glasses always full, always empty. Arthmann ordered the
+entire menu, knowing well that it would reach them after much delay in
+the inevitable guise of veal and potatoes. The women were in no hurry,
+but the sculptor was. He drummed on the table, he made angry faces at
+his neighbors--contented looking Germans who whistled themes from
+"Rheingold"--and when Herr Sammett saluted his guests with a crazy
+trombone and crazier perversion of the Donner motive, Arthmann jumped up
+and excused himself. The two hours and a half in the theatre had made
+him nervous, restless, and he went away saying that he would be back
+presently. Mrs. Fridolin was annoyed. It did not seem proper for three
+ladies to remain unaccompanied in a public garden, even if that garden
+was in Bayreuth. Suppose some of her New York friends should happen
+by!... "I wonder where he has gone? I don't admire your new friend,
+Margaret. He seems very careless," she grumbled.
+
+"Wenceslaus!"--Mrs. Fridolin looked narrowly at her daughter--"Mr.
+Arthmann, then, will be back soon. Like all sculptors he hates to be
+cooped up long." "I guess he's gone to get a drink at the bar,"
+suggested the practical Miss Bredd. "How did you like my Fricka--oh,
+here's Mr. Dennett--Caspar, Caspar come over here, here!" The big girl
+stood up in elephantine eagerness, and a jaunty, handsome young man,
+with a shaven face and an important chin, slowly made his way through
+the press of people to the Fridolin table. It was Caspar Dennett, the
+conductor. After a formal presentation to the tall, thin Mrs. Fridolin,
+the young American musician settled himself for a talk and began by
+asking how they liked his conducting. He had been praised by the Prince
+Imperial himself--praise sufficient for any self-doubting soul! Thank
+heaven, _he_ had no doubt of his vocation! It was Miss Bredd who
+answered him:
+
+"I enjoyed your conducting immensely, Mr. Dennett, simply because I
+couldn't see you work those long arms of yours.... I wrote lots about
+you when you visited the West with your band. I never cared for your
+Wagner readings." He stared at her reproachfully and she stared in
+return. Then he murmured, "I'm really very sorry I didn't please you,
+Miss Bredd. I didn't know that you were a newspaper woman." "Journalist,
+if you please!" "I beg your pardon, journalist. I'm so sorry that Mrs.
+Dennett is visiting relations in England. She would have been delighted
+to call on you;"--Miss Bredd's expression became disagreeable--"and now,
+Mrs. Fridolin, what do you think of your daughter, your daughter Fricka
+Fridolina, as we call her? Won't she be a superb Isolde some day?" "I
+hope not, Mr. Dennett," austerely replied the mother. Margaret grasped
+his hands gratefully, crying aloud, "You dear! Isn't he a dear, mamma?
+Only think of your daughter as Isolde. Ah! there comes the deserter. You
+thoughtless man!"
+
+The sculptor bowed stiffly when presented, and the two men sat on either
+side of Miss Fridolin, far away from each other.
+
+"Mr. Arthmann," fluted the singer--she was all dignity now--"Mr. Dennett
+thinks I'm quite ready for Isolde." "You said that to me this
+afternoon," he answered in a rude manner. The conductor glanced at him
+and then at Margaret. She was blushing. "What I meant," said Dennett,
+quickly turning the stream his way, "What I meant was that Miss
+Fridolina knows the score, and being temperamentally suited to the
+rôle--" "Temperamentally," sneered Arthmann. "Yes, that's what I said,"
+snapped the other man, who had become surprisingly pugnacious--Fridolina
+was pressing his foot with heavy approval--"temperamentally." "You know
+Caspar"--the brows of the mother and sculptor were thunderous--"you know
+that Mr. Arthmann is a very clever sculptor, and is a great reader of
+faces and character. Now he says, that I have no dramatic talent, no
+temperament, and ought to--" "Get married," boomed in Arthmann with his
+most Norwegian accent. The bomb exploded. "I'd rather see her"--"in her
+grave, Mrs. Fridolin"--"Oh, you wicked, sarcastic Louie Bredd. No, not
+in her grave, but even as Isolde. Yes, I admit that I am converted to
+Wagnerism. Wagner's music is better for some singers than marriage.
+Prima donnas have no business to be married. If their husbands are not
+wholly worthless--and there are few exceptions--they are apt to be
+ninnies and spongers on their wives' salaries." Then she related the
+story of Wilski, who was a Miss Willies from Rochester. She married a
+novelist, a young man with the brightest possible prospects imaginable.
+What happened? He never wrote a story after his marriage in which he
+didn't make his wife the heroine, so much so that all the magazine
+editors and publishers refused his stuff, sending it back with the
+polite comment, Too much Wilski!
+
+"That's nothing," interrupted Louie. "She ought to have been happy with
+such a worshipping husband. I know of a great singer, the greatest
+singer alive--Frutto"--they all groaned--"the _greatest_, I say. Well,
+she married a lazy French count. Not once, but a hundred times she has
+returned home after a concert only to find her husband playing cards
+with her maid. She raised a row, but what was the use? She told me that
+she'd rather have him at home with the servant playing poker than at the
+opera where he was once seen to bet on the cards turned up by Calvé in
+the third act of 'Carmen.' I've written the thing for my paper and I
+mean to turn it into a short story some day." Every one had tales to
+relate of the meanness, rapacity, dissipation and extravagance of the
+prima donna's husband from Adelina Patti to Mitwindt, the German singer
+who regularly committed her husband to jail at the beginning of her
+season, only releasing him when September came, for then her money was
+earned and banked.
+
+"But what has this to do with me?" peevishly asked Fridolina, who was
+tired and sleepy. "If ever I marry it must be a man who will let me sing
+Isolde. Most foreign husbands hide their wives away like a dog its
+bone." She beamed on Wenceslaus. "Then you will never marry a foreign
+husband," returned the sculptor, irritably.
+
+
+IV
+
+"You must know, Mr. Arthmann, that my girl is a spoilt child, as
+innocent as a baby, and has everything to learn about the ways of the
+world. Remember, too, that I first posed her voice, taught her all she
+knew of her art before she went to Parchesi. What you ask--taking into
+consideration that we, that _I_, hardly know you--is rather premature,
+is it not?" They were walking in the cool morning down the green alleys
+of the Hofgarten, where the sculptor had asked Mrs. Fridolin for her
+daughter. He was mortified as he pushed his crisp beard from side to
+side. He felt that he had been far from proposing marriage to this large
+young woman's mother; something must have driven him to such a crazy
+action. Was it Caspar Dennett and his classic profile that had angered
+him into the confession? Nonsense! The conductor was a married man with
+a family. Despite her easy, unaffected manner, Margaret Fridolin was no
+fool; she ever observed the ultimate proprieties, and being dangerously
+unromantic would be the last woman in the world to throw herself away.
+But this foolish mania about Isolde. What of that? It was absurd to
+consider such a thing.... Her mother would never tolerate the attempt--
+
+"Don't you think my judgment in this matter is just, Mr. Arthmann?" Mrs.
+Fridolin was blandly observing him. He asked her pardon for his
+inattention; he had been dreaming of a possible happiness! She was very
+amiable. "And you know, of course, that Margaret has prospects"--he did
+not, and was all ears--"if she will only leave the operatic stage. Her
+career will be a brilliant one despite her figure, Mr. Arthmann; but
+there is a more brilliant social career awaiting her if she follows her
+uncle's advice and marries. My brother is a rich man, and my daughter
+may be his heiress. Never as a singer--Job is prejudiced against the
+stage--and never if she marries a foreigner." "But I shall become a
+citizen of the United States, madame." "Where were you born?" "Bergen;
+my mother was from Warsaw," he moodily replied. "It might as well be
+Asia Minor. We are a stubborn family, sir, from the hills of New
+Hampshire. We never give in. Come, let us go back to the Hotel Sonne,
+and do you forget this foolish dream. Margaret may never leave the
+stage, but I'm certain that she will never marry _you_." She smiled at
+him, the thousand little wrinkles in her face making a sort of
+reticulated map from which stared two large, blue eyes--Margaret's eyes,
+grown wiser and colder.... "Now after that news I'll marry her if I have
+to run away with her!"--resolved the sculptor when he reached his bleak
+claustral atelier, and studied the model of her head. And how to keep
+that man Dennett from spoiling the broth, he wondered....
+
+In the afternoon Arthmann wrote Margaret a letter. "Margaret, my darling
+Margaret, what is the matter? Have I offended you by asking your mother
+for you? Why did you not see me this morning? The atelier is wintry
+without you--the cold clay, corpse-like, is waiting to revive in your
+presence. Oh! how lovely is the garden, how sad my soul! I sit and think
+of Verlaine's 'It rains in my heart as it rains in the town.' Why won't
+you see me? You are mine--you swore it. My sweet girl, whose heart is as
+fragrant as new-mown hay"--the artist pondered well this comparison
+before he put it on paper; it evoked visions of hay bales. "Darling, you
+must see me to-morrow. To the studio you must come. You know that we
+have planned to go to America in October. Only think, sweetheart, what
+joy then! The sky is aflame with love. We walk slowly under the few
+soft, autumn, prairie stars; your hand is in mine, we are married! You
+see I am a poet for your sake. I beg for a reply hot from your heart.
+Wenceslaus." ...
+
+He despatched this declaration containing several minor inaccuracies. It
+was late when he received a reply. "All right, Wenceslaus. But have I
+_now_ the temperament to sing Isolde?" It was unsigned. Arthmann cursed
+in a tongue that sounded singularly like pure English.
+
+
+V
+
+That night, much against his desire, he dressed and went to a reception
+at the Villa Wahnfried. As this worker in silent clay disliked musical
+people, the buzz and fuss made him miserable. He did not meet Fridolina,
+though he saw Miss Bredd arm-in-arm with Cosima, Queen Regent of
+Bayreuth. The American girl was eloquently exposing her theories of how
+Wagner should be sung and Arthmann, disgusted, moved away. He only
+remembered Caspar Dennett when in the street. That gentleman was not
+present either; and as the unhappy lover walked down the moonlit
+Lisztstrasse he fancied he recognized the couple he sought. Could it be!
+He rushed after the pair to be mocked by the slamming of a gate, he knew
+not on what lonely street....
+
+The next afternoon the duel began. Fridolina did not return for a
+sitting as he had hoped; instead came an invitation for a drive to the
+Hermitage. It was Mrs. Fridolin who sent it. Strange! Arthmann was
+surprised at this renewal of friendly ties after his gentle dismissal in
+the Hofgarten. But he dressed in his most effective clothes and, shining
+with hope, reached the Hotel Sonne; two open carriages stood before its
+arched doorway. Presently the others came downstairs and the day became
+gray for the sculptor. Caspar Dennett, looking like a trim Antinous with
+a fashionable tailor, smiled upon all, especially Miss Bredd. Mrs.
+Fridolin alone did not seem at ease. She was very friendly with
+Arthmann, but would not allow him in her carriage. "No," she protested,
+"you two men must keep Margaret company. I'll ride with my bright little
+Louie and listen to her anti-Wagner blasphemies." She spoke as if she
+had fought under the Wagner banner from the beginning.
+
+Margaret sat alone on the back seat. Although she grimaced at her
+mother's suggestion, she was in high spirits, exploding over every
+trivial incident of the journey. Arthmann, as he faced her, told himself
+that he had never seen her so giggling and commonplace, so unlike an
+artist, so bourgeois, so fat. He noticed, too, that her lovely eyes
+expanded with the same expression, whether art or eating was mentioned.
+He hardly uttered a word, for the others discussed "Tristan und Isolde"
+until he hated Wagner's name. She was through with her work at Bayreuth
+and Frau Cosima had promised her Isolde--positively. She meant to
+undergo a severe _Kur_ at Marienbad and then return to the United
+States. Mr. Grau had also promised her Isolde; while Jean de
+Reszké--dear, wonderful Jean vowed that he would sing Tristan to no
+other Isolde during his American tournée! So it was settled. All she
+needed was her mother's consent--and that would not be a difficult
+matter to compass. Had she not always wheedled the mater into her
+schemes, even when Uncle Job opposed her? She would never marry,
+never--anyhow not until she had sung Isolde--and then only a
+Wagner-loving husband.
+
+"And the temperament, the missing link--how about that?" asked Arthmann
+sourly; he imagined that Dennett was exchanging secret signals with her.
+She bubbled over with wrath. "Temperament! I have temperament enough
+despite my size. If I haven't any I know where to find it. There is no
+sacrifice I'd not make to get it. Art for art is my theory. First art
+and then--the other things." She shrugged her massive shoulders in high
+bad humor. Arthmann gloomily reflected that Dennett's phrases at the
+Sammett Garden were being echoed. Mrs. Fridolin continually urged her
+driver to keep his carriage abreast of the other. It made the party more
+sociable, she declared, although to the sculptor it seemed as if she
+wished to watch Margaret closely. She had never seemed so suspicious.
+They reached the Hermitage.
+
+Going home a fine rain set in; the hoods of the carriage were raised,
+and the excursion ended flatly. At the hotel, Arthmann did not attempt
+to go in. Mrs. Fridolin said she had a headache, Miss Bredd must write
+articles about Villa Wahnfried, while Dennett disappeared with Margaret.
+The drizzle turned into a downpour, and the artist, savage with the
+world and himself, sought a neighboring café and drank till dawn....
+
+He called at the hotel the following afternoon. The ladies had gone
+away. How gone away? The portier could not tell. Enraged as he saw his
+rich dream vanishing, Arthmann moved about the streets with lagging,
+desperate steps. He returned to the hotel several times during the
+afternoon--at no time was he very far from it--but the window-blinds
+were always drawn in the Fridolin apartment and he began to despair. It
+was near sunset when his _Hausfrau_, the disappearing chaperon, ran to
+him red-faced. A letter for Herr Arthmann! It was from her: "I've gone
+in search of that temperament. _Auf Wiedersehen._ Isolde." Nothing more.
+In puzzled fury he went back to the hotel. Yes, Madame Fridolin and the
+young lady were now at home. He went to the second landing and without
+knocking pushed open the door. It was a house storm-riven. Trunks
+bulged, though only half-packed, their contents straggling over the
+sides. The beds were not made, and a strong odor of valerian and camphor
+flooded the air. On a couch lay Mrs. Fridolin, her face covered with a
+handkerchief, while near hovered Miss Bredd in her most brilliant and
+oracular attitude. She was speaking too loudly as he entered: "There is
+no use of worrying yourself sick about Meg, Mrs. Fridolin. She's gone
+for a time--that's all. When she finds out what an idiotically useless
+sacrifice she has made for art and is a failure as Isolde--she can no
+more sing the part than a sick cat--she will run home to her mammy quick
+enough."
+
+"Oh, this terrible artistic temperament!" groaned the mother
+apologetically. The girl made a cautious movement and waved Arthmann out
+of the room. Into the hall she followed, soft-footed, but resolute. He
+was gaunt with chagrin. "Where is she?"--he began, but was sternly
+checked:
+
+"If you had only flattered her more, and married her before her mother
+arrived, this thing wouldn't have happened."
+
+"What thing?" he thundered.
+
+"There! don't be an ox and make a stupid noise," she admonished. "Why,
+Meg--she is so dead set on getting that artistic temperament, that
+artistic thrill you raved about, that she has eloped."
+
+"Eloped!" he feebly repeated, and sat down on a trunk in the hallway. To
+her keen, unbiassed vision Arthmann seemed more shocked than sorrowful.
+Then, returning to Isolde's mother, she was not surprised to find her up
+and in capital humor, studying the railway guide.
+
+"He believes the fib--just as Dennett did!" Miss Bredd exclaimed,
+triumphantly; and for the first time that day Mrs. Fridolin smiled.
+
+
+
+
+THE RIM OF FINER ISSUES
+
+
+I
+
+There seemed to be a fitting dispensation in the marriage of Arthur
+Vibert and Ellenora Bishop. She was a plain looking girl of
+twenty-four--even her enemies admitted her plainness--but she had
+brains; and the absence of money was more than compensated by her love
+for literature. It had been settled by her friends that she would do
+wonderful things when she had her way. Therefore her union with Arthur
+Vibert was voted "singularly auspicious." He had just returned from
+Germany after winning much notice by his talent for composition. What
+could be more natural than the marriage of these two gifted persons?
+
+Miss Bishop had published some things--rhapsodic prose-poems, weak in
+syntax but strong in the quality miscalled imagination. Her pen name was
+George Bishop: following the example of the three Georges so dear to the
+believer in sexless literature--George Sand, George Eliot and George
+Egerton. She greatly admired the latter.
+
+Ellenora was a large young woman of more brawn than tissue; she had
+style and decision, though little amiability. Ugly she was; yet, after
+the bloom of her ugliness wore off, you admired perforce the full
+iron-colored eyes alive with power, and wondered why nature in dowering
+her with a big brain had not made for her a more refined mouth. The
+upper part of her face was often illuminated; the lower narrowly escaped
+coarseness; and a head of rusty red hair gave a total impression of
+strenuous brilliancy, of keen abiding vitality. A self-willed New York
+girl who had never undergone the chastening influence of discipline or
+rigorously ordered study--she averred that it would attenuate the
+individuality of her style; avowedly despising the classics, she was a
+modern of moderns in her tastes.
+
+She had nerves rather than heart, but did not approve of revealing her
+vagaries in diary form. Adoring Guy de Maupassant, she heartily disliked
+Marie Bashkirtseff. The Frenchman's almost Greek-like fashion of
+regarding life in profile, his etching of its silver-tipped angles, made
+an irresistible appeal to her; and she vainly endeavored to catch his
+crisp, restrained style, his masterly sense of form. In the secrecy of
+her study she read Ouida and asked herself why this woman had not gone
+farther, and won first honors in the race. Her favorite heroines were
+Ibsen's Nora, Rebecca and Hedda. Then, bitten by the emancipation craze,
+she was fast developing into one of the "shrieking sisterhood" when
+Arthur Vibert came from Berlin.
+
+A Frenchman has said that the moment a woman occupies her thoughts with
+a man, art ceases for her. The night Ellenora Bishop met the young
+pianist in my atelier, I saw that she was interested. Arthur came to me
+with letters from several German critics. I liked the slender, blue-eyed
+young fellow who was not a day over twenty-one. His was a true American
+type tempered by Continental culture. Oval-faced, fair-haired, of a
+rather dreamy disposition and with a certain austerity of manner, he was
+the fastidious puritan--a puritan expanded by artistic influences.
+Strangely enough he had temperament, and set to music Heine and
+Verlaine. A genuine talent, I felt assured, and congratulated myself on
+my new discovery; I was fond of finding lions, and my Sunday evenings
+were seldom without some specimen that roared, if somewhat gently, yet
+audibly enough, for my visitors. When Arthur Vibert was introduced to
+Ellenora Bishop, I recognized the immediate impact of the girl's brusque
+personality upon his sensitized nature.
+
+She was a devoted admirer of Wagner, and that was bond enough to set
+reverberating other chords of sympathy in the pair. I do not assert in
+cold blood that the girl deliberately set herself to charm the
+boyish-looking composer, but there was certainly a basking allurement
+in her gaze when her eyes brushed his. With her complicated personality
+he could not cope--that was only too evident; and so I watched the
+little comedy with considerable interest, and not without misgiving.
+
+Arthur fell in love without hesitation, and though Ellenora felt
+desperately superior to him--you saw that--she could not escape the
+bright, immediate response of his face. The implicated interest of her
+bearing--though she never lost her head--his unconcealed adoration, soon
+brought the affair to the altar--or rather to a civil ceremony, for the
+bride was an agnostic, priding herself on her abstention from
+established religious forms.
+
+Her clear, rather dry nature had always been a source of study to me.
+What could she have in common with the romantic and decidedly shy youth?
+She was older, more experienced--plain girls have experiences as well as
+favored ones--and she was not fond of matrimony with poverty as an
+obbligato. Arthur had prospects of pupils, his compositions sold at a
+respectable rate, but the couple had little money to spare;
+nevertheless, people argued their marriage a capital idea--from such a
+union of rich talents surely something must result. Look at the
+Brownings, the Shelleys, the Schumanns, not to mention George Eliot and
+her man Lewes!
+
+They were married. I was best man, and realized what a menstruum is
+music--what curious trafficking it causes, what opposites it
+intertwines. And the overture being finished the real curtain arose, as
+it does on all who mate....
+
+I did not see much of the Viberts that winter. I cared not at all for
+society and they had moved to Harlem; so I lost two stars of my studio
+receptions. But I occasionally heard they were getting on famously.
+Arthur was composing a piano concerto, and Ellenora engaged upon a
+novel--a novel, I was told, that would lay bare to its rotten roots the
+social fabric; and knowing the girl's inherent fund of bitter cleverness
+I awaited the new-born polemic with gentle impatience. I hoped, however,
+like the foolish inexperienced old bachelor I am, that her feminine
+asperity would be tempered by the suavities of married life.
+
+One afternoon late in March Arthur Vibert dropped in as I was putting
+the finishing touches on my portrait of Mrs. Beacon. He looked weary and
+his eyes were heavily circled.
+
+"Hello, my boy! and how is your wife, and how is that wonderful concerto
+we've all been hearing about?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and asked for a cigarette.
+
+"Shall I play you some bits of it?" he queried in a gloomy way. I was
+all eagerness, and presently he was absently preluding at my piano.
+
+There was little vigor in his touch, and I recalled his rambling wits by
+crying, "The concerto, let's have it!"
+
+Arthur pulled himself together and began. He was very modern in musical
+matters and I liked the dynamic power of his opening. The first subject
+was more massive than musical and was built on the architectonics of
+Liszt and Tschaïkowsky. There was blood in the idea, plenty of nervous
+fibre, and I dropped my brushes and palette as the unfolding of the work
+began with a logical severity and a sense of form unusual in so young a
+mind.
+
+This first movement interested me; I almost conjured up the rich
+instrumentation and when it ended I was warm in my congratulations.
+
+Arthur moodily wiped his brow and looked indifferent.
+
+"And now for the second movement. My boy, you always had a marked gift
+for the lyrical. Give us your romanza--the romanza, I should say, born
+of your good lady!"
+
+He answered me shortly: "There is no romance, I've substituted for it a
+scherzo. You know that's what Saint-Saëns and all the fellows are doing
+nowadays, Scharwenka too."
+
+I fancied that there was a shade of eager anxiety in his explanation,
+but I said nothing and listened.
+
+The scherzo--or what is called the scherzo since Beethoven and
+Schumann--was too heavy, inelastic in its tread, to dispel the
+blue-devils. It was conspicuous for its absence of upspringing delicacy,
+light, arch merriment. It was the sad, bitter joking of a man upon whose
+soul life has graven pain and remorse, and before the trio was reached I
+found myself watching the young composer's face. I knew that, like all
+modern music students, he had absorbed in Germany some of that
+scholastic pessimism we encounter in the Brahms music, but I had hoped
+that a mere fashion of the day would not poison the springs of this
+fresh personality.
+
+Yet here I was confronted with a painful confession that life had
+brought the lad more than its quantum of spiritual and physical
+hardship; he was telling me all this in his music, for his was too
+subjective a talent to ape the artificial, grand, objective manner.
+
+Without waiting for comment he plunged into his last movement which
+proved to be a series of ingenious variations--a prolonged
+passacaglia--in which the grace and dexterity of his melodic invention,
+contrapuntal skill and symmetrical sense were gratifyingly present.
+
+I was in no flattering vein when I told him he had made a big jump in
+his work.
+
+"But, Arthur, why so much in the Brahms manner? Has your wife turned
+your love of Shelley to Browning worship?" I jestingly concluded.
+
+"My wife, if she wishes, can turn Shelley into slush," he answered
+bitterly. This shocked me. I felt like putting questions, but how could
+I? Had I not been one of the many who advised the fellow to marry
+Ellenora Bishop? Had we not all fancied that in her strength was his
+security, his hope for future artistic triumphs?
+
+He went on as his fingers snatched at fugitive harmonic experimentings:
+"It's not all right up town. I wish that you would run up some night.
+You've not seen Ellenora for months, and perhaps you could induce her to
+put the brake on." I was puzzled. Putting the brake on a woman is always
+a risky experiment, especially if she happens to be wedded. Besides,
+what did he mean?
+
+"I mean," he replied to my tentative look of inquiry, "that Ellenora is
+going down-hill with her artistic theories of literature, and I mean
+that she has made our house a devilish unpleasant place to live in."
+
+I hastily promised to call in a few days, and after seeing him to the
+door, and bidding him cheer up, I returned to the portrait of Mrs.
+Beacon, and felt savage at the noisiness of color and monotony of tonal
+values in the picture.
+
+"Good Lord, why will artists marry?" I irritably asked of my subject in
+the frame. Her sleek Knickerbocker smile further angered me, and I went
+to my club and drank coffee until long after midnight.
+
+
+II
+
+If, as her friends asserted, Ellenora Vibert's ugliness had softened I
+did not notice it. She was one of those few women in the world that
+marriage had not improved. Her eyes were colder, more secret; her jaw
+crueller, her lips wider and harder at the edges. She welcomed me with
+distinguished loftiness, and I soon felt the unpleasant key in which the
+household tune was being played. It was amiable enough, this flat near
+Mount Morris Park in Harlem. The Viberts had taste, and their music-room
+was charming in its reticent scheme of decoration--a Steinway grand
+piano, a low crowded book-case with a Rodin cast, a superb mezzotint of
+Leonardo's Mona Lisa after Calmatta, revealing the admirable poise of
+sweetly folded hands--surely the most wonderful hands ever
+painted--while the polished floor, comforting couches and open fireplace
+proclaimed this apartment as the composition of refined people.
+
+I am alive to the harmonies of domestic interiors, and I sensed the
+dissonance in the lives of these two.
+
+Soon we three warmed the cold air of restraint and fell to discussing
+life, art, literature, friends, and even ourselves. I could not withhold
+my admiration for Ellenora's cleverness. She was transposed to a coarser
+key, and there was a suggestion of the overblown in her figure; but her
+tongue was sharp, and she wore the air of a woman who was mistress of
+her mansion. Presently Arthur relapsed into silence, lounged and smoked
+in the corner, while Mrs. Vibert expounded her ideas of literary form,
+and finally confessed that she had given up the notion of a novel.
+
+"You see, the novel is overdone to-day. The short story ended with de
+Maupassant. The only hope we have, we few who take our art seriously, is
+to compress the short story within a page and distil into it the vivid
+impression of a moment, a lifetime, an eternity." She looked
+intellectually triumphant. I interposed a mild objection.
+
+"This form, my dear lady, is it a fitting vehicle for so much weight of
+expression? I admire, as do you, the sonnet, but I can never be brought
+to believe that Milton could have compressed 'Paradise Lost' within a
+sonnet."
+
+"Then all the worse for Milton," she tartly replied. "Look at the Chopin
+prelude. Will you contradict me if I say that in one prelude this
+composer crowds the experience of a lifetime? When he expands his idea
+into the sonata form how diffuse, how garrulous he becomes!"
+
+I ventured to remark that Chopin had no special talent for the sonata
+form.
+
+"The sonata form is dead," the lady asserted. "Am I not right, Arthur?"
+
+"Yes, my dear," came from Arthur. I fully understood his depression.
+
+"No," she continued, magnificently, "it is this blind adherence to older
+forms that crushes all originality to-day. There is Arthur with his
+sonata form--as if Wagner did not create his own form!"
+
+"But I am no Wagner," interrupted her husband.
+
+"Indeed, you are not," said Mrs. Vibert rather viciously. "If you were
+we wouldn't be in Harlem. You men to-day lack the initiative. The way
+must be shown you by woman; yes, by poor, crushed woman--woman who has
+no originality according to your Schopenhauer; woman whose sensations,
+not being of coarse enough fibre to be measured by the rude
+emotion-weighing machine of Lombroso, are therefore adjudged of less
+delicacy than man's. What fools your scientific men be!"
+
+Mrs. Vibert was a bit pedantic, but she could talk to the point when
+aroused.
+
+"You discredit the idea of compressing an epic into a sonnet, a sonata
+into a prelude; well, I've attempted something of the sort, and even if
+you laugh I'll stick to my argument. I've attempted to tell the
+biological history of the cosmos in a single page.... I begin with the
+unicellular protozoa and finally reach humanity; and to give it dramatic
+interest I trace a germ-cell from eternity until the now, and you shall
+hear its history this moment." She stopped for breath, and I wondered if
+Mrs. Somerville or George Eliot had ever talked in this astounding
+fashion. I was certain that she must have read Iamblichus and Porphyry.
+Arthur on his couch groaned.
+
+"Mock if you please," Ellenora's strong face flushed, "but women will
+yet touch the rim of finer issues. Paul Goddard, who is a critic I
+respect, told me I had struck the right note of modernity in my prose
+poem." I winced at the "note of modernity," and could not help seeing
+the color mount to Arthur's brow when the man's name was mentioned.
+
+"And pray who is Mr. Paul Goddard?" I asked while Mrs. Vibert was absent
+in search of her manuscript. Arthur replied indifferently, "Oh, a rich
+young man who went to Bayreuth last summer and poses as a Wagnerite ever
+since! He also plays the piano!"
+
+Arthur's tone was sarcastic; he did not like Paul Goddard and his
+critical attentions to his wife. The poor lad looked so disheartened, so
+crushed by the rigid intellectual atmosphere about him, that I put no
+further question and was glad when Mrs. Vibert returned with her prose
+poem.
+
+She read it to us and it was called
+
+      FRUSTRATE
+
+      O the misty plaint of the Unconceived! O crystal
+      incuriousness of the monad! The faint swarming toward the
+      light and the rending of the sphere of hope, frustrate,
+      inutile. I am the seed called Life; I am he, I am she. We
+      walk, swim, totter, and blend. Through the ages I lay in the
+      vast basin of Time; I am called by Fate into the Now. On
+      pulsing terraces, under a moon blood-red, I dreamed of the
+      mighty confluence. About me were my kinsfolk. Full of dumb
+      pain we pleasured our centuries with anticipation; we
+      watched as we gamed away the hours. From Asiatic plateaus we
+      swept to Nilotic slime. We roamed in primeval forests, vast
+      and arboreally sublime, or sported with the behemoth and
+      listened to the serpent's sinuous irony; we chattered with
+      the sacred apes and mouthed at the moon; and in the Long Ago
+      wore the carapace and danced forthright figures on
+      coprolitic sands--sands stretching into the bosom of the
+      earth, sands woven of windy reaches hemming the sun.... We
+      lay with the grains of corn in Egyptian granaries, and saw
+      them fructify under the smile of the sphinx; we buzzed in
+      the ambient atmosphere, gaudy dragon-flies or whirling motes
+      in full cry chased by humming-birds. Then from some cold
+      crag we launched with wings of fire-breathing pestilence and
+      fell fathoms under sea to war with lizard-fish and narwhal.
+      For us the supreme surrender, the joy of the expected....
+      With cynical glance we saw the Buddha give way to other
+      gods. We watched protoplasmically the birth of planets and
+      the confusion of creation. We saw hornéd monsters become
+      gentle ruminants, and heard the scream of the pterodactyl on
+      the tree-tops dwindle to child's laughter. We heard, we saw,
+      we felt, we knew. Yet hoped we on; every monad has his
+      day.... One by one the billions disintegrated and floated
+      into formal life. And we watched and waited. Our evolution
+      had been the latest delayed; until heartsick with longing
+      many of my brethren wished for annihilation....
+
+      At last I was alone, save one. The time of my fruition was
+      not afar. O! for the moment when I should realize my
+      dreams.... I saw this last one swept away, swept down the
+      vistas toward life, the thunderous surge singing in her
+      ears. O! that my time would come. At last, after vague
+      alarms, I was summoned....
+
+      The hour had struck; eternity was left behind, eternity
+      loomed ahead, implacable, furrowed with Time's scars. I
+      hastened to the only one in the Cosmos. I tarried not as I
+      ran in the race. Moments were precious; a second meant æons;
+      and crashing into the light--Alas! I was too late.... Of
+      what avail my travail, my countless, cruel preparations? O
+      Chance! O Fate! I am one of the silent multitude of the
+      Frustrate....
+
+When she had finished reading this strange study in evolution she
+awaited criticism, but with the air of an armed warrior.
+
+"Really, Mrs. Vibert, I am overwhelmed," I managed to stammer. "Only
+the most delicate symbolism may dare to express such a theme." I felt
+that this was very vague--but what could I say?
+
+She regarded me sternly. Arthur, catching what I had uttered at random,
+burst in:
+
+"There, Ellenora, I am sure he is right! You leave nothing to the
+imagination. Now a subtile veiled idealism--" He was not allowed to
+finish.
+
+"Veiled idealism indeed!" she angrily cried. "You composers dare to say
+all manner of wickedness in your music, but it is idealized by tone,
+isn't it? What else is music but a sort of sensuous algebra? Or a vast
+shadow-picture of the emotions?... Why can't language have the same
+privilege? Why must it be bridled because the world speaks it?"
+
+"Just because of that reason, dear madame," I soothingly said; "because
+reticence is art's brightest crown; because Zola never gives us a real
+human document and Flaubert does; and the difference is a difference of
+method. Flaubert is magnificently naked, but his nakedness implicates
+nothing that is--"
+
+"As usual you men enter the zone of silence when a woman's work is
+mentioned. I did not attempt a monument in the frozen manner of your
+Flaubert. Mr. Goddard believes--" There was a crash of music from the
+piano as Arthur endeavored to change the conversation. His wife's fine
+indifference was tantalizing, also instructive.
+
+"Mr. Goddard believes with Nietzsche that individualism is the only
+salvation of the race. My husband, Mr. Vibert, believes in altruism,
+self-sacrifice and all the old-fashioned flummery of outworn creeds."
+
+"I wonder if Mr. Vibert has heard of Nietzsche's 'Thou goest to women?
+Remember thy whip'?" I meekly questioned. Ellenora looked at her husband
+and shrugged her shoulders; then picking up her manuscript she left the
+room with the tread of a soldier, laughing all the while.
+
+"An exasperating girl!" I mused, as Vibert, after some graceful
+swallow-like flights on the keyboard, finally played that most
+dolorously delicious of Chopin's nocturnes, the one in C sharp minor.
+
+That night in my studio I did not rejoice over my bachelorhood, for I
+felt genuinely sad at the absence of agreeable modulations in the
+married life of my two friends.
+
+I thought about the thing for the next month, with the conclusion that
+people had to work out their own salvation, and resolved not to visit
+the Viberts again. It was too painful an experience; and yet I could see
+that Vibert cared for his wife in a weak sort of a way. But she was too
+overpowering for him and her robust, intellectual nature needed
+Nietzsche's whip--a stronger, more passionate will than her own. It was
+simply a case of mismating, and no good would result from the union.
+
+Later I felt as if I had been selfish and priggish, and resolved to
+visit the home in Harlem and try to arrange matters. I am not sure
+whether it was curiosity rather than a laudable benevolence that
+prompted this resolve. However, one hot afternoon in May, Arthur Vibert
+entered my room and throwing himself in an easy-chair gave me the news.
+
+"She's left me, old man, she's gone off with Paul Goddard." ...
+
+I came dangerously near swearing.
+
+"Oh, it's no use of your trying to say consoling things. She's gone for
+good. I was never strong enough to hold her, and so it's come to this
+disgraceful smash."
+
+I looked eagerly at Arthur to discover over-mastering sorrow; there was
+little. Indeed he looked relieved; his life for nearly a year must have
+been a trial and yet I mentally confessed to some disappointment at his
+want of deep feeling. I saw that he was chagrined, angry, but not really
+heart-hurt. Lucky chap! he was only twenty-two and had all his life
+before him. I asked for explanations.
+
+"Oh, Ellenora always said that I never understood her; that I never
+could help her to reach the rim of finer issues. I suppose this fellow
+Goddard will. At least she thinks so, else she wouldn't have left me.
+She said no family could stand two prima-donnas at the same time: as if
+I ever posed, or pretended to be as brilliant as she! No, she stifled
+me, and I feel now as if I might compose that romanza for my concerto."
+
+I consoled the young pianist; told him that this blow was intended as a
+lesson in self-control; that he must not be downcast, but turn to his
+music as a consolation; and a whole string of such platitudes. When he
+left me I asked myself if Ellenora was not right, after all. Could she
+have reached that visionary rim of finer issues--of which she always
+prated--with this man, talented though he was, yet a slender reed shaken
+by the wind of her will? Besides, his chin was too small.
+
+He could not master her nature. Would she be happy with Paul Goddard,
+that bright-winged butterfly of æstheticism? I doubted it. Perhaps the
+feminine, receptive composer was intended to be her saving complement in
+life. Perhaps she unconsciously cared for Arthur Vibert; and arguing the
+question as dispassionately as I could my eyes fell upon "Thus Spake
+Zarathustra," and opening the fat unwieldy volume I read:
+
+"Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer than into the
+dreams of an ardent woman?"
+
+"Pooh!" I sneered. "Nietzsche was a rank woman-hater;" then I began my
+work on Mrs. Beacon's portrait, the fashionable Mrs. Beacon, and tried
+to forget all about the finer issues and the satisfied sterility of its
+ideals.
+
+
+
+
+AN IBSEN GIRL
+
+
+I
+
+As Ellenora Vibert quietly descended the stairs of the apartment house
+in Harlem where she had lived with her husband until this hot morning in
+May, she wondered at her courage. She was taking a tremendous step, and
+one that she hoped would not be a backward one. She was leaving Arthur
+Vibert after a brief year of marriage for another man. Yet her pulse
+fluttered not, and before she reached the open doorway a mocking humor
+possessed her.
+
+Her active brain pictured herself in the person of Ibsen's Nora Helmer.
+But Nora left children behind, and deserted them in hot blood; no woman
+could be cold after such a night in the Doll's House--the champagne, the
+tarantella, the letter and the scene with Torvald! No, she was not quite
+Nora Helmer; and Paul, her young husband, was hardly a Scandinavian
+bureaucrat. When Ellenora faced the cutting sunshine and saw Mount
+Morris Park, green and sweet, she stopped and pressed a hand to her hip.
+It was a characteristic pose, and the first inspiration of the soft air
+gave her peace and hardihood.
+
+"I've been penned behind the bars too long," she thought. Arthur's
+selfish, artistic absorption in his musical work and needless
+indifference to the development of her own gifts must count no longer.
+
+She was free, and she meant to remain so as long as she lived.
+
+Then she went to the elevated railroad and entered a down-town train,
+left it at Cortlandt Street, reached the Pennsylvania depot before
+midday, and in the waiting-room met Paul Goddard. A few minutes later
+they were on the Philadelphia train. The second chapter of Ellenora
+Vibert's life began--and most happily.
+
+
+II
+
+Paul Goddard, after he had returned from Bayreuth, gave his musical
+friends much pain by his indifference to old tastes. His mother, Mrs.
+Goddard of Madison Square, was not needlessly alarmed. She told her
+friends that Paul always had been a butterfly, sipping at many pretty
+arts. She included among these fine arts, girls. Paul's devotion to golf
+and a certain rich young woman gave her fine maternal satisfaction. "He
+stays away from that odious Bohemian crowd, and as long as he does that
+I am satisfied. Paul is too much of a gentleman to make a good
+musician."
+
+During the winter she saw little of her son. His bachelor dinners were
+pronounced models, but the musical mob he let alone. "Paul must be going
+in for something stunning," they said at his club, and when he took off
+his moustache there was a protest.
+
+The young man was not pervious to ridicule. He had found something new
+and as he was fond of experimenting and put his soul into all he did,
+was generally rewarded for his earnestness. He met Mrs. Arthur Vibert at
+the reception of a portrait-painter, and her type being new to him,
+resolved to study it.
+
+Presently he went to the art galleries with the lady, and to all the
+piano recitals he could bid her. He called several times and admired her
+husband greatly; but she snubbed this admiration and he consoled himself
+by admiring instead the intellect of the wife.
+
+"I suppose," she confided to him one February afternoon at Sherry's, "I
+suppose you think I am not a proper wife because I don't sit home at his
+feet and worship my young genius?"
+
+Paul looked at her strong, ugly face and deep iron-colored eyes, and
+smiled ironically.
+
+"You don't go in for that sort of thing, I suppose. If you did love him
+would you acknowledge it to any one, even to yourself--or to me?"
+
+Ellenora flushed slightly and put down her glass.
+
+"My dear man, when you know me better you won't ask such a question. I
+always say what I mean."
+
+"And I don't." They fell to fugitive thinking.
+
+"What poet wrote 'the bright disorder of the stars is solved by music'?"
+
+"I never read modern verse."
+
+"Yes, but this is not as modern as that cornet-virtuoso Kipling, or as
+ancient as Tennyson, if you must know."
+
+"What has it to do with you? You are all that I am interested in--at the
+present." Paul smiled.
+
+"Don't flatter me, Mr. Goddard. I hate it. It's a cheap trick of the
+enemy. Flatter a woman, tell her that she is unlike her sex, repeat to
+her your wonderment at her masculine intellect, and see how meekly she
+lowers her standard and becomes your bondslave."
+
+"Hello! you have been through the mill," said Paul, brightly. "If I
+thought that it would do any good, be of any use, I would mentally plump
+on my knees and say to you that Ellenora Vibert is unlike any woman I
+ever met." Ellenora half rose from the table, looking sarcastically at
+him.
+
+"My dear Mr. Goddard, don't make fun. You have hurt me more than I dare
+tell you. I fancied that you were a friend, the true sort." She was all
+steel and glitter now. Paul openly admired her.
+
+"Mrs. Vibert, I beg your pardon. Please forget what I said. I do enjoy
+your companionship, and you know I am not a lady-killer. Tell me that
+you forgive me, and we will talk about that lovely line you quoted
+from--?"
+
+"Coventry Patmore, a dead poet. He it was that spoke of Wagner as a
+musical impostor, and of the grinning woman in every canvas of Leonardo
+da Vinci. I enjoy his 'Angel in the House' so much, because it shows me
+the sort of a woman I am not and the sort of a woman we modern women are
+trying to outlive.... Yes, 'the bright disorder of the stars is solved
+by music,' he sings; and I remember reading somewhere in Henry James
+that music is a solvent. But it's false--false in my case. Mr. Vibert
+is, as you know, a talented young man. Well, his music bores me. He is
+said to have genius, yet his music never sounds as if it had any fire in
+it; it is as cold as salt. Why should I be solved by his music?"
+
+Ellenora upset her glass and laughed. Paul joined in at a respectful
+pace. The woman was beyond him. He gave her a long glance and she
+returned it, but not ardently; only curiosity was in her insistent gaze.
+
+"Ah! Youth is an alley ambuscaded by stars," he proclaimed. The phrase
+had cost him midnight labor.
+
+"Don't try to be epigrammatic," she retorted, "it doesn't suit your
+mental complexion. I'll be glad, then, when my youth has passed. It's a
+time of turmoil during which one can't really think clearly. Give me
+cool old age."
+
+"And the future?"
+
+"I leave that to the licensed victuallers of eternity." Paul experienced
+a thrill. The woman's audacity was boundless. Did she believe in
+anything?...
+
+"I wonder why your husband does not give you the love he puts into his
+music."
+
+"He has not suffered enough yet. You know what George Moore says about
+the 'sadness of life being the joy of art!' ... Besides, Arthur is only
+half a man if he can't give it to both. Where is your masculine
+objectivity, then?" she retorted.
+
+"Lord, what a woman! 'Masculine objectivity,' and I suppose 'feminine
+subjectivity' too. I never met such a blue-stocking. Do you remember how
+John Ruskin abused those odious terms 'objective' and 'subjective'?"
+Paul asked.
+
+"I can't read Ruskin. He is all landscape decoration; besides, he
+believes in the biblical attitude of woman. Put a woman on the
+mantelpiece and call her luscious, poetic names and then see how soon
+she'll hop down when another man simply cries 'I love you.' If a man
+wishes to spoil a woman successfully let him idealize her."
+
+"Poor Ruskin! There are some men in this world too fine for women." Paul
+sighed, and slily watched Ellenora as she cracked almonds with her
+strong white fingers.
+
+"Fine fiddlesticks!" she ejaculated. "Don't get sentimental, Mr.
+Goddard, or else I'll think you have a heart. You are trying to flirt
+with me. I know you are. Take me away from this place and let us walk,
+walk! Heavens! I'd like to walk to the Battery and smell the sea!"
+
+Paul discreetly stopped, and the pair started up Fifth Avenue. The day
+was a brave one; the sky was stuffed with plumy clouds and the rich
+colors of a reverberating sunset. The two healthy beings sniffed the
+crisp air, talked of themselves as only selfish young people can, and at
+Fifty-ninth street, Ellenora becoming tired, waited for a cross-town
+car--she expected some people at her house in the evening, and must be
+home early. Paul was bidden, but declined; then without savor of
+affection they said good-by.
+
+The man went slowly down the avenue thinking: "Of all the women I've
+met, this is the most perverse, heartless, daring." He recalled his
+Bayreuth experiences, and analyzed Ellenora. Her supple, robust figure
+attracted his senses; her face was interesting; she had brains, uncommon
+brains. What would she become? Not a poet, not a novelist. Perhaps a
+literary critic, like Sainte-Beuve with shining Monday morning reviews.
+Perhaps--yes, perhaps a critic, a writer of bizarre prose-poems; she
+has personal style, she is herself, and no one else.
+
+"That's it," said Paul, half aloud; "she has style, and I admire style
+above everything." He resolved on meeting Ellenora as often as he
+could....
+
+The following month he saw much of Arthur Vibert's wife, and found
+himself a fool in her strong grasp. The girl had such baffling contrasts
+of character, such slippery moods, such abundant fantasy that the young
+man--volatility itself--lost his footing, his fine sense of honor and
+made love to this sphinx of the ink-pot, was mocked and flouted but
+never entirely driven from her presence. More than any other woman,
+Ellenora enjoyed the conquest of man. She mastered Paul as she had
+mastered Arthur, easily; but there was more of the man of the world,
+more of the animal in the amateur, and the silkiness of her husband, at
+first an amusement, finally angered her.
+
+Vibert knew that his wife saw Paul much too often for his own
+edification, but only protested once, and so feebly that she laughed at
+him.
+
+"Arthur," she said, taking him by his slender shoulders, "why don't you
+come home some night in a jealous rage and beat me? Perhaps then I might
+love you. As it is, Mr. Goddard only amuses me; besides, I read him my
+new stories, otherwise I don't care an iota for him."
+
+He lifted his eyebrows, went to the piano and played the last movement
+of his new concerto, played it with all the fire he could master, his
+face white, muscles angry, a timid man transformed.
+
+"Why don't you beat me instead of the piano, dear?" she cried out
+mockingly; "some women, they say, can be subdued in that fashion." He
+rushed from the room....
+
+April was closing when Vibert, summoned to Washington, gave a piano
+recital there, and Ellenora went down-town to dinner with Goddard. She
+was looking well, her spring hat and new gown were very becoming. As
+they sat at Martin's eating strawberries, Paul approved of her
+exceedingly. He had been drinking, and the burgundy and champagne at
+dinner made him reckless.
+
+"See here, Ellenora Vibert, where is all this going to end? I'm not a
+bad fellow, but I swear I'm only human, and if you are leading me on to
+make a worse ass of myself than usual, why, then, I quit."
+
+She regarded him coolly. "It will end when I choose and where I choose.
+It is my own affair, Paul, and if you feel cowardly qualms, go home like
+a good boy to your mamma and tell her what a naughty woman I am."
+
+He sobered at once and reaching across the narrow dining-table took her
+wrist in both of his hands and forced her to listen.
+
+"You disdainful woman! I'll not be mastered by you any longer--"
+
+"That means," interrupted Ellenora coolly, "do as you wish, and not as I
+please."
+
+Paul, his vanity wounded, asked the waiter for his reckoning. His
+patience was worn away.
+
+"Paul, don't be silly," she cried, her eyes sparkling. "Now order a
+carriage and we'll take a ride in the park and talk the matter over.
+I'm afraid the fool's fever is in your blood; the open air may do it
+good. Oh! the eternal nonsense of youth. Call a carriage, Paul!--April
+Paul!" ...
+
+
+III
+
+Life in Philadelphia runs on oiled wheels. After the huge clatter of New
+York, there is something mellow and human about the drowsy hum of
+Chestnut Street, the genteel reaches of Walnut, and the neat frontage of
+Spruce Street. Ellenora, so quick to notice her surroundings, was at
+first bored, then amused, at last lulled by the intimate life of her new
+home. She had never been abroad, but declared that London,
+out-of-the-way London, must be something like this. The fine, disdainful
+air of Locust Street, the curiously constrained attitude of the brick
+houses on the side streets--as if deferentially listening to the
+back-view remarks of their statelier neighbors, the brown-stone
+fronts--all these things she amused herself telling Paul, playfully
+begging him not to confront her with the oft-quoted pathetic fallacy of
+Ruskin. Hadn't Dickens, she asked, discerned human expression in
+door-knockers, and on the faces of lean, lonely, twilight-haunted
+warehouses?
+
+She was gay for the first time in her restless dissatisfied life. By
+some strange alchemy she and Paul were able to precipitate and blend the
+sum total of their content, and the summer was passed in peace. At first
+they went to a hotel, but fearing the publicity, rented under an assumed
+name a suite in the second storey of a pretty little house near South
+Rittenhouse Square. Here in the cheerful morning-room Ellenora wrote,
+and Paul smoked or trifled at the keyboard. They were perfectly
+self-possessed as to the situation. When tired of the bond it should be
+severed. This young woman and this young man had no illusion about
+love--the word did not enter into their life scheme. Theirs was a pact
+which depended for continuance entirely upon its agreeable quality. And
+there was nothing cynical in all this; rather the ready acceptance of
+the tie's fallibility mingled with a little curiosity how the affair
+would turn out.
+
+It was not yet November when Paul stopped in the middle of a Chopin
+mazurka:
+
+"Ellenora, have you heard from Vibert?"
+
+She looked up from the writing-desk.
+
+"How could I? He doesn't know where we are."
+
+"And I fancy he doesn't care." Paul whistled a lively lilt. His manner
+seemed offensive. She flushed and scowled. He moved about the room still
+whistling and made much noise. Ellenora regarded him intently.
+
+"Getting bored, Paul? Better go to New York and your club," she amiably
+suggested.
+
+"If you don't care," and straightway he began making preparations for
+the journey. In a quarter of an hour he was ready, and with joy upon his
+handsome face kissed Ellenora fervently and went away to the Broad
+Street station. Then she did something surprising. She threw herself
+upon a couch and wept until she was hysterical.
+
+"I'm a nice sort of a fool, after all," she reflected, as she wiped her
+face with a cool handkerchief and proceeded to let her hair down for a
+good, comfortable brushing. "I'm a fool, a fool, to cry about this vain,
+selfish fellow. Paul has no heart. Poor little Arthur! If he had been
+more of a man, less of a conceited boy. Yet conceit may fetch him
+through, after all. Dear me, I wonder what the poor boy did when he got
+the news."
+
+Ellenora laughed riotously. The silliness of the situation burned her
+sense of the incongruous. There she stood opposite the mirror with her
+tears hardly dry, and yet she was thinking of the man she had deserted!
+It was absurd after all, this hurly-burly of men and women. Then she
+began to wonder when Paul would return. The day seemed very long; in the
+evening she walked in Rittenhouse Square and watched Trinity Church
+until its brown façade faded in the dusk. She expected Paul back at
+midnight, and sat up reading. She didn't love him, she told herself, but
+felt lonely and wished he would come. To be sure, she recalled with her
+morbidly keen memory that Howells had said: "There is no happy life for
+woman--the advantage that the world offers her is her choice in
+self-sacrifice." At two hours past the usual time, she went to bed and
+slept uneasily until dawn, when she reached out her hand and awoke with
+a start....
+
+The next night he came back slightly the worse for a pleasant time. He
+was too tired to answer questions. In the morning he told her that
+Vibert announced a concert in Carnegie Hall, the programme made up of
+his own compositions.
+
+"His own compositions?" Ellenora indignantly queried. "He has nothing
+but the piano concerto, an overture he wrote in Germany, and some
+songs." She was very much disturbed. Paul noticed it and teased her.
+
+"Oh, yes, he has; read this:"
+
+"Mr. Arthur Vibert, a talented young composer, pupil of Saint-Saëns and
+Brahms, will give an instrumental concert at Carnegie Hall, November
+10th, the programme of which will be devoted entirely to his own
+compositions. Mr. Vibert, who is an excellent pianist, will play his new
+piano concerto; a group of his charming songs will be heard; an
+overture, one of his first works, and a new symphonic poem will comprise
+this unusually interesting musical scheme. Mr. Vibert will have the
+valuable assistance of Herr Anton Seidl and his famous orchestra."
+
+"I will go to New York and hear that symphonic poem." She spoke in her
+most aggressive manner.
+
+"Well, why not?" replied Paul flippantly. "Only you will see a lot of
+people you know, and would that be pleasant?"
+
+"You needn't go to the concert, you can meet me afterward, and we'll go
+home together."
+
+Paul yawned, and went out for his afternoon stroll.... Ellenora passed
+the intervening days in a flame of expectancy. She conjectured all sorts
+of reasons for the concert. Why should Arthur give it so early in the
+season? Where did he get the money for the orchestra? Perhaps that old,
+stupid, busybody, portrait-painting friend of his had advanced it. But
+when did he compose the symphonic poem? He had said absolutely nothing
+about it to her; and she was surprised, irritated, a little proud that
+he had finished something of symphonic proportions. She knew Arthur too
+well to suppose that he would offer a metropolitan audience scamped
+workmanship. Anyhow, she would go over even if she had to face an army
+of questioning friends.
+
+Vibert! How singularly that name looked now. It was a prettier, more
+compact name than Goddard. But of course she wasn't Mrs. Goddard, she
+was Mrs. Vibert, and would be until her husband saw fit to divorce her.
+Would he do that soon? Then she walked about furiously, drank tea, and
+groaned--she was ennuied beyond description....
+
+Paul had the habit of going to New York every other week, and she raised
+no objection as his frivolous manner was very trying during sultry days;
+when he was away she could abandon herself to her day-dreams without
+fear of interruption. She thought hard, and her strong head often was
+puzzled by the cloud of contradictory witnesses her memory raised. But
+she cried no more at his absence....
+
+It was quite gaily that she took her seat beside him in the drawing-room
+car of the train and impatiently awaited the first sight of the salt
+meadows before Jersey City is reached.
+
+"Ah! the sea," she cried enthusiastically, and Paul smiled indulgently.
+
+"You are lyrical, after all, Ellenora," he remarked in his most critical
+manner. "Presently you will be calling aloud 'Thalatta, Thalatta!' like
+some dithyrambic Greek of old."
+
+"Smell the ocean, Paul," urged Ellenora, who looked years younger and
+almost handsome. Paul's comment was not original but it was sound: "You
+are a born New York girl and no mistake." He took her to luncheon when
+they reached the city and in the afternoon she went to a few old
+familiar shops, felt buoyant, and told herself that she would never
+consent to live in Philadelphia, as inelastic as brass. Alone she had a
+hasty dinner at the hotel--Paul had gone to dine with his mother--and
+noted in the paper that there was no postponement of the Vibert concert.
+The evening was cool and clear, and with a singular sensation of
+lightness in her head she went up to the hall in a noisy Broadway
+car....
+
+Her heart beat so violently that she feared she was about to be ill;
+intense excitement warned her she must be calmer. All this fever and
+tremor were new to her, their novelty alarmed and interested her.
+Accustomed since childhood to time the very pulse-beats of her soul,
+this analytical woman was astounded when she felt forces at work within
+her--forces that seemed beyond control of her strong will. She did not
+dare to sit downstairs, so secured a seat in the top gallery, meeting
+none of Arthur's musical acquaintances. She eagerly read the programme.
+How odd "Vibert" seemed on it! She almost expected to see her own name
+follow her husband's. Arthur Vibert and Ellenora, his wife, will play
+his own--their own--concerto for piano and orchestra!
+
+She laughed at her conceit, but her laugh sounded so thin and miserable
+that she was frightened....
+
+Again she looked at the programme. After the concerto overture
+"Adonaïs"--Vibert loved Shelley and Keats--came the piano concerto, a
+group of songs--the singer's name an unfamiliar one--and finally the
+symphonic poem. The symphonic poem! What did she see, or were her eyes
+blurred?
+
+"Symphonic Poem 'The Zone of the Shadow'. For explanatory text see the
+other side." Sick and trembling she turned the page and read "The
+Argument of this Symphonic Poem is by Ellenora Vibert."
+
+      THE ZONE OF THE SHADOW
+
+      To the harsh sacrificial tones of curious shells wrought
+      from conch let us worship our blazing parent planet! We
+      stripe our bodies with ochre and woad, lamenting the decline
+      of our god under the rim of the horizon. O! sweet lost days
+      when we danced in the sun and drank his sudden rays. O!
+      dread hour of the Shadow, the Shadow whose silent wings
+      drape the world in gray, the Shadow that sleeps. Our souls
+      slink behind our shields; our women and children hide in the
+      caves; the time is near, and night is our day. Softly, with
+      feet of moss, the Shadow stalks out of the South. The
+      brilliant eye of the Sun is blotted over, and with a
+      remorseless mantle of mist the silvery cusp of the new moon
+      is enfolded. Follow fast the stars, the little brethren of
+      the sky; and like a huge bolster of fog the Shadow scales
+      the ramparts of the dawn. We are lost in the blur of doom,
+      and the long sleep of the missing months is heavy upon our
+      eyelids. We rail not at the coward Sun-God who fled fearing
+      the Shadow, but creep noiselessly to the caves. Our shields
+      are cast aside, unloosed are our stone hatchets, and the
+      fire lags low on the hearth. Without, the Shadow has
+      swallowed the earth; the cry of our hounds stilled as by the
+      hand of snow. The Shadow rolls into our caves; our brain is
+      benumbed by its caresses; it closes the porches of the ear,
+      and gently strikes down our warring members. Supine, routed
+      we rest; and above all, above the universe, is the silence
+      of the Shadow.
+
+"Arthur has had his revenge," she murmured, and of a sudden went sick;
+the house was black about her as she almost swooned.... The old pride
+kept her up, and she looked about the thinly filled galleries; the
+concert commenced; she listened indifferently to the overture. When
+Vibert came on the stage and bowed, she noticed that he seemed rather
+worn but he was active and played with more power and brilliancy than
+she ever before recalled. He was very masterful, and that was a new note
+in his music. And when the songs came, he led out a pretty, slim girl,
+and with evident satisfaction accompanied her at the piano. The three
+songs were charming. She remembered them. But who was this soprano?
+Arthur was evidently interested in her; the orchestra watched the pair
+sympathetically.
+
+So the elopement had not killed him! Indeed he seemed to have thriven
+artistically since her desertion! Ellenora sat in the black gulf called
+despair, devoured by vain regrets. Was it the man or his music she
+regretted? At last the Symphonic Poem! The strong Gothic head of Anton
+Seidl was seen, and the music began....
+
+The natural bent of Arthur for the mystic, the supernatural, was
+understood by his wife. Here was frosty music, dazzling music, in which
+the spangled North, with its iridescent auroras, its snow-driven
+soundless seas and its arctic cold, were imagined by this woman. She
+quickly discerned the Sun theme and the theme of the Shadow, and
+alternately blushed and wept at the wonderfully sympathetic tonal
+transposition of her idea. That this slight thing should have trapped
+his fantasy surprised her. After she had written it, it had seemed
+remote, all too white, a "Symphonie en Blanc Majeur"--as Théophile
+Gautier would have called it--besides devoid of human interest. But
+Arthur had interwoven a human strand of melody, a scarlet skein of
+emotion, primal withal, yet an attempt to catch the under emotions of
+the ice-bound Esquimaux surprised in their zone of silence by the sleep
+of the Shadow, the long night of their dreary winter. And the composer
+had succeeded surprisingly well. What boreal epic had he read into
+Ellenora's little prose poem, the only thing of hers that he had ever
+pretended to admire! She was amazed, stunned. She wondered how all this
+emotional richness could have been tapped. Had she left him too soon, or
+had her departure developed some richer artistic vein? She tortured her
+brain and heart. After a big tonal climax followed by the lugubrious
+monologue of a bassoon the work closed.
+
+There was much applause, and she saw her husband come out again and
+again bowing. Finally he appeared with the young singer. Ellenora left
+the hall and feebly felt her way to the street. As she expected, Paul
+was not in sight, so she called a carriage, and getting into it she saw
+Arthur drive by with his pretty soprano.
+
+
+IV
+
+How she reached the train and Philadelphia she hardly remembered. She
+was miserably sick at soul, miserably mortified. Her foolish air-castles
+vanished, and in their stead she saw the brutal reality. She had
+deserted a young genius for a fashionable dilettante. In time she might
+have learned to care for Arthur--but how was she to know this? He was
+so backward, such a colorless companion!... She almost disliked the man
+who had taken her away from him; yet six months ago Ellenora would have
+resented the notion that a mere man could have led her. Besides there
+was another woman in the muddle now!... In her disgust she longed for
+her own zone of silence. In her heart she called Ibsen and Nora Helmer
+delusive guides; her chief intellectual staff had failed her and she
+began to see Torvald Helmer's troubles in a different light. Perhaps
+when Nora reached the street that terrible night, she thought of her
+children--perhaps Helmer was watching her from the Doll's House
+window--perhaps--perhaps Arthur--then she remembered the young singer
+and bitterness filled her mouth....
+
+When Paul came back, twenty-four hours later, she turned a disagreeable
+regard upon him.
+
+"Why didn't you stay away longer?" she demanded inconsistently.
+
+"My dear girl, I searched for you at Carnegie Hall that night, but I
+suppose I must have come too late; so yesterday I went yachting and had
+a jolly time."
+
+Ellenora fell to reproaching Paul violently for his cruel neglect.
+Didn't he know that she was ailing and needed him? He answered
+maliciously: "I fancied that your trip might upset your nerves. I am
+really beginning to believe you care more for your young composer than
+you do for me. Ellenora Vibert, sentimentalist!--what a joke."
+
+He smiled at his wit....
+
+"Leave me, leave me, and don't come here again!... I have a right to
+care for any man I please."
+
+"Ah! Ibsen encore," said Paul, tauntingly.
+
+"No, not Ibsen," she replied in a weak voice, "only a free woman--free
+even to admire the man whose name I bear," she added, her temper sinking
+to a sheer monotone.
+
+"Free?" he sarcastically echoed. The shock of their voices filled the
+room. Paul angrily stared out of the window at the thin trees in dusty
+Rittenhouse Square, wondering when the woman would stop her tiresome
+reproaches. Ellenora's violent agitation affected her; and the man, his
+selfish sensibilities aroused by the most unheroic sight in the world,
+slowly descended the staircase, grumbling as he put on his hat....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Too cerebral to endure the philandering Paul, Ellenora Vibert is still
+in Philadelphia. She has little hope that her husband will ever make any
+sign.... After a time her restless mind and need of money drove her into
+journalism. To-day she successfully edits the Woman's Page of a Sunday
+newspaper, and her reading of an essay on Ibsen's Heroines before the
+Twenty-first Century Club was declared a positive achievement. Ellenora,
+who dislikes Nietzsche more than ever, calls herself Mrs. Bishop. Her
+pen name is now Nora Helmer.
+
+
+
+
+TANNHÄUSER'S CHOICE
+
+
+I
+
+"And you say they met him this afternoon?" ... "Yes, met him in broad
+daylight coming from the house of that odious woman." "Well, I never
+would have believed it!" "That accounts for his mysterious absence from
+the clubs and drawing-rooms. Henry Tannhäuser is not the style of man to
+miss London in the season, unless there is a big attraction elsewhere."
+... The air was heavy with flowers, and in the windows opening on the
+balcony were thronged smartly dressed folk; it was May and the weather
+warm. The Landgrave's musicale had been anticipated eagerly by all
+music-lovers in town; Wartburg, the large house on the hill, hardly
+could hold the invited....
+
+The evening was young when Mrs. Minne, charming and a widow, stood with
+her pretty nun-like face inclined to the tall, black Mr. Biterolf, the
+basso of the opera. She had been sonnetted until her perfectly arched
+eyebrows were famous. Her air of well-bred and conventual calm never had
+been known to desert her; and her high, light, colorless soprano had
+something in it of the sexless timbre of the boy chorister. With her
+blond hair pressed meekly to her shapely head she was the delight and
+despair of poets, painters and musicians, for she turned an impassable
+cheek to their pleadings. Mrs. Minne would never remarry; and it was her
+large income that made water the mouth of the impecunious artistic
+tribe....
+
+Just now she seemed interested in Karl Biterolf, but even his vanity did
+not lead him to hope. They resumed their conversation, while about them
+the crush became greater, and the lights burned more brilliantly. In the
+whirl of chatter and conventional compliment stood Elizabeth Landgrave,
+the niece of the host, receiving her uncle's guests. Mrs. Minne regarded
+her, a sweet, unpleasant smile playing about her thinly carved lips.
+
+"Yet the men rave over her, Mr. Biterolf. Is it not so? What chance has
+a passée woman with such a pure, delicate slip of a girl? And she sings
+so well. I wonder if she intends going on the stage?" Her companion
+leaned over and whispered something.
+
+"No, no, I'll never believe it. What? Henry Tannhäuser in love with that
+girl! Jamais, jamais!"
+
+"But I tell you it's so, and her refusal sent him after--well, that
+other one." Biterolf looked wise.
+
+"You mean to tell me that he could forget her for an old woman? Stop, I
+know you are going to say that the Holda is as fascinating as Diana of
+Poitiers and has a trick of making boys, young enough to be her
+grandsons, fall madly in love with her. I know all that is said in her
+favor. No one knows who she is, where she came from, or her age. She's
+fifty if she's a day, and she makes up in the morning." Mrs. Minne
+paused for breath. Both women moved in the inner musical set of
+fashionable London and both captained rival camps. Mrs. Minne was voted
+a saint and Mrs. Holda a sinner--a fascinating one.... There was a
+little feeling in the widow's usually placid voice when she again
+questioned Biterolf.
+
+"I always fancied that Eschenbach, that man with the baritone voice, son
+of the rich brewer--you know him of course?--I always fancied that he
+was making up to our pretty young innocent over yonder."
+
+Biterolf gazed in amusement at his companion. Her veiled, sarcastic tone
+was not lost on him; he felt that he had to measure his words with this
+lily-like creature.
+
+"Oh, yes; Wolfram Eschenbach? Certainly, I know him. He sings very well
+for an amateur. I believe he is to sing this evening. Let us go out on
+the balcony; it's very warm." "I intend remaining here, for I shall not
+miss a trick in the game to-night and if, as you say, that silly
+Tannhäuser was seen leaving the Holda's house this afternoon--" "Yes,
+with young Walter Vogelweide, and they were quarrelling--" "Drinking, I
+suppose?" "No; Henry was very much depressed, and when Eschenbach asked
+him where he had been so long--" "What a fool question for a man in love
+with Elizabeth Landgrave," interposed Mrs. Minne, tartly. "Henry
+answered that he didn't know, and he wished he were in the Thames." "And
+a good place for him, say I." The lady put up her lorgnon and bowed
+amiably to Miss Landgrave, who was talking eagerly to her uncle....
+
+The elder Landgrave was as fond of hunting as of music, and sedulously
+fostered the cultivation of his niece's voice. As she stood beside him,
+her slender figure was almost as tall as his. Her eyes were large in the
+cup and they went violet in the sunlight; at night they seemed
+lustrously black. She was in virginal white this evening, and her
+delicately modelled head was turned toward the door. Her uncle spoke
+slowly to her.
+
+"He promised to come." Elizabeth flushed. "Whether he does or not, I
+shall sing; besides, his rudeness is unbearable. Uncle, dear, what can I
+say to a man who goes away for a month without vouchsafing me a word of
+excuse?"
+
+Her uncle coughed insinuatingly in his beard. He was a widower.
+
+"Hadn't we better begin, uncle? Go out on the balcony and stop that
+noisy gypsy band. I hate Hungarian music." ... She carried herself with
+dignity, and Mr. Landgrave admired the pretty curves of her face and
+wondered what would happen when her careless lover arrived. Soon the
+crowd drifted in from the balcony and the great music-room, its solemn
+oak walls and ceilings blazing with light, was jammed. Near the
+concert-grand gathered a group of music makers, in which Wolfram
+Eschenbach's golden beard and melancholy eyes were at once singled out
+by sentimental damsels. He had long been the by-word of match-making
+mammas because of his devotion to a hopeless cause. Elizabeth Landgrave
+admired his good qualities, but her heart was held by that rake,
+_vaurien_ and man about town, dashing Harry Tannhäuser; and as Wolfram
+bent over Miss Landgrave her uncle could not help regretting that girls
+were so obstinate.
+
+A crashing of chords announced that the hour had arrived. After the
+"Tannhäuser" overture, Elizabeth Landgrave arose to sing. Instantly
+there was a stillness. She looked very fair in her clinging gown, and as
+her powerful, well modulated soprano uttered the invocation to the
+Wartburg "Dich, teure Halle, grüss ich wieder," the thrill of excitement
+was intensified by the appearance of Henry Tannhäuser in the doorway at
+the lower end of the room. If Elizabeth saw him her voice did not reveal
+emotion, and she gave, with rhetorical emphasis, "Froh grüss ich dich,
+geliebter Raum."
+
+"He looks pretty well knocked out, doesn't he?" whispered Biterolf to
+Mrs. Minne. She curled her lip. She had long set her heart on
+Tannhäuser, but since he preferred to sing the praises of Mrs. Holda,
+she slaked her feelings by cutting up his character in slices and
+serving them to her friends with a saintly smile.
+
+"Poor old Harry," went on Biterolf in his clumsy fashion. "Your poor old
+Harry had better keep away from his Venus," snapped the other; "he looks
+as if he'd been going the pace too fast." Every one looked curiously at
+the popular tenor. He stood the inspection very well, though his
+clean-shaven face was slightly haggard, his eyes sunken and bloodshot.
+But he was such good style, as the women remarked, and his bearing, as
+ever, gallant.
+
+Elizabeth ended with "Sei mir gegrüsst," and there was a volley of
+handclapping. Tannhäuser made his way to the piano. His attitude was
+anything but penitent; the girl did not stir a muscle. He shook hands.
+Then he complimented her singing. She bowed her head stiffly. Tannhäuser
+smiled ironically.
+
+"I suppose I ought to do the conventional operatic thing," he
+murmured--"cry aloud, 'Let me kneel forever here.'" She regarded him
+coldly. "You might find it rather embarrassing before this crowd. Do you
+ever sing any more?" He was slightly confused. "Let us sing the duo in
+the second act; you know it," she curtly said, "and stop the mob's
+gaping. Mrs. Minne over there is straining her eyes out." "She cannot
+say that I ever sang her praises," laughed Tannhäuser, and as he faced
+the audience with Elizabeth there was a hum which modulated clamorously
+into noisy applause.
+
+The pair began "Gepriesen sei die Stunde, gepriesen sei die Macht," and
+Mr. Landgrave looked on gloomily as the voices melted in lyric ecstasy.
+Henry's voice was heroic, like himself, and his friend Wolfram felt a
+glow when its thrilling top tones rang out so pure, so clear. What a
+voice, what a man! If he would only take care of himself, he thought and
+looked at Elizabeth's spiritual face wondering if she knew--if she knew
+of the other woman who was making Henry forget his better self!
+
+The duo ceased and congratulations were heaped upon the singers....
+
+"How do you manage to keep it up, old man?" asked Biterolf while Mrs.
+Minne engaged Elizabeth.
+
+Tannhäuser smiled. "You old grim wolf, Biterolf, you cling to the notion
+that a singer must lead the life of an anchorite to preserve his voice.
+I enjoy life. I am not a monk, but a tenor--" "Yes, but not a
+professional one!" "No; therefore I'm happy. If I had to sing to order,
+I'd jump into the river." "That's what you said this afternoon," replied
+Biterolf, knowingly.
+
+Henry's face grew dark. "You've said nothing, have you? That's a good
+fellow. I assure you, Karl, I'm in the very devil of a fix. I've got rid
+of Holda, but no one can tell how long. She's a terror." "Why don't you
+travel?" "I have, I swear I have, but she has a trick of finding where
+my luggage goes and then turns up at Pau or Paris as if I expected her.
+She's a witch! That's what she is."
+
+"She is Venus," said Biterolf moodily. "Aha! you've been hard hit, too?
+I believe she does come from the Hollow Hill. Her cavern must be full of
+dead men's bones, trophies of her conquests. I think I've escaped this
+time." Tannhäuser's face grew radiant. "Don't be too sure, she may turn
+up here to-night." "Good Lord, man, she's not invited, I hope." "I don't
+know why not--she goes with the best people. Take a tip from me, Harry.
+Don't waste any more time with her for Eschenbach may cut you out. He's
+very fond of Elizabeth, and you'd better cut short that duet over there
+now; Mrs. Minne is not fond of you." "Nonsense!" said Tannhäuser, but he
+lounged over toward the two women and his big frame was noted by all the
+girls in the room.
+
+Tannhäuser had a very taking way with him. His eyes were sky-blue and
+his hair old gold. He was a terrific sportsman and when not making love
+was singing. From his Teutonic ancestry he had inherited a taste for
+music which desultory study in a German university town, combined with a
+musical ear, had improved. He had been told by managers that if he would
+work hard he could make a sensation, but Henry was lazy and Henry was
+rich, so he sang, shot big game and flirted his years away. Then he met
+Mrs. Holda, of Berg Street, Piccadilly.
+
+The women were not looking at each other with loving eyes when he drew
+near. Elizabeth turned to him, her face aglow: "Let us walk a bit before
+Mr. Eschenbach sings." Her manner was almost seductive. Mrs. Minne
+sneered slightly and waved her fan condescendingly at the two as they
+moved slowly up the room. "There go the biggest pair of fools in all
+Christendom," she remarked to Biterolf; "why, she will believe
+everything he tells her. She wouldn't listen to my advice." Biterolf
+shook his head. When Tannhäuser and Elizabeth returned both looked
+supremely happy.
+
+"That woman has actually been abusing you, Harry." He pressed her arm
+reassuringly. Wolfram Eschenbach began to sing "Blick' ich umher in
+diesem edlen Kreise," and once more silence fell upon the bored crowd.
+Sympathy was in his tones and he sang tenderly, lovingly. Elizabeth
+listened unmoved. She now had eyes for Tannhäuser only, and she laughed
+aloud when he proposed to follow Wolfram with a solo.
+
+"Do," she said enthusiastically, "it will stir them all up." Although
+this number was not down on the program, Tannhäuser was welcomed as he
+went to the piano. Wolfram seemed uneasy and once looked fixedly at
+Elizabeth. Then he walked out on the balcony as if seeking some one, and
+Mrs. Minne nudged her stolid neighbor. "Mark my words, there's trouble
+brewing," she declared.
+
+By this time Tannhäuser was in his best form. He seemed to have regained
+all his usual elasticity, for Berg Street, with its depressing memories,
+had completely vanished. He expanded his chest and sang, his victorious
+blue eyes fastened on Elizabeth. He sang the song of Venus, "Dir, Göttin
+der Liebe," and all the old passion came into his voice; when he uttered
+"Zieht in den Berg der Venus ein" he was transported, his surroundings
+melted and once more he was gazing at the glorious woman, his Venus, his
+Holda. The audience was completely shaken out of its fashionable
+immobility, and "superb," "bravo," "magnificent," "encore," "bis," were
+heard on all sides. Elizabeth alone remained mute. Her skin was the
+pallor of ivory, and into her glance came the look of a lovely fawn run
+down by the hounds.
+
+"He'd better pack his traps and make a pilgrimage to Rome," remarked
+Mrs. Minne with malice in her secular eyes as Tannhäuser strode to the
+balcony. Wolfram, looking anxious, went to Elizabeth and led her to her
+uncle; then the supper signal sounded and the buzz and struggle became
+tremendous.
+
+Mrs. Minne disappeared. Ten minutes later she was at Miss Landgrave's
+side, and presently the pair left the table, slowly forced a passage
+through the mob of hungry and thirsty humans and reached the balcony.
+
+The night was rich with May odors, but the place seemed deserted.
+Plucking at the girl's sleeve, her companion pointed to a couple that
+stood looking into the garden, the arm of the man passed about the waist
+of the woman. Even in the starlight Elizabeth recognized the exquisite
+head and turned to leave; the woman with her was bent on seeing the
+game. In sharp staccato she said, "What a relief after that hot
+supper-room!" and the others turned. Elizabeth did not pause a moment.
+She went to Tannhäuser's companion and said:
+
+"My dear Mrs. Holda, where have you been hiding to-night? I fear you
+missed the music and I fear now you will miss the supper; do let us go
+in." ...
+
+Five minutes later Mrs. Holda left with Tannhäuser in her brougham,
+telling the coachman to drive to Berg Street.
+
+
+II
+
+The drawing-room was delicious that May afternoon--the next after the
+musicale at Landgrave's. Henry was indolently disposed, and on a broad
+divan, heaped with Persian pillows, he stretched his big limbs like a
+guardsman in a Ouida novel. The dark woman near watched him closely, and
+as he seemed inclined to silence she did not force the conversation.
+
+"Shall we drive, Venus?" he nonchalantly asked. "Just as you please. We
+may meet your saint with the insipid eyes in the park." "Good heavens!"
+he testily answered, "why do you forever drag in that girl's name? She's
+nothing to me." Mrs. Holda went to the window and he lazily noticed her
+perfect figure, her raven hair and black eyes. She was a stunner after
+all, and didn't look a day over twenty-eight. How did she manage to
+preserve the illusion of youth? She turned to him, and he saw the
+contour of a face Oriental, with eyes that allured and a mouth that
+invited. A desirable but dangerous woman, and he fell to thinking of the
+other, of her air of girlhood, her innocence of poise, her calm of
+breeding that nothing disturbed. Like a good pose in the saddle, nothing
+could ever unseat the equanimity of Elizabeth. Mrs. Holda grew
+distasteful for the moment and her voice sounded metallic.
+
+"When you cease your perverse mooning, Harry Tannhäuser, when you make
+up your mind once and for all which woman you intend to choose, when you
+decide between Elizabeth Landgrave and Venus Holda, I shall be most
+happy. As it is now I am"--Just then two cards were handed her by a
+footman, and after looking at them she laughed a mellow laugh.
+Tannhäuser sat up and asked her the news.
+
+"I laugh because the situation is so funny," she said; "here are your
+two friends come to visit you and perhaps attempt your rescue from the
+Venusberg. Oh! for a Wagner now! What appropriate music he could set to
+this situation." She gave him the cards, and to his consternation he
+read the names of Elizabeth Landgrave and Wolfram Eschenbach. He started
+up in savage humor and was for going to the reception room. Quite calmly
+Mrs. Holda bade him stay where he was.
+
+"They did not ask for you, Harry, dear; stay here and be a good boy, and
+I'll tell you all about it when they've gone." Her laughter was
+resilient as she descended the staircase, but to the young man it seemed
+sinister. He felt that hope had abandoned him when he entered the Berg
+Street house, and now Elizabeth's presence, instead of relieving his
+dull remorse, increased it. She was under the same roof with him, yet he
+could not go to her....
+
+Tannhäuser paced the parquetry almost hidden by Bokhara rugs, trying to
+forget the girl. Stopping before an elaborate ebony and gold lectern, he
+found a volume in vellum, opened and in it he read: "Livre des grandes
+Merveilles d'amour, escript en Latin et en françoys par Maistre Antoine
+Gaget 1530." "Has love its marvels?" pondered the disquieted young man.
+Turning over the title-page he came upon these words in sweet old
+English:
+
+"Then lamented he weeping: Alas, most unhappy and accursed sinner that I
+am, in that I shall never see the clemency and mercy of my God. Now will
+I go forth and hide myself within Mount Horsel, imploring my sweet lady
+Venus for favor and loving mercy, for willingly would I be forever
+condemned to hell for her love. Here endeth all my deeds of arms and my
+sweet singing. Alas, that my lady's face and her eyes were too
+beautiful, and that in an unfortunate moment I saw them. Then went he
+forth sighing and returned to her, and dwelt sadly in the presence of
+his lady, filled with a surpassing love. And afterwards it came to pass
+that one day the pope saw many red and white flowers and leaf-buds
+spring forth from his bastions, and all without bloomed anew. So that he
+feared greatly, and being much moved thereby was filled with great pity
+for the chevalier who had gone forth hopeless like unto a man forever
+damned and miserable. And straightway sent he numberless messengers to
+him to bring him back, saying that he should receive grace and
+absolution from God, for this his great sin of love. But never more was
+he seen; for the poor chevalier dwelt forever near unto Venus, that most
+high and mighty Goddess, in the bosom of the amorous mountain." ...
+
+Mrs. Holda was delightful as she welcomed her visitors. "The
+drawing-room was not empty," she said; "a friend, an old friend, a bit
+of a bore, you know;" and they must just stay downstairs, it was more
+cozy, more intimate. Elizabeth, whose face was quite rosy from walking,
+studied the woman with the Egyptian profile and glorious hair, and
+wondered if she ever told the truth. Wolfram alone seemed uneasy. He
+could not get into the swing of conversation; he was in his watchful
+mood. He looked at the portières as if every moment he expected some one
+to appear. The musicale was discussed and Miss Landgrave's singing
+praised. Wolfram rather awkwardly attempted to introduce Tannhäuser's
+name, but was snubbed by Elizabeth.
+
+"Now, my dear Mrs. Holda, I've come to tell you some news; promise me, I
+beg of you, promise me not to divulge it. We are engaged, Wolfram and I,
+and you being such an old friend I came to you first." The girl's pure
+face was the picture of nubile candor, and her eyes met fairly the shock
+of the other's quick glance.
+
+"How lovely, how perfectly lovely it all is, and how I appreciate your
+confidence," sang Mrs. Holda, in purring accents. "How glad Henry
+Tannhäuser will be to hear that his two best friends are to be married.
+I must tell--tell him this afternoon."
+
+"Oh!" cried Elizabeth, lightly, "but your promise, have you forgotten
+it?" The other laughed in her face.
+
+"We go to Rome, to make what dear Mrs. Minne calls the pilgrimage,"
+declared the girl unflinchingly.
+
+"Then I hope the Wagner miracle will take place again," mockingly
+answered Mrs. Holda, and after a few more sentences the visitors went
+away. Venus burst into her drawing-room holding her sides, almost
+choking. "Harry, Harry, Harry Tannhäuser, I shall die. They're engaged
+to be married. They came to tell me, to tell me, knowing that you were
+upstairs. Oh, that deceitful virgin with her sly airs! I understood her.
+She fancied that she would put me out of countenance. She and that sheep
+of a brewer's son, Eschenbach. They're engaged, I tell you, and going to
+Rome on their wedding trip--their pilgrimage she called it. Oh, these
+affected Wagnerites! You had better go, too, Mr. Tannhäuser; perhaps the
+miracle might be renewed and your staff of faith grow green with the
+leaves of repentance. Oh, Harry, what a lark it all is!"
+
+He sat on the couch and stared at her as she rolled about on a divan,
+gripped by malicious laughter.... Engaged! Elizabeth Landgrave engaged
+to be married! And a few hours ago she told him she loved him, could
+never love another--and now! What had happened in such a brief time to
+make her change her mind? Engaged to Wolfram Eschenbach, dear, old
+stupid Wolfram, who had loved her with a dog's love for years, even when
+she flouted him. Wolfram, his best friend, slow Wolfram, with his
+poetizing, his fondness for German singing societies, his songs to
+evening stars; Eschenbach, the brewer's son, to cut him out, cut out
+brilliant Harry Tannhäuser! It was incredible, it was monstrous!... He
+slowly went to the window. The street was empty, and only his desperate
+thoughts made noise as they clattered through his hollow head. Her voice
+roused him. "You can take the pitcher too often to the well, Harry dear,
+and you drove once too often to Berg Street. Elizabeth, sensible girl,
+instead of dying, takes the best man she could possibly find; a better
+man than you, Harry, and she couldn't resist letting me know it. So,
+silly old boy, better give up your Wartburg ambitions, your pilgrimage
+to Rome, and stay here in the Venusberg. I know I'm old, but, after all,
+am I not your Venus?" In the soft light of an early evening in May the
+face of Mrs. Holda seemed impossibly charming....
+
+
+
+
+THE RED-HEADED PIANO PLAYER
+
+
+The two young men left the trolley car that carried them from Bath Beach
+to the West End of Coney Island, and walked slowly up the Broad Avenue
+of Confusing Noises, smoked and gazed about them with the independent
+air that notes among a million the man from New York. And as they walked
+they talked in crisp sentences, laughing at the seller of opulent
+Frankfurter sausages and nodding pleasantly to the lovely ladies in
+short, spangled skirts, who, with beckoning glances, sought their eyes.
+The air reverberated with an August evening's heat and seemed sweating.
+Its odor modulated from sea-brine to Barren Island, and the wind hummed.
+The clatter was striking; ardent whistling of peanut steam-roasters,
+vicious brass bands, hideous harps, wheezing organs, hoarse shoutings
+and the patient, monotonous cry of the fakirs and photographers were all
+blended in a dense, huge symphony; while the mouse-colored dust churned
+by the wheels of blackguard beach-wagons blurred a hard, blue sky from
+which pricked a soft, hanging star. An operatic sun had just set with
+all the majestic tranquillity of a fiery hen; and the two friends felt
+laconically gay. "Let's eat here," suggested the red-haired one.
+
+"Not on your life," answered the other, a stout, cynical blond; "you get
+nothing but sauerkraut that isn't sour and dog-meat sausage. I'm for a
+good square meal at Manhattan or Sheepshead Bay."
+
+"Yes, but Billy, there's more fun here, and heavens knows I'm dead
+tired." The young fellow's accents were those of an irritable, hungry
+human animal, and his big chum gave in....
+
+They searched the sandy street for a comfortable beer place, and after
+passing dime-museums, unearthly looking dives, amateur breweries, low
+gin mills and ambitious establishments, the pair paused opposite a
+green, shy park of grass and dwarf trees, and listened.
+
+"Piano playing, and not bad," cried Billy. They both hung over the
+rustic palings and heard bits of Chopin's Military Polonaise,
+interrupted by laughter and the rattling of crockery.
+
+"I'm for going in, Billy," and they read the sign which announced a good
+dinner, with music, for fifty cents. They followed the artificial lane
+to a large summer cottage, about which were bunched drooping willows
+and, finding all the tables occupied, went inside.
+
+A long room furnished for dining, gaudy pictures on the walls, and at
+one end upon a raised platform a grand piano. The place was full; and
+the tobacco-smoke, chatter and calls of the waiters disconcerted the two
+boys. Just then the piano sounded. Chopin again, and curious to know who
+possessed such a touch at Coney Island, the friends found a table to the
+right of the keyboard and sat down. As they did, they looked at the
+pianist and both exclaimed:
+
+"Paderewski or his ghost!" The fellow wore a shock of lemon-tinted hair
+after the manner of the Polish virtuoso, but his face was shaven clean.
+
+"Harry, he looks like a lost soul," said Billy, who was rather plain
+spoken in his judgments.
+
+"Let's give him a drink," whispered Harry, and he called a waiter.
+"Whiskey," said the waiter after a question had been put, and presently
+the piano player was bowing to them as he threw the liquor into his
+large mouth. Then the Chopin study in C minor was recommenced and
+half-finished and the two music lovers forgot their dinner. A waiter
+spoke to them twice; the manager, seeing that music was hurting trade,
+went to the piano and coughed. The pianist instantly stopped, and a
+dinner was ordered by Harry. Billy looked around him with a trained eye.
+He noticed that the women were all sunburned and wore much glittering
+jewelry; the men looked like countrymen and were timid in the use of the
+fork. When the music began they stopped eating and their companions
+ordered fresh drinks. Billy could have sworn that he saw one woman
+crying. But as soon as the music ceased conversation began, and the
+rattle of dishes was deafening.
+
+"I say, Harry, this is a queer go. There's something funny about this
+place and this piano. It upsets all my theories of piano music. When the
+piano begins here the audience forgets to eat, and its passion mounts to
+its ears. Not like the West End at all, is it?" Harry was busy with his
+soup. He was sentimental, and the sight of kindred hair--the hue beloved
+of Paderewski--roused his sympathies.
+
+"By George, Billy, that fellow's an artist. Just look at his expression.
+There's a story in him, and I'm going to get it. It may be news."
+
+They chatted, and asked the pianist to join them in another drink.
+Whiskey was sent up to the platform, and the musician drank it at a
+gulp, his right hand purling over the figuration of "Auf dem Wasser zu
+Singen." But he took no water. Then making them a little bobbing,
+startled bow, he began playing. Again it was something of Chopin. On his
+lean features there was a look of detachment; and the watchers were
+struck with the interesting forehead, the cheeks etched with seams of
+suffering, and the finely compressed lips.
+
+"I'll bet it's some German who has boozed too much at home, and his
+folks have thrown him out," hinted Billy.
+
+"German? That's no German, I swear. It's Hungarian, Bohemian or Pole.
+Besides, he drinks whiskey."
+
+"Yes, drinks too much, but it hasn't hurt his playing--yet: just listen
+to the beggar play that prelude."
+
+The B flat minor Prelude, with its dark, rich, rushing cascade of
+scales, its grim iteration and ceaseless questioning, spun through the
+room, and again came the curious silence. Even the Oberkellner listened,
+his mouth ajar. The waiters paused midway in their desperate gaming with
+victuals, and for a moment the place was wholly given over to music. The
+mounting unison passage and the smashing chords at the close awakened
+the diners from the trance into which they had been thrown by the
+magnetic fluid at the tips of the pianist's fingers; the bustle began,
+Harry and Billy ordered more beer and drew deep breaths.
+
+"He's a wonder, that's all I know, and I'm going to grab him. What
+technique, what tone, what a touch!" cried Harry, who had been assistant
+music critic on an afternoon paper.
+
+A card, with a pencilled invitation, was sent to the pianist, and the
+place being quite dark the electric lights began hoarsely whistling in a
+canary colored haze. The musician came over to the table and, bowing
+very low, took a seat.
+
+"You will excuse me," he said, "if I do not eat. I have trouble with my
+heart, and I drink whiskey. Yes, I will be happy to join you in another
+glass of very bad whiskey. No, I am not a Pole; I am English, and not a
+nobleman. I look like Paderewski, but can't play nearly as well. Here is
+my card." The name was commonplace, Wilkins, but was prefixed by the
+more unusual Feodor.
+
+"You've some Russian in you after all?" questioned Billy.
+
+"Perhaps. Feodor is certainly Russian. I often play Tschaïkowsky. I know
+that you wonder why I am in such a place. I will tell you. I like human
+nature, and where can you get such an opportunity to come into contact
+with it in the raw as this place?"
+
+Billy winked at Harry and ordered more drinks. The pale Feodor Wilkins
+drank with the same precipitate gesture, as if eager with thirst. He
+spoke in a refined manner, and was evidently an educated man.
+
+"I have no story, my friends. I'm not a genius in disguise, neither am I
+a drunkard--one may safely drink at the seaside--and if, perhaps, like
+Robert Louis Stevenson, I play at being an amateur emigrant, I certainly
+do not intend writing a book of my experiences."
+
+The newspaper boys were disappointed. There was, then, no lovely mystery
+to be unravelled, no subterrene story excavated, no romance at all,
+nothing but a spiritual looking Englishman with an odd first name and a
+gift of piano playing.
+
+Mr. Wilkins gave a little laugh, for he read the faces of his
+companions. As if to add another accent to their disappointment he
+ordered a Swiss cheese sandwich, and spoke harshly to the waiter for not
+bringing mustard with it. Then he turned to Harry:
+
+"You love music?"
+
+"Crazy for it, but see here, Mr.--Mr. Wilkins, why don't you play in
+public? I don't mean this kind of a public, but before a Philharmonic
+audience! This sort of cattle must make you sick, and for heaven's sake,
+man, what do they pay you?" Harry's face was big with suppressed
+questions. The pianist paused in his munching of bread and cheese. His
+fine luminous eyes twinkled: "My dear boy, I have a story--a short
+one--and I fancy that it will explain the mystery. I am twenty-seven
+years old. Yes, that's all, but I've lived and--loved."
+
+"Ah, a petticoat!" exclaimed Harry, triumphantly; "I was sure of it."
+
+"No, not a petticoat, but a piano was the cause of my undoing. Vaulting
+ambition and all that sort of thing. My parents were easy in
+circumstances and I was brought up to be a pianist. Deliberately planned
+to be a virtuoso. I was sent to Leschetizky, to Von Bülow, to
+Rubinstein, to Liszt. I studied scales in Paris with Planté, trills in
+Bologna with Martucci, octaves with Rosenthal; in Vienna I met Joseffy,
+and with him I studied double notes. Wait until later and I shall play
+for you the Chopin Study in G sharp minor! I mastered twenty-two
+concertos and even knew the parts for the triangle. Then at the age of
+twenty-five, after the best teachers in Europe had taught me their
+particular craft I returned to England, to London, and gave a concert.
+It was an elaborate affair. The best orchestra, with Hans Richter, was
+secured by my happy father, and after the third rehearsal he embraced
+me, saying that he could go to his grave a satisfied man, for his son
+was a piano artist. There must have been a strain of Slavic in the old
+man, he loved Chopin and Tschaïkowsky so. My mother was less
+demonstrative, but she was as truly delighted as my father. Picture to
+yourself the transports of these two devoted old people! And when I left
+them the night before the concert I really trembled.
+
+"In my bedroom I faced the mirror and saw my secret peering out at me. I
+knew that if I failed it would kill my parents, who, gambler-like, were
+staking their very existence on my success. As the night wore white I
+grew more nervous, and at dawn, not being able to endure the strain a
+moment more, I crept out of doors and went to a public house and began
+drinking to settle my nerves."
+
+"I told you it was whiskey," blurted out Billy.
+
+"No, brandy," said Mr. Wilkins, looking into his empty glass, "now it's
+whiskey. Yes; thank you very much. Well, to proceed.
+
+"I drank all day, but being young I did not feel it particularly. I went
+home, ran my fingers over the piano, got into a bath and dressed for the
+concert. At eight o'clock the carriage came, and at eight forty-five,
+with one more drink in me, I walked out on the platform as bold as you
+please, and despite the size of the audience, the glare of the lights
+and the air, charged with human electricity, I felt rather at ease. The
+orchestra went sailing into the long _tutti_ of the F minor Concerto of
+Chopin, and Richter, I could feel, was in good spirits. My cue came; I
+took it, struck out and came down the piano in the introductory
+unisons--a divine beginning, isn't it?--and my tone seemed rich and
+virile. I played the first theme, and all went well until the next
+interlude for the orchestra; I looked about me confidently, feeling
+quite like a virtuoso, and soon spied my parents, when suddenly my knees
+began to tremble, trembled so that the damper pedal vibrated. Then my
+eyes blurred and I missed my cue and felt Richter's great spectacles
+burning into the side of my head like two fierce suns. I scrambled, got
+my place, lost it, rambled and was roused to my position by the short
+rapping of the conductor's stick on his desk. The band stopped, and
+Herr Richter spoke gruffly to me:
+
+"'Begin again.'
+
+"In a sick, dazed way I put my fingers on the keys, but they were drunk;
+the cursed brandy had just begun to work, and a minute later, my head
+reeling, I staggered through the orchestra, lurched against a
+contrabassist, fell down and was shoved out of sight.
+
+"I lay in the artists' room perfectly content, and even enjoyed the
+pinched chalky face of my father as he stooped over me.
+
+"'My God, the boy's drunk,' he cried, and big Richter nodded his head
+quite philosophically, 'Ja, er ist ganz besoffen,' and left us to go to
+the audience. I fell asleep.... The next evening I found, on awakening,
+a horrible headache and a letter from my father. I was turned out of
+doors, disowned, and bade to go about my business. So here I am,
+gentlemen, as you see, at your service, and always thirsty." ...
+
+The friends were about to put a hundred questions, when a thin, acid
+female voice broke in: "Benny, don't you think you've wasted enough of
+the gentlemen's time? You'd better get to work. The people are nearly
+all gone." Feodor Wilkins started to his feet and blushed as an old, fat
+woman, wearing a Mother Hubbard of gross pattern, waddled toward the
+table. The sad pianist with the flaming hair turned to the boys:
+
+"My wife, Mrs. Wilkins, gentlemen!" The lady took a seat at Billy's
+invitation and also a small drink of peppermint and whiskey. She told
+them that she was tired out; business had been good, and if Benny would
+only quit drinking and play more popular music, why, she wouldn't
+complain! Then she drank to their health, and Billy thought he saw the
+husband make a convulsive movement in his throat. It may have been
+caused by hysterical mortification--the woman was undeniably vulgar--but
+to the practical-minded Billy it was more like an envious involuntary
+swallowing at the sight of another's drinking. Then the pianist mounted
+his wooden throne, where, amid the dust and tramplings of low conquests
+and in the murky air, he began to toll out the bells of the Chopin
+Funeral March.
+
+"Funny how they all quit eatin' and drinkin' when he speels, isn't it?"
+remarked the wife with a gratified smile. "Why, if he was half a man
+he'd play all day as well as night and then folks out yonder would
+forgit their vittles altogether. I suppose he give you the same old
+yarn?"
+
+Harry bristled: "What old story, madame? Mr. Feodor Wilkins told us of
+his studies abroad and his unsuccessful début in London. It's a
+beautiful story. He's a great artist, and you ought to be proud of him."
+
+The woman burst into laughter. "Why, the old fraud has been stringing
+you. Fedderr, he calls himself! His name is Benny, just plain Benny
+Wilkins, and he never saw London. He's from Boston way, took lessons at
+some big observatory up there, and he run up such a big slate with me
+that he married me to sponge it out. Schwamm d'rüber! you know. My first
+husband left a nice little tavern, and them music stoodents just flocked
+out after lessons was over to drink beer. Oh, dear me, Benny was a nice
+boy, but he always did drink too much. Then we moved to Harlem and I
+rented this place for the summer. I expect to make a tidy sum before I
+leave, if Benny only stays straight."
+
+There was something pathetic in this last cadence, and the two boys
+leaned back and listened to the presto of the Chopin B flat minor
+Sonata, which Wilkins took at a tremendous pace.
+
+"Sounds as if he were the wind weaving over his own grave," said Harry,
+mournfully. The boys had drunk too much, and the close atmosphere and
+music were beginning to tell on their nerves.
+
+"He's a tramp of genius, that's what he is," growled Billy crossly.
+
+"But we've got a story," interjected the other.
+
+"Yes, and were taken in finely. Hanged if I didn't believe the fellow
+while he was yarning."
+
+"You gentlemen won't mind me leaving you, will you? It's near closing-up
+time, and I've got to be the boss. Benny, he sticks close to the pianner
+as it gits late. I reckon he feels his licker. Ain't he a dandy with
+them skinny fingers o' his?"
+
+She moved away, giving her husband a warning not to leave his perch, and
+went barwards to overhaul her receipts....
+
+The lights were nearly all out and the drumming of the breakers on the
+beach clearly could be felt. The young men paid their bill and shook
+hands with the pianist. He leaned over the edge of the platform and
+spoke to them in a low voice.
+
+"Come again, gentlemen, come again. Don't mind what she tells you. I'm
+not her husband, no matter what she said just now. She owns me body and
+soul for this year. I swear to God it's not the drink. I need the
+experience in public. I must play all the time before that awful nervous
+terror wears off. This is the place to get in touch with common folk; if
+I can hold them with Chopin what won't I be able to do with an
+appreciative audience! Believe me, gentlemen, I pray of you; give me a
+year, only one year, and I'll get out of this nervousness and this
+nightmare, and _the_ world of music will hear of me. Only give me time."
+Feodor Wilkins placed his hand desperately on the pit of his stomach;
+his wife screamed:
+
+"Benny, come right over here and count the cash."
+
+The boys got into the open air and scented the surf with delight, a moon
+enlaced with delicate cloud streamers made magic in the sky; then Harry
+growled:
+
+"Say, Bill, do you believe that story?" ...
+
+
+
+
+BRYNHILD'S IMMOLATION
+
+
+She had infinitely sad, wide eyes. The sweet pangs of maternity and art
+had not been denied this woman with the vibrant voice and temperament of
+fire. Singing only in the Wagner music dramas critics awarded her the
+praise that pains. She did not sing as Patti, but oh! the sonorous
+heart....
+
+"Götterdämmerung" was being declaimed in a fervent and eminently
+Teutonic fashion. The house was fairly filled though it could hardly be
+called a brilliant gathering; the conductor dragged the tempi, the waits
+were interminable. A young girl sat and wonderingly watched. Her mother
+was the Brynhild....
+
+This daughter was a strange girl. Her only education was the continual
+smatter which comes from many cities superficially glided. She spoke
+French with the accent of Vienna, and her German had in it some of the
+lingering lees of the Dutch. Wherever they pitched their tent the girl
+went abroad in the city, absorbing it. Thus she knew many things denied
+women; and when her mother was summoned to Bayreuth, she soon forgot all
+in the mists, weavings and golden noise of Wagner. Then followed five
+happy years. The singer prospered at Bayreuth and engagements trod upon
+the heels of engagements. Her girl was petted, grew tall, shy, and one
+day they said, "She is a young woman." The heart of the child beat
+tranquilly in her bosom, and her thoughts took on little color of the
+life about her.
+
+Once, after "Tristan und Isolde" she asked:
+
+"Why do you never speak of my father?"
+
+Her mother, sitting on the bed, was coiling her glorious hair; the open
+dress revealed the massive throat and great white shoulders.
+
+"Your father died years ago, child. Why do you ask now?"
+
+The girl looked directly at her.
+
+"I thought to-night how lovely if he had only been Tristan instead of
+Herr Albert."
+
+The other's face was draped by hair. She did not speak for a moment.
+
+"Yes. But he never sang: your father was not a music lover." ...
+
+Presently they embraced affectionately and went to bed; the singer did
+not sleep at once. Her thoughts troubled her....
+
+Madame Stock was a great but unequal artist. She had never concerned
+herself with the little things of the vocal art. Nature had given her
+much; voice, person, musical temperament, dramatic aptitude. She erred
+artistically on the side of over-emphasis, and occasionally tore passion
+to pieces. But she had the true fire, and with time would compass
+repose and symmetry. Toward conquering herself she seldom gave a
+thought. Her unhappy marriage had left its marks; she was cynical and
+often reckless; but with the growth of her daughter came reflection....
+Hilda was not to be treated as other girls. Her Scotch ancestry showed
+itself early. The girl did not, and could not, see the curious life
+about her; it was simply a myopia that her mother fostered. Thus,
+through all the welter and confusion of an opera-singer's life, Hilda
+walked serenely. She knew there were disagreeable things in the world
+but refused herself even the thought of them. It was not the barrier of
+innocence but rather a selection of certain aspects of life that she
+fancied, and an absolute impassibility in the presence of evil. Then her
+mother grew more careful.
+
+Hilda loved Wagner. She knew every work of the Master from "Die Feen" to
+"Parsifal." She studied music, arduously playing accompaniments for her
+mother. In this way she learned the skeleton of the mighty music dramas,
+and grew up absorbing the torrid music as though it were Mozartean. She
+repeated the stories of the dramas as a child its astronomy lessons,
+without feeling. She saw Siegmund and Sieglinde entwined in that
+wondrous Song of Spring, and would have laughed in your face if you
+hinted that all this was anything but many-colored arabesque. It was her
+daily bread and butter, and like one of those pudic creatures of the
+Eleusinian mysteries she lived in the very tropics of passion, yet
+without one pulse-throb of its feverishness. It was the ritual of Wagner
+she worshipped; the nerves of his score had never been laid bare to her.
+She took her mother's tumult in good faith, and ridiculed singers of
+more frigid temperaments. When she writhed in Tristan's arms this vestal
+sat in front, a piano score on her lap, carefully listening, and later,
+at home, she would say:
+
+"Dearest, you skipped two bars in the scene with Brangaene," and the
+singer could not contradict the stern young critic....
+
+Herr Albert sang with them longer than most tenors. They met him in
+Bayreuth and then in Munich. When they went to Berlin Albert was with
+them, and also in London. Her mother said that his style and acting
+suited her better than any artist with whom she had ever sung. He was a
+young man, much younger than Madame Stock, and a Hungarian. Tall and
+very dark, he looked unlike the ideal Wagner tenor. Hilda teased him and
+called him the hero of a melodrama. She grew fond of the young man, who
+was always doing her some favor. To her mother he was extremely polite;
+indeed he treated her as a queen.
+
+One afternoon Hilda went back to the dressing-room. In the darkness of
+the corridor she ran against some one--a man. As she turned to
+apologize she was caught up in a pair of strong arms and kissed. It was
+all over in the tick of the clock, and then she ran--ran into the room,
+frightened, indignant, her face burning.
+
+Her mother's back was toward her, she was preparing for the last act of
+"Walküre." She knew Hilda's footsteps. The girl threw herself on a couch
+and covered her hot face with the cushions. The woman hummed "Ho, jo
+to-ho!" and continued dressing. And then came her call.
+
+Hilda sat and thought. She must tell--she would tell her. But the man,
+what of him? She knew who it was, knew it by intuition. She did not see
+his face, but she knew the man. Oh, why did he do it? Why? She blushed
+and with her handkerchief she rubbed her lips until they stung. Wipe
+away the kiss she must, or she could never look him in the face
+again....
+
+It seemed a long time before Brynhild returned. Footsteps and laughter
+told of her approach. The maid came in first carrying a shawl, and at
+the door the singer paused. Hilda half rose in fear--not knowing who was
+talking. Of course it was Albert. The door was partly opened, and Hilda,
+looking at her mother on the top steps of the little staircase, saw her
+lower her head to the level of the tenor's face and kiss him....
+Fainting, the girl leaned back and covered her face with her hands. The
+other entered in whirlwind fashion.
+
+"My Hilda. My God! child, have you been mooning here ever since I went
+on? What is the matter? You look flushed. Let us go home and have a
+quiet cup of tea. Albert is coming for us to go to some nice place for
+dinner. Come, come, rouse yourself! Marie-chen"--to the maid--"don't be
+stupid. Dépêchez-vous, dépêchez-vous!"
+
+And Madame Stock bustled about and half tore off her cuirass, pitched
+her helmet in the corner and looked very much alive and young.
+
+"Oh, what a Wotan, Mein Gott! what a man. Do you know what he was doing
+when I sang 'War es so schmählich?' He had his back to the house and
+chewed gum. I swear it. When I grabbed his legs in anguish the beast
+chewed gum, his whole body trembled from the exertion; he says that it
+is good for a dry throat."
+
+Hilda hardly listened. Her mother had kissed Albert, and she shook as
+one with the ague....
+
+She pleaded a headache, and did not go to dinner. The next day they left
+Hamburg, and Albert did not accompany them. Madame Stock declared that
+she needed a rest, and the pair went to Carlsbad. There they stayed two
+weeks. The nervous, excitable soprano could not long bide in one place.
+She was tired of singing, but she grew restless for the theatre.
+
+"Yes, yes," she cried to Hilda, in the train which bore them toward
+Berlin. "Yes, the opera is crowded every night when I sing. You know
+that I get flowers, enjoy triumphs enough to satisfy me. Well, I'm sick
+of it all. I believe that I shall end by going mad. It may become a
+monomania. I often say, Why all this feverishness, this art jargon? Why
+should I burn myself up with Isolde and weep my heart out with
+Sieglinde? Why go on repeating words that I do not believe in? Art! oh,
+I hate the word." ...
+
+Hilda, her eyes half closed, watched the neat German landscape unroll
+itself.
+
+Her mother grumbled until she fell asleep.
+
+Her face was worn and drawn in the twilight, and Hilda noticed the heavy
+markings about the mouth and under the eyes and the few gray hairs.
+
+She caught herself analyzing, and stopped with a guilty feeling. Yes,
+Dearest was beginning to look old. The stress and strain of Wagner was
+showing. In a few years, when her voice--Hilda closed her eyes
+determinedly and tried to shut out a picture. But then she was not sure,
+not sure of herself.
+
+She began thinking of Albert. His swarthy face forced itself upon her,
+and her mother's image grew faint. Why did he kiss her, why? Surely it
+must have been some mistake--it was dark; perhaps he mistook her. Here
+her heart began beating so that it tolled like a bell in her
+brain--mistook her, oh, God, for her mother! No! no! That could never
+be. Had she not caught him watching her very often? But then why should
+her mother have kissed him--perhaps merely a motherly interest.
+
+Hilda sat upright and tried to discern some expression on her mother's
+face. But it was too dark. The train rattled on toward Berlin....
+
+The next day at the Hôtel Bellevue there was much running to and fro.
+Musical managers went upstairs smiling and came down raging; musical
+managers rushed in raging and fled roaring. Madame Stock drove a hard
+bargain, and, during the chaffering and gabble about dates and terms,
+Hilda went out for a long walk. Unter den Linden is hardly a promenade
+for privacy, but this girl was quite alone as she trod the familiar
+walk, alone as if she were the last human on the pave. She did not
+notice that she was being followed; when she turned homeward she faced
+Herr Albert, the famous Wagnerian tenor.
+
+She felt a little shocked, but her placidity was too deep-rooted to be
+altogether destroyed. And so Albert found himself looking into two large
+eyes the persistency of whose gaze disconcerted him.
+
+"Ach, Fräulein Hilda, I'm so glad. How are you, and when did you
+return?"
+
+She had a central grip on herself, and regarded him quite steadily.
+
+He noticed it and became abashed--he, the hero of a hundred footlights.
+He could not face her pure, threatening eyes.
+
+"Herr Albert, we got back last night. Herr Albert, why did you kiss me
+in the theatre?"
+
+He looked startled and reddened.
+
+"Because I love you, Hilda. Yes, I did it because I love you," he
+replied, and his accents were embarrassed.
+
+"You love me, Herr Albert," pursued the terrible Hilda. "Yet you were
+kissed by mamma an hour later. Do you love her too?"
+
+The tenor trembled and said nothing....
+
+The girl insisted:
+
+"Do you love mamma too? You must, for she kissed you and you did not
+move away."
+
+Albert was plainly nervous.
+
+"Yes, I love your mamma, too, but in a different way. Oh, dearest Hilda,
+you don't understand. I am the artistic associate of your mother. But I
+love--I love you."
+
+Hilda felt the ground grow billowy; the day seemed supernaturally
+bright. She took Albert's arm and they walked slowly, without a word.
+
+When the hotel was reached she motioned him not to come in, and she flew
+to her mother's room. The singer was alone. She sat at the window and in
+her lap was a photograph. She looked old and soul-weary.
+
+Hilda rushed toward her, but stopped in the middle of the room,
+overcome by some subtle fear that seized her throat and limb.
+
+Madame Stock looked at her wonderingly.
+
+"Hilda, Hilda, have you gone mad?"
+
+Hilda went over to her and put her arms about her and whispered:
+
+"Oh, mamma, mamma, he loves me; he has just told me so."
+
+Her mother started:
+
+"He! Who loves you, Hilda? What do you mean?"
+
+Hilda's eyes drooped, and then she saw the photograph in the soprano's
+hand.
+
+It was Albert's....
+
+"I love him--you have his picture--he gave it to you for me? Oh! he has
+spoken, Dearest, he has spoken."
+
+The picture dropped to the floor....
+
+"Mamma, mamma, what is the matter? Are you angry at me? Do you dislike
+Albert? No, surely no; I saw you kiss him at the theatre. He says that
+he loves you, but it is a different love. It must be a Siegmund and
+Sieglinde love, Dearest, is it not? But he loves me. Don't be cross to
+him for loving me. He can't help it. And he says we must all live
+together, if--" ...
+
+The singer closed her eyes and the corners of her mouth became tense.
+Then she looked at her daughter almost fiercely. Hilda was terrified.
+
+"Tell me, Hilda, swear to me, and think of what you are saying: Do you
+love Albert?"
+
+"With my heart," answered the girl in all her white simplicities.
+
+Her mother laughed and arose.
+
+"Then you silly little goose, you shall marry him and be nice and
+unhappy." Hilda cried with joy: "I don't care if I am unhappy with
+_him_."
+
+"Idiot!" replied the other.
+
+That night "Götterdämmerung" was given. The conductor dragged the tempi;
+the waits were interminable, and a young slip of a girl wonderingly
+watched. Her mother was the Brynhild. The performance was redeemed by
+the magnificent singing of the Immolation scene....
+
+Later Brynhild faced her mirror and asked no favor of it. As she
+uncoiled the heavy ropes of hair her eyes grew harsh, and for a moment
+her image seemed blurred and bitter in the oval glass with the burnished
+frame that stood upon the dressing-table. But at last she would achieve
+the unique Brynhild!...
+
+"Entbehren sollst du, sollst entbehren."
+
+
+
+
+THE QUEST OF THE ELUSIVE
+
+  _To Miss Bella Seymour_
+
+  BALAK, _November 5_.
+
+DEAR DARLING OLD BELLA,--How I wish you were with me. I miss
+you almost as much as mamma and the girls. I've had such a homesickness
+that even the elegant concerts, the gay city and the novelty of this out
+of the way foreign place do not compensate, for Why, oh _why_, doesn't
+Herr Klug live in Berlin or Paris, or even Vienna? Think, after you
+leave Vienna you must travel six hours by boat and three by rail before
+you reach Balak, but what a city, what curious houses, and what an opera
+house!
+
+Let me first tell you of my experiences with Herr Klug. I met the
+Ransoms; you remember those queer Michigan avenue people. They are here
+with their mother--snuffy Mother Ransom we used to call her--and are
+both studying with Herr Klug. I met them on the Ringstrasse--the
+principal avenue here--and they looked so dissatisfied when they saw me.
+Ada, the short, thin one, you know--well, she lowered her parasol--say,
+the weather is awful hot--and, honest, I believed she wasn't going to
+speak to me. But Lizzie is the nice one, and she fairly ate me up. They
+raved about Herr Klug. He is so nice, so gentle, and plays so
+wonderfully! Mrs. Ransom was a trifle cool--she and ma never did get
+along, you remember that fight about free lager for indigent Germans in
+sultry weather?--well, she and ma quarrelled over the meaning of the
+word "indigent," and Mrs. R. said that she was indigent at ma's
+ignorance; then ma burst into a fit of laughter. I heard her--it was a
+real mean laugh, Bella, and--but I must tell you about this place. Dear,
+I'm quite out of breath!
+
+Well, the Ransoms took me off to lunch and it was real nice at their
+boarding house; they call it the Hôtel Serbe, or some such name, and I
+almost regretted that I went to the miserable rooms I'm in, but I have
+to be economical, and as I intend practising all day and sleeping all
+night it doesn't matter much where I am. I forgot to tell you what we
+had for lunch, funny dishes, sour and full of red pepper. I'll tell you
+all about it in my next letter. I'm so full of Herr Klug that I can't
+sit still. He is a grand man, Bella, only very old, and very small, and
+very nervous, and very cross. He didn't say much to me and I held my
+tongue, for they say he is so nervous that he is almost crazy, besides,
+he hates American pupils. When I went into the big lesson room it was
+empty, and I had a good chance to look at all the pictures on the wall.
+There were Bach, Beethoven and Herr Klug at every age. There must have
+been at least thirty portraits. He was homely in every one, and wore his
+hair long, and has such a high, noble forehead. You know Chicago men
+have such low foreheads. I love high foreheads. They are so _destingué_
+(is that spelt right?) and it means such a _lot_ of brains. He was
+photographed with Liszt and with Chopin. I think it was Chopin,
+and--just then he came in. He walked very slowly and his shoulders were
+stooped. Oh, Bella, he has such a venerable look, so saintly! Well, he
+stood in the doorway and his eyeglasses fairly stared into me, he has
+such piercing gaze. I was scared out of my seven senses and stood stock
+still.
+
+"_Nu was!_" he cried out; "where do you come from?" His English was
+maddening, Bella, just maddening, but I understood him, and with my
+heart in my boots I said:
+
+"Chicago, Herr Klug." He snorted.
+
+"Chicago. I hate Chicago, I hate Americans! There's only one city in
+America--that is San Francisco. I was never there, but I like it because
+I never had a pupil from that city; that's why I like it, _hein_!" He
+laughed, Bella, and coughed himself into a strangling fit over his
+joke--he thought it was a joke--and then he sharply cried out:
+
+"You may kiss me, and play for me." I was too frightened to reply, so I
+went up to him and didn't like him. He smelt of cigarettes and liquor,
+but I kissed him on the forehead, and he gave me a queer look and pushed
+me to the piano. Well, I was flabbergasted.
+
+"Play," he said, as harsh as could be, and I dashed off the Military
+Polonaise of Chopin. He walked about the whole time humming out loud,
+and never paid any attention to me any more than if I hadn't been
+playing. When I got to the trio I stuck, and he burst out laughing, so I
+stopped short.
+
+"Aha! you girls and your teachers, how you, all swindle yourselves. You
+have no talent, no touch, nothing, nothing!"--his voice was like a
+screaming whistle--"and yet you cheat yourselves and run to Europe to be
+artists in a year, aha!" "Shall I go on?" I asked. I was getting mad.
+"No, I've heard enough. Come to the class every Monday and Thursday
+morning at ten--mind you, ten sharp--and in the meantime study this
+piece of mine, 'The Five Blackbirds,' for the black keys, and take the
+first book of my 'Indispensable Studies for Stupid American Girls.'" He
+laughed again.
+
+"You pay now for the music. I make no discount, for I print it myself.
+Your lessons you pay for one by one. Please put the money--twenty
+marks--on the mantelpiece when you are through playing, but don't tell
+me. I'm too nervous. And now good-day; practise ten hours every day.
+You may kiss me good-by. No? Well, next time. I hate American girls when
+they play; but I like to kiss them, for they are very pretty. Wait: I
+will introduce you to my wife." He rang a bell and barked something at a
+servant, and she returned followed by a nice-looking German lady, quite
+young. I was surprised. "My wife." We bowed and then I left.
+
+Funny people, these foreigners. I take my lesson day after to-morrow and
+I must hurry home to my Blackbirds. Good-by, dear Bella, and tell the
+girls to write. You answer this soon and I'll write after lesson on
+Monday. Good-by, Bella. Don't show my ma this letter, and, Bella--say
+nothing to nobody about the kisses. I didn't like--now if it had
+been--you know--oh, dear. I hate the piano. Good-by at last, Bella, and
+oh, Bella, will you send me the address of Schaefer, Schloss &
+Cantwell's? I want to order some writing paper. Good-by.
+
+  Your devoted     IRENE.
+
+P.S.--Any kind of Irish linen paper will do _without_ any monogram.
+
+  I.
+
+
+  _To Mrs. William Murray_
+
+  BALAK, _January 31_.
+
+MY DEAR MAMMA,--Certainly I got your last letter. I have not
+forgotten you at all, and the draft came all right. Bella Seymour
+exaggerates so. Herr Klug kisses all his pupils in the class, but just
+as Grandpa Murray would. He's old enough to be our grandfather; besides,
+as Mrs. Ransom says, it is not for our beauty, but when we play well,
+that he rewards us. I'm sure I don't like it, and if Mrs. Klug, or his
+six or seven cousins who live with him, caught him they would make a
+lively time. I never saw such a jealous set of relatives in my life. How
+am I improving? Oh, splendid; just splendid. I do wish you wouldn't coax
+and worm out of Bella Seymour all I write. You know girls exaggerate so.
+Good-by, darling mamma. Give my love to pa and Harry. I'll write soon.
+Yes, I need one new morning frock. I owe for one at a store here where
+the Ransoms go. Lizzie Ransom is the nicest, but I play better than she
+does.
+
+  Your affectionate daughter,
+  IRENE.
+
+
+  _To Miss Bella Seymour_
+
+  BALAK, _March 2_.
+
+YOU MEAN OLD THING,--I got your letter, Bella, but I don't
+understand yet how you came to tell mamma the nonsense I wrote. Such a
+lot of things have happened since I wrote last fall. I haven't improved
+a bit. I have no talent, old man Kluggy says--he's such a soft old
+fool. He can't play a bit, but he's always talking about his method,
+his virtuosity, his wonderful memory and his marvellous touch. He must
+have played well when he was painted with Beethoven in the same picture.
+Yes, he knew Beethoven. He's as old as old what's-his-name who ate grass
+and died of a colic, in the Bible. Golly, wouldn't I like to get out of
+this hole, but I promised pa I'd stick it out until spring. I play
+nothing but Klug compositions, his valses, mazurkas--mind _his_ nerve,
+he says he gave Chopin points on mazurkas; and Bella, Bella, what do you
+think, I've found out all about his cousins! I wrote ma that all the old
+hens in his house were his cousins, and I spoke of his wife. Bella, _he
+has no wife_, he has _no cousins_. What do you think? I'll tell you how
+I found it out. The Ransom girls know, but they don't let on to their
+mother. The first lesson I took, Klug--I hate that man--motioned me to
+wait until the other girls had gone. He pretended to fool and fuss over
+some autographs of Bach and a lot of other old idiots--I hate Bach, too,
+nasty dry stuff--and I knew what he was up to. He glared at me through
+his spectacles for a while and then mumbled out:
+
+"You may kiss me before you go." Not much, I thought, and told him so.
+He rang a bell. The servant came. "Send my wife down. Schnell, du." She
+hesitated and he yelled out, "Dummkopf" and then turned to me and
+smiled. The old monkey had forgotten that he had introduced me to Frau
+Klug two days before. In a minute I heard the swish of a silk dress and
+a fine-looking old lady entered. I was introduced to--what do you think?
+Frau Klug, please. I nearly fell over, for I remembered well the
+frightened-looking German girl--a pretty girl, too, only dressed
+_rotten_. Well, I got out the best I could--I couldn't talk German or
+Balakian--a hideous language, full of coughing and barking sounds--so I
+bowed and got out. Now comes the funny part of it, Bella. Every time the
+old fool tries to kiss me I ask him to introduce me to his wife, and he
+invariably answers: "What, you have not met my wife?" and rings for the
+ugly servant who stands grinning until I really expect her to say "Which
+one?" but she never does. I've counted seventeen so far, all sizes, ages
+and complexions.
+
+The class says they are old pupils who couldn't pay their bills, so
+Kluggy got a mortgage on them, and they have to stay with him until they
+work the mortgage off by sewing, washing, cooking and teaching
+beginners. I've not seen them all yet, and Anne Sypher, from Cleveland,
+swears that there is a dungeon in the house full of girls from the
+eighteenth century who hadn't money enough to pay for their lessons. I'm
+sure ugly Babette, the servant, is an old pupil, for one day I sneaked
+into the dining-room and heard her playing the Bella Capricciosa, by
+Hummel, on an upright piano that was almost falling apart. Heavens! how
+she started when she saw me! The old lady he introduced me to the second
+time was a pupil of Steibelt's, and she played the "Storm" for us in
+class when the professor was sick. She must have been good-looking. Her
+fingers were quite lively. Honest, it is the joke of Balak, and we girls
+have grown so sensitive on the subject that we never walk out in a
+crowd, for the young men at the corners call out, "Hello, there goes the
+new crop for 1902." It is very embarrassing.
+
+Bella, I want to tell you something. Swear that you will never tell my
+father or mother. I don't give a rap for music; I hate it, but I like
+the young men here in Balak, no, not the citizens. They are slow, but
+the soldiers, the regiment attached to the Royal Household. I've met a
+Lieutenant Fustics--oh, he's lovely, belongs to the oldest family in
+Serbia, is young, handsome and so fine in his uniform. He is crazy over
+music and America, and says he will never bear to be separated from me.
+Of course he's in love and of course he's foolish, for I'm too young to
+marry--fancy, not eighteen yet, or, is it nineteen?--this place makes me
+forget my name--besides, pa wouldn't hear of such a thing. Herr
+Lieutenant Fustics asked my father's business, and told me all Americans
+were millionaires, and I just laughed in his face. I play for him in
+the salon--oh, no, not in my room--that would be a crime in this
+tight-laced old town. Now, Bella, _don't_ tell mamma this time. Why
+don't you write oftener? Love to all.
+
+  Your devoted      IRENE.
+
+P.S.--Bella, he's lovely.
+
+
+  _To William Murray, Esq._
+
+  BALAK, _May 12_.
+
+DEAR PA,--Yes, I need $500, and Herr Klug says if I stay a year
+more I can play in public when I go back. Five hundred dollars will be
+enough _now_.
+
+  Your loving daughter,   IRENE.
+
+
+  _To Miss Bella Seymour_
+
+  BALAK, _May 25_.
+
+DEAR, SWEET BELLA,--I'm gone; Hector, that's his name, proposed
+to me--and proposed a secret marriage--he says that I can study quietly,
+inspired by his love, for a year, for his regiment will stay in Balak
+for another year. Oh, Bella, I'm so happy. How I wish you could see him.
+I simply don't go near the piano. Old Klug is cross with me and I'm
+sure the Ransoms are jealous. Good-by, Bella, don't tell mamma.
+Remember I trust you.
+
+  Your crazy    IRENE.
+
+P. S.--I'm wild to get married!
+
+
+  _To Frau Wilhelm Murray_
+
+  BALAK, _June 25_.
+
+HIGH RESPECTED AND HONORABLE MADAME,--I've not seen your
+daughter, the Fräulein Irene Murray, since April, although she has been
+in Balak. I fear she has more talent for a military career than as a
+pianist. She does owe me for two lessons. Please send me the amount--40
+marks. Send it care of Frau Klug--Frau Emma Klug. With good weather,
+
+  ARMIN KLUG.
+
+
+  _To William Murray, Esq._
+
+  _August 1._
+
+DEAR WILLIAM,--I've found her--my heart bleeds when I think of
+her face, poor child--miles from Balak. Of course she followed the
+regiment when the wretch left, and of course he is a married man. Oh!
+William, the disgrace, and all for some miserable music lessons. Send
+the draft to Balak--to the Oriental Bank. I went as far as Belgrade.
+Poor, tired, daring Irene, how she cried for Chicago and for her papa!
+Yes, it will be all right. The girls in that old mummy's class gossiped
+a little, but I fixed up a story about going to Berlin and lessons
+there. Only the hateful Ransoms smile, and ask every day particularly
+for Irene. I'd like to strangle them. Have patience, William; will be
+back in the spring--early in the spring. My sweet, deceived child, our
+child William! Oh, I would kill that Fizz-sticks, or whatever his name
+is. His regiment is off in the mountains somewhere, and I'm afraid of
+the publicity or I'd get our consul to introduce me to the Queen. She is
+a lady, and would listen to my complaint. But Irene begs me with
+frightened eyes not to say a word to any one. So I'll go on to Vienna
+and thence to Paris. For gracious sake, tell that Seymour girl--Bella
+Seymour--not to bother you about Irene; tell her anything you please.
+Tell her Irene is too busy practising to answer her silly letters. And
+William, not a word to Grandpa Murray--not a word, William!
+
+  Your loving wife,
+  MARTHA KILBY MURRAY.
+
+P. S.--I don't know, William.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+_Extract from the Daily Eagle, November 5, 1903_
+
+The most interesting feature of the concert was the début as a pianist
+of Miss Irene Murray, the daughter of William Murray, Esq., of the
+Drovers' National Bank. Miss Murray, who was a slip of a girl before
+she went abroad two years ago to study with the celebrated Herr Armin
+Klug, of Balak, returns a superb, self-possessed young woman of regal
+appearance and queenly manners. She played a sweet bit, a fantasia by
+her teacher, Herr Klug, entitled "The Five Blackbirds," and displayed a
+wonderful command of the resources of the keyboard. For encore she
+dashed off a brilliant morceau by Herr Klug, entitled "Echoes de
+Seraglio." This was very difficult, but for the fair débutante it was
+child's play. She got five recalls, and after the concert held an
+impromptu reception in her dressing-room, her happy parents being warmly
+congratulated by their fellow townsmen. We predict a great career for
+Irene Murray. Among those present we noticed, etc., etc....
+
+
+
+
+AN INVOLUNTARY INSURGENT
+
+
+    Whereas it is far away from bloodshed, battle-cry and
+    sword-thrust that the lives of most of us flow on, and the
+    men's tears are silent to-day, and invisible, and almost
+    spiritual....--MAETERLINCK.
+
+Racah hated music. Even his father quoted with approval Théophile
+Gautier's witticism about it being the most costly of noises. Racah, as
+a boy, shouted under the windows of neighbors in whose rooms
+string-music was heard of hot summer evenings. On every occasion his
+nature testified to its lively abhorrence of tone, and once he was
+violently thrust forth from a church by an excited sexton. Racah had
+whistled derisively at the feebly executed voluntary of the organist. An
+old friend of the family declared that the boy should be trained as a
+music critic--he hated music so intensely. Racah's father would arch his
+meagre eyebrows and crisply say, "My son shall become a priest." "But
+even a priest must chaunt the mass; eh, what?"
+
+The boy's sister had a piano and tried to play despite his violent
+mockery. One afternoon, when the sun drove the town to its siesta, he
+wandered into the room where stood the instrument. Moved by an automatic
+impulse, the lad placed one finger on a treble key. He shuddered as it
+tinkled under the pressure; then he struck the major third and held both
+keys down, trembling, while drops of water formed under his eyes. He
+hated the sound he made, but could not resist listening to it. Waves of
+disgust rolled hotly over his heart, and he almost choked from the
+large, bitter-tasting ball that rose in his throat. He then struck the
+triad of C major in a clumsy way--a quarter of an hour later his family
+found him in a syncope at the foot of the piano, and sent for a doctor.
+Racah's eyes were open, but only the whites showed. The pulse was
+strangely intermittent, the heart muffled, and the doctor set it down to
+nervous prostration brought on by strenuous attendance at church. It was
+Holy Week and Racah a pious boy.
+
+He soon recovered, avoided the instrument, and kept his peace.... About
+this time he began going out immediately after supper, remaining away
+until midnight. This, coupled with a relaxation of religious zeal, drove
+his pious father into a frenzy of disappointment. But being wise in old
+age, he did not pester his son, especially as the pale, melancholy lad
+bore on his face no signs of dissipation. These disappearances lasted
+for over a year. Racah was chided by his mother, a large,
+chicken-minded woman, who liked gossip and chocolate. He never answered
+her, and on Sundays locked himself in his room. Once his sister listened
+at the door and told her father that she heard her brother counting
+aloud and clicking on the table with some soft, dull-edged tool, a tiny
+mallet, perhaps.
+
+The father's curiosity mounted to an unhealthy pitch. He hated to break
+into his nightly custom of playing cards at the Inn of The Quarrelling
+Yellow Cats, but his duty lay as plain before him as the moles on his
+wrist; so he waited until Racah went out, and seizing a stout stick and
+clapping his hat on his head, followed his son in lagging and deceitful
+pursuit. The boy walked slowly, his head thrown back in reverie. Several
+times he halted as if the burden of his thoughts clogged his very
+motion. Anxiously eying him, his father sneaked after. The eccentric
+movements of his son filled him with a certain anguish. He was a
+god-fearing man; erratic behavior meant to him the obsession of the
+devil.
+
+His son, his Racah, was tempted by the evil one! What could he do to
+save him from the fiery pit? Urged by these burdensome notions, he cried
+aloud, "Racah, my son, return to thy home!" But he spoke to space. No
+one was within hearing. The street was dark; then the sound of music
+fell upon his ears, and again he looked about him. Racah had
+disappeared. The only light came from a window hard by. With the music
+it oozed out between two half-closed shutters, and toward it the
+depressed one went. He peeped in and saw his son playing at a piano, and
+by his side sat a queer old man beating time. His name was Spinoza; he
+was a Portuguese pianist, and wore a tall, battered silk hat which he
+never removed, even in bed--so the town said.
+
+Racah's father played no dominoes that night. When he returned to his
+house his wife thought that he was drunk. He told his story in agitated
+accents, and went to bed a mystified man. He understood nothing, and
+while his wife calmly slept he tortured himself with questions. How came
+Racah the priest to be metamorphosed into Racah the pianist? Then the
+father plucked at the counterpane like a dying fiddler....
+
+The boy showed no embarrassment when interrogated by his parents the
+next day. He said he did not desire to be a priest, that a pianist could
+make more money, and though he hated music, there were harder ways of
+earning one's bread. The callousness which he displayed in saying all
+this deeply pained his pious father. His son's secret nature was an
+enigma to him. In vain he endeavored to pierce the meaning of the
+youth's eyes, but their gaze was enigmatic and veiled. Racah had ever
+exhibited a certain aloofness of character, and as he grew older this
+trait became intensified; the riddle of his life had forced itself upon
+him, and he vainly wrestled with it. Music drew him as iron filings to
+the magnet, or as the tentacles of an octopus carry to its parrot-shaped
+beak its victim. It was monstrous, he abhorred it, but could no more
+resist it than the hasheesh eater his drug.
+
+So in the fury of despair, and with a certain self-contempt, he strove
+desperately to master the technical problems of his art. He found an
+abettor in the person of the Portuguese pianist, to whom he laid bare
+his soul. He studied every night, and since he need no longer conceal
+his secret, he began practising at home....
+
+Racah made his début when he was twenty-one years old. The friend of the
+family nearly burst a blood-vessel at the concert, so enthusiastic was
+he over the son of his old crony. Racah's father stayed home and refused
+comfort. His son was a pianist and not a priest. "He has disgraced
+himself and God will not reply to his call for aid," and he placed his
+hands over his thin eyebrows and wept. Racah's mother spoke: "Take on
+courage; the boy plays badly--there is yet hope."
+
+The good man, elated by the idea, went forth to play dominoes with his
+old crony at the inn where the two yellow cats quarrel on the dingy sign
+over the door....
+
+Racah sat at his piano. His usually smooth, high forehead, with its mop
+of heavy black curls, was corrugated with little puckering lines. His
+mouth was drawn at the corners, and from time to time he sighed; great
+groans, too, burst forth from him. But he played, played furiously, and
+he smote the keyboard as if he hated it. He was playing the B minor
+Sonata of Chopin, with its melting second movement--so moving that it
+could melt the heart of the right sort of a stone. Yet this lovely
+cantilena extorted anger from the young pianist. It was true that he
+played badly, but not so badly as his mother imagined. His very hatred
+of music reverberated in his playing and produced an odd, inverted,
+temperamental spark. The transposition of an emotion into a lower or
+higher key may change its external expression; its intensity is not
+thereby altered. Racah hated the piano, hated Chopin, hated music; yet
+potentially Racah was a great pianist....
+
+The years fugued by. Racah gradually became known as an artist of
+strange power. He had studied with Liszt, although he was not a favorite
+of the master nor in his cenacle of worshipping pupils. Racah was too
+grim, too much in earnest for the worldly frivolous crew that flitted
+over the black keys at Weimar. Occasionally aroused by the power and
+intensity of the young man's playing, Liszt would smile satirically and
+say: "Thou art well named 'Raca,'" and then all the Jews in the class
+would laugh at the word-play. But it gave Racah little concern whether
+they admired or loathed him. He was terribly set upon playing the piano
+and little guessed the secret of his inner struggle--the secret of the
+sad spirit that travailed against itself. Oddly enough his progress was
+rapid. He soon outpointed in brilliancy and deftness the most talented
+of the group of Liszt's young people, and once, after playing the
+Mephisto Walzer with abounding devilry, Liszt cried, "Bravo, child," and
+then muttered, "And how he hates it all!"
+
+Hypnotized as if by another's will, Racah studied so earnestly that he
+became a public pianist. He had success, but not with the great public.
+The critics called him cold, objective, a pianist made, not born. But
+musicians and those with cultured musical palates discerned a certain
+acid quality in his playing. His gloomy visage, the reflex of a
+disordered soul, caused Baudelaire to declare that he had added one more
+shiver to his extensive psychical collection. In Paris the Countess
+X.--charming, titled soubrette--said, "Have you heard Racah play the
+piano? He is a damned soul out for a holiday."
+
+In twenty-four hours this mot spread the length of the Boulevard, and
+all Paris went to see the new pianist....
+
+Success did not brighten the glance of Racah. He became gloomier as he
+grew older, and a prominent alienist in Paris warned him to travel or
+else--and he pointed to his forehead, shrugging his very Gallic
+shoulders. Racah immediately went to the far East....
+
+After a year's wandering up and down strange and curious countries, he
+came to the chief city of a barbarous province ruled by a man famous for
+his ferocities and charming culture. A careful education in Paris,
+grafted upon a nature cruel to the core, produced the most delicately
+depraved disposition imaginable. This Rajah was given to the
+paradoxical. He adored Chopin and loved to roast alive tiny birds on
+dainty golden grills. He would weep after reading de Musset, and a
+moment later watch with infinite satisfaction the spectacle of two
+wretched women dancing on heated copper plates. When he heard of Racah's
+presence in his kingdom he summoned the pianist.
+
+Racah obeyed the Rajah's order. To his surprise he found him a man of
+pleasing mien and address. He was dressed in clothes of English cut, and
+possessed a concert piano. Racah bowed to him on entering the great Hall
+of the Statues.
+
+"Do you play Chopin?"
+
+"No," was the curt reply. The potentate glanced at the pianist, and then
+dropped his heavy eyelids. Racah had the air of a man bored to death.
+
+"I entreat you"--the Rajah had winning accents--"play me something of
+Chopin. I adore Chopin."
+
+"Your Highness, I abominate Chopin; I abominate music. I have taken a
+vow never to play again anything of that vile Polish composer. But I may
+play for you instead a Brahms sonata. The great one in F minor--"
+
+"Stop a moment! You distinctly refuse to play me a Chopin valse or
+mazurka?"
+
+"O Villainy!" Racah was thoroughly aroused; "I swear by the beard of
+your silly prophet that I will not play Chopin, nor touch your piano!"
+
+The Rajah listened with a sweet forbearing smile. Then he clapped his
+hands twice--thrice. A slave entered. To him the Rajah spoke quietly,
+with an amused expression, and the man bowed his head. Touching the
+pianist on the shoulder he said:
+
+"Come with me." Racah followed. The Rajah burst into loud laughter, and
+going to the piano played the D flat Valse of Chopin in a facile
+amateurish fashion.
+
+Footsteps were heard; the Rajah stopped and looked up. There was bright
+frank expectancy in his gaze as he listened.
+
+Then a curtain was thrust aside. Racah staggered in, supported by the
+attendant. He was white, helpless, fainting, and in his eyes were the
+shadows of infinite regret.
+
+"Do play some Chopin," exclaimed the Rajah, gaily, as he ran his fingers
+over the keyboard.
+
+The pianist groaned as the slave plucked at his arms and held them
+aloft. The Rajah critically viewed the hands from which the fingertips
+were missing, and then, noting the remorseful anguish in the gaze of the
+other, he cried:
+
+"Do you know, I really believe you love music despite yourself!"
+
+
+
+
+HUNDING'S WIFE
+
+
+I
+
+Calcraft was very noisy in his morning humors, and the banging of
+windows caused his wife to raise a curious voice.
+
+From the breakfast-room she called, "What is the matter with you this
+morning, Cal? Didn't Wagner agree with you last night? Or was it the--?"
+
+"Yes, it was _that_," replied a surly voice.
+
+"Have you hung your wrists out of the window and given them a good
+airing?"
+
+"I have." Calcraft laughed rudely.
+
+"Then for goodness' sake hurry in to breakfast, if you are cooled off;
+the eggs are." Mrs. Calcraft sighed. It was their usual conversation;
+thus the day began.... Her husband entered the room. Of a thick-set,
+almost burly figure, Calcraft was an enormously muscular man. His broad
+shoulders, powerful brow, black, deep-set eyes, inky black hair and
+beard--the beard worn in Hunding fashion--made up a personality slightly
+forbidding. The suppleness of his gait, the ready laughter and bright
+expression of the eye, soon corrected this aversion; the critic was
+liked, and admired,--after the critical fashion. Good temper and wit in
+the evening ever are. The recurring matrimonial duel over the morning
+teacups awoke him for the day's labors; he actually profited from the
+verbal exercising of Tekla's temper.
+
+"After what you promised!" she inquired in her most reproachful manner.
+Calcraft smiled. "And your story in the _Watchman_. Now, Cal, aren't you
+a bit ashamed? We have heard much worse Siegmunds."
+
+"Not much," he grunted, swallowing a huge cup of tea at a draught.
+
+"Yet you roasted the poor boy as you would never dare roast a singer
+with any sort of reputation. Hinweg's Siegmund was--"
+
+"Like himself, too thin," said her husband; "fancy a thin Siegmund!
+Besides, the fellow doesn't know how to sing, and he can't act."
+
+"But his voice; it has all the freshness of youth." ... She left the
+table, and lounging to the window regarded the streets and sky with a
+contemptuous expression. Tekla was very tall, rather heavy, though well
+built, with hair and skin of royal blond. She looked as Scandinavian as
+her name.
+
+"My dear Tek, you are always discovering genius. You remember that young
+pianist with a touch like old gold? Or was it smothered onions? I've
+forgotten which." He grinned as he spilled part of an egg on his beard.
+
+She faced him. "If the critics don't encourage youthful talent, who
+will? But they never do." Her voice took on flat tones: "I wonder, Cal,
+that you are not easier as you grow older, for you certainly do not
+improve with age, yourself. Do you know what time you got in this
+morning?"
+
+"No, and I don't want to know." The man's demeanor was harsh; there were
+deep circles under his large eyes; his cheeks were slightly puffed, and,
+as he opened his newspaper, he looked like one who had not slept.
+
+Tekla sighed again and stirred uneasily about the room. "For heaven's
+sake, girl, sit down and read--or, something!"
+
+"I don't wonder your nerves are bad this morning," she sweetly
+responded; "the only wonder is that you can keep up such a wearing pace
+and do your work so well."
+
+"This isn't such a roast," said Calcraft irrelevantly. He had heard
+these same remarks every morning for more than ten years. "Last night,"
+he proceeded, "the new tenor--"
+
+"Oh! Cal, please don't read your criticism aloud. I saw it hours ago,"
+she implored,--her slightly protuberant, blue eyes were fixed steadily
+upon him.
+
+"Why, what time is it?"
+
+"Long past twelve."
+
+"Phew! And I promised to be at the office at midday! Where's my coat, my
+overshoes! Magda! Magda! Hang that girl, she's always gadding with the
+elevator boy when I need her." Calcraft bustled about the room, rushed
+to his bedchamber, to the hall, and reappeared dressed for his trip
+down-town.
+
+"Cal, I forgot to say that Hinweg called this morning and left his card.
+Foreigners are so polite in these matters. He left cards for both of
+us."
+
+"He did, did he?" answered Calcraft grimly. "Well, that won't make him
+sing Wagner any better in the _Watchman_. And as a matter of
+politeness--if you will quote the polite ways of foreigners--he should
+have left cards here before he sang. What name is on his pasteboard?
+I've heard that his real one is something like Whizzina. He's a Croat, I
+believe."
+
+She indifferently took some cards from a bronze salver and read aloud:
+"Adalbert Viznina, Tenor, Royal Opera, Prague."
+
+"So-ho! a Bohemian. Well, it's all the same. Croatia is Czech. Your Mr.
+Viznina can't sing a little bit. That vile, throaty German
+tone-production of his--but why in thunder does he call himself Hinweg?
+Viznina is a far prettier name. Perhaps Viznina is Hinweg in German!"
+
+Tekla shrugged her strong shoulders and gazed outdoors. "What a wretched
+day, and I have so much to do. Now, Cal, do come home early. We dine at
+seven. No opera to-night, you know. And come back soon. We never spend
+a night home alone together. What if this young man should call again?"
+
+"Don't stop him," her husband answered in good-humored accents as he
+bade her good-by. He was prepared to meet the world now, and in a jolly
+mood. "Tell your Hinweg or Whizzerina, or whatever his name is, to sing
+Tristan better to-morrow night than he did Siegmund, or there will be
+more trouble." He skipped off. She called after him:
+
+"Cal, remember your promise!"
+
+"Not a drop," and the double slamming of the street doors set Tekla
+humming Hunding's motif in "Die Walküre."
+
+
+II
+
+Her morning-room was hung with Japanese umbrellas and, despite the
+warning of friends, peacock-feathers hid from view the walls; this
+comfortable little boudoir, with its rugs, cozy Turkish corner, and dull
+sweet odors was originally a hall-bedroom; Tekla's ingenuity and
+desperate desire for the unconventional had converted the apartment into
+the prettiest of the Calcraft flat. Here, and here alone, was the
+imperious critic forbidden pipe or cigar. Cigarettes he abhorred,
+therefore Tekla allowed her favorites to use them. She became sick if
+she merely lighted one; so her pet attitude was to loll on a crimson
+divan and hold a freshly rolled Russian cigarette in her big fingers
+covered with opals. Her male friends said that she reminded them of a
+Frankish slave in a harem; she needed nothing more but Turkish-trousers,
+hoop ear-rings, and the sad, resigned smile of the captive maiden....
+
+It was half-past five in the dark, stormy afternoon when the electric
+buzzer warned Tekla of visitors. A man was ushered into the drawing-room
+and Magda, in correct cap and apron, fetched his card to her mistress.
+
+"Show him in here, Magda, and Magda"--there were languid intonations in
+the voice of this vigorous woman--"light that lamp with the green
+globe."
+
+In the fast disappearing daylight Tekla peeped at herself in a rhomboid
+crystal mirror, saw her house frock, voluminously becoming, and her
+golden hair set well over her brow: she believed in the eternal charm of
+fluffiness. After the lamp was ready the visitor came in. He was a very
+tall, rather emaciated looking, blond young man, whose springy step and
+clear eyes belied any hint of ill-health. As he entered, the gaze of the
+two met in the veiled light of the green-globed lamp, and the fire
+flickered high on the gas-log hearth. He hesitated with engaging
+modesty; then Tekla, holding out a hand, moved in a large curved way, to
+meet him.
+
+"Delighted, I am sure, my dear Herr Viznina, to know you! How good of
+you to call on such a day, to see a bored woman." He bowed, smiled,
+showing strong white teeth under his boyish moustache, and sat down on
+the low seat near her divan.
+
+"Madame," he answered in Slavic-accented English, "I am happy to make
+your acquaintance and hope to meet your husband, M. Calcraft." She
+turned her head impatiently. "I only hope that his notice will not
+discourage you for Tristan to-morrow night. But Mr. Calcraft is really a
+kind man, even if he seems severe in print. I tell him that he always
+hangs his fiddle outside the door, as the Irish say, which means, my
+dear Herr Viznina, that he is kinder abroad than at home." Seeing the
+slightly bewildered look of her companion she added, "And so you didn't
+mind his being cross this morning, did you?" The tenor hesitated.
+
+"But he was not cross at all, Madame; I thought him very kind; for my
+throat was rough--you know what I mean! sick, sore; yes, it was a real
+sore throat that I had last night." It was her turn to look puzzled.
+
+"Not cross? Mr. Calcraft not severe? Dear me, what do you call it,
+then?"
+
+"He said I was a great artist," rejoined the other.
+
+Tekla burst into laughter and apologized. "You have read the wrong
+paper, Herr Viznina, and I am glad you have. And now you must promise to
+stay and dine with us to-night. No, you sha'n't refuse! We are quite
+alone and you must know that, as old married folks, we are always
+delighted to have some one with us. I told Mr. Calcraft only this
+morning that we should go out to dinner if he came home alone. Don't ask
+for which paper he writes until you meet him. Nothing in the world could
+make me tell you." She was all frankness and animation, and her guest
+told himself that she was of a great charm. They fell into professional
+talk. She spoke of her husband's talents; how he had played the viola in
+quartet parties; of his successful lecture, "The Inutility of Wagner,"
+and his preferences in music.
+
+"But if he does not care for Wagner he must be a Brahmsianer." The last
+word came out with true Viennese unction.
+
+"He now despises Brahms, and thinks that he had nothing to say. Wagner
+is, for him, a decadent, like Liszt and the rest."
+
+"But the classics, Madame, what does M. Calcraft write of the classics?"
+demanded the singer.
+
+"That they are all used-up romantics; that every musical dog has his
+day, and the latest composer is always the best; he voices his
+generation. We liked Brahms yesterday; to-day we are all for Richard
+Strauss and the symphonic poem."
+
+"_We?_" A quizzical inflection was in the young man's voice. She stared
+at him.
+
+"I get into the habit of using the editorial 'we.' I do it for fun; I by
+no means always agree with my husband. Besides, I often write criticism
+for Mr. Calcraft when he is away--or lecturing." She paused.
+
+"Then," he exclaimed, and he gazed at her tenderly, "if you like my
+Tristan you may, perhaps, write a nice little notice. Oh, how lovely
+that would be!"
+
+The artist in him stirred the strings of her maternal lyre. "Yes, it
+would be lovely, but Mr. Calcraft is not lecturing to-morrow night, and
+I hope that--"
+
+The two street doors banged out a half bar of the Hunding rhythm.
+Calcraft was heard in the hall. A minute later he stood in the door of
+his wife's retreat; there was a frown upon his brow when he saw her
+companion, but it vanished as the two men shook hands. Viznina asked him
+if he spoke German; Magda beckoned to Mrs. Calcraft from the middle of
+the drawing-room. When Tekla returned, after giving final instructions
+for dinner, she found critic and tenor in heated argument over Jean de
+Reszké's interpretation of the elder Siegfried....
+
+The dining-room was a small salon, oak-panelled, and with low ceilings.
+A few prints of religious subjects, after the early Italian masters,
+hung on the walls. The buffet was pure renaissance. Comfortable was the
+room, while the oval table and soft leather chairs were provocative of
+appetite and conversation.
+
+"Very un-American," remarked the singer, as he ate his crab bisque.
+
+"How many American houses have you been in?" irritably asked Calcraft.
+Viznina admitted that he was enjoying his début.
+
+"I thought so." Calcraft was now as bland as a May morning, and his eyes
+sparkled. His wife watched Magda serve the fish and fowl, and her
+husband insisted upon champagne as the sole wine. The tenor looked
+surprised, and then amused.
+
+"Americans love champagne, do they not? I never touch it."
+
+"Would you rather have claret or beer?" hastily inquired the host.
+
+"Neither; I must sing Tristan to-morrow."
+
+"You singers are saints on the stage." The critic laughed. "I am
+old-fashioned enough to believe that good wine or beer will never hurt
+the throat. Now there was Karl Formes, and Niemann the great tenor--"
+
+Tekla interrupted. "My dear Cal, pray don't get on one of your
+interminable liquid talks. Herr Viznina does not care to drink, whether
+he is singing or not. I told him, too, that we always liked a guest at
+dinner, for we are such old married people."
+
+Calcraft watched the pair facing one another. He was in a disagreeable
+humor because of his wife's allusion to visitors; he liked to bear the
+major burden of conversation, even when they were alone. If Tekla began
+he had to sit still and drink--there was no other alternative. She asked
+Viznina where he was born, where he had studied, and why he had changed
+his name. The answers were those of a man in love with his art. Hinweg,
+he explained, was his mother's name, and assumed because of the
+anti-Slav prejudice existing in Vienna.
+
+Calcraft broke in. "You say you are Bohemian, Herr Viznina? You are
+really as Swedish looking as Mrs. Calcraft."
+
+"What a Sieglinde she would make, with her beautiful blond complexion
+and grand figure," returned the tenor with enthusiasm.
+
+Tekla sighed for the third time that day. She burned to become a Wagner
+singer. Had she not been a successful elocutionist in Minnesota? How
+this talented young artist appreciated her gift, intuitively understood
+her ambition! Calcraft noted that they looked enough alike to be brother
+and sister; tall, fair and blue-eyed as they were. He laughed at the
+conceit.
+
+"You are both of the Wölfing tribe," he roared and ordered beer of
+Magda. "I always drink dark beer after champagne, it settles the
+effervesence," he argued.
+
+"You can always drink beer, before and after anything, Cal," said his
+wife in her sarcastic, vibrant voice.
+
+The guest was hopelessly bored, but, being a man of will, he
+concentrated his attention upon himself and grew more resigned. He did
+not pretend to understand this rough-spoken critic, with his hatred of
+Wagner and his contradictory Teutonic tastes. Tekla with eyes full of
+beaming implications spoke:
+
+"I should tell you, Cal, that Herr Viznina does not know, or else has
+forgotten, which paper you write for, and I let him guess. He thinks you
+praised his Siegmund."
+
+"Saturday morning after the Tristan performance he will know for sure,"
+answered the critic sardonically, drinking a stein of Würzburger.
+
+"You rude man! of course he will know, and he will love you afterwards."
+If Calcraft had been near enough she would have tapped him playfully on
+the arm.
+
+"Ah! Madame, what would we poor artists do if it were not for the
+ladies, the kind, sweet American ladies?"
+
+"That's just it," cried Calcraft.
+
+"What an idea, Warrington Calcraft!" Tekla was thoroughly indignant.
+"Never since I've known you have I attempted to influence you."
+
+"You couldn't," said he.
+
+"No, not even for poor Florence Deliba, who entered into a suicidal
+marriage after she read your brutal notice of her début."
+
+"And a good thing it was for the operatic stage," chuckled the man.
+
+"If I write the notices of a few minor concerts I always try to follow
+your notions." She was out of breath and Viznina admired her without
+reserve.
+
+Calcraft was becoming slow of utterance. "You women are wonders when it
+comes to criticism." The air darkened. Viznina looked unhappy and Mrs.
+Calcraft rose: "Come, let us drink our coffee in my den, Herr Viznina, I
+hate shop talk." She swept out of the room and the tenor, after a
+dismissal from the drowsy critic, joined her.
+
+"My headstrong husband doesn't care for coffee," she confessed,
+apologetically. "Sit down where you were before. The soft light is so
+becoming to you. Do you know that you have an ideal face for Tristan,
+and this green recalls the forest scene. Now just fancy that I am Isolde
+and tell me what your thoughts and feelings are in the second act."
+
+Sitting beside her on the couch and watching her long fingers
+milky-green with opals, Viznina spoke only of himself, with all the
+meticulous delicacy of a Wagnerian tenor, and was thoroughly happy
+playing the part of a tame Tristan.
+
+
+III
+
+Tristan and Isolde were in the middle of their passionate symphony of
+flesh and spirit, when Tekla was ushered to the regular Calcraft seats
+in the opera house. Her husband, who had been in the city all day,
+returned to the house late for dinner, through which meal he dozed. He
+then fell asleep on a couch. After dressing and waiting wearily until
+nearly nine o'clock she had a carriage called and went to the opera
+alone; not forgetting, however, to bid Magda leave a case of imported
+beer where Mr. Calcraft could find it when he awoke....
+
+Rather flustered, she watched the stage with anxious eyes. Brangaene--an
+ugly, large person in a terra-cotta cheese-cloth peplum--had already
+warned the desperate pair beneath the trees that dawn and danger were at
+hand. But the lovers sang of death and love, and love and death; and
+their sweet, despairing imagery floated on the oily waves of orchestral
+passion. The eloquence became burning; Tekla had forgotten her
+tribulations, Calcraft and time and space, when King Marke entered
+accompanied by the blustering busybody Melot.
+
+"Oh, these tiresome husbands!" she thought, and not listening to the
+noble music of the deceived man, she presently slipped into the lobby.
+The place was deserted, and as she paced up and down, she recollected
+with pleasure the boyish-looking Tristan. How handsome he was! and how
+his voice, husky in "Die Walküre," now rang out thrillingly! There!--she
+heard it again, muffled indeed by the thick doors, but pure, free, full
+of youthful fire. What a Tristan! And he had looked at her the night
+before with the same ardor! A pity it was, that she, Tekla Calcraft,
+born Tekla Björnsen, had not studied for the opera; had not sung
+Sieglinde to his Siegmund; was not singing at this moment with such a
+Tristan in the place of that fat Malska, old enough to be his mother!
+and instead of being the wife of an indifferent man who-- ...
+
+The act was over, the applause noisy. People began to press out through
+the swinging doors, and Tekla, not caring to be caught alone, walked
+around to the stage entrance. She met the Director, who made much of her
+and took her through the archway presided over by a hoarse-voiced
+keeper.
+
+In his dressing-room Tristan welcomed her with outstretched hands.
+
+"You are so good," and then quickly pointed to his throat.
+
+"And you were superb," she responded unaffectedly.
+
+"Your husband, is he here?" he asked, forgetting his throat.
+
+"He is not here yet; he is detained down-town."
+
+"But he will write the critique?" inquired Viznina with startled eyes.
+Tekla did not at first answer him.
+
+"I don't know," she replied thickly. He seized her hands.
+
+"Oh, you will like my third act! I am there at my best," he declared
+with all the muted vanity of a modest man. She was slightly
+disappointed.
+
+"I like everything you do," she slowly admitted. Viznina kissed her
+wrists. She regarded him with maternal eyes.
+
+As Tekla mounted the stairs her mind was made up. Fatigued as she was by
+the exciting events of the past twenty-four hours, she reached the
+press-room in a buoyant mood. It was smoky with the cigars and
+cigarettes of a half dozen men who invented ideas, pleasant and
+otherwise, about the opera, for the morning papers. Mrs. Calcraft was
+greeted with warmth; like her husband she was a favorite, though an old
+man grumbled out something about women abusing their privilege. Jetsam,
+one of her devoted body-guard, gave her a seat, pen and paper, and told
+her to go ahead; there were plenty of messenger boys in waiting. It was
+not the first time Tekla had been in the press-room, the room of the
+dreaded critical chain-gang, as Cal had named it. All asked after
+Calcraft.
+
+"He has gone to the Symphony Concert," replied Tekla unblushingly, and
+young Jetsam winked his thin eyes at the rest. Feeling encouraged at
+this he persisted:
+
+"I thought Gardner was 'doing' the concert for Cal?"
+
+"Oh! you know Cal!" she put a pen in her mouth, "he hates Wagner;
+perhaps he thinks Mr. Gardner needs company once in a while."
+
+"Perhaps he does," gravely soliloquized Jetsam.
+
+"How many performances of Tristan does this make, Mr. Jetsam?"
+
+"I'm sure I don't know--I am never much on statistics."
+
+When she was told the correct number the scratching of pens went on and
+the smoke grew denser. Messenger after messenger was dismissed with
+precious critical freightage, and soon Tekla had finished, envious eyes
+watching her all the while. Every man there wished that his wife were as
+clever and helpful as Mrs. Calcraft.
+
+Driving home she forgot all about the shabby cab having memories only
+for the garden scene, its musical enchantments. The spell of them lay
+thick upon her as she was undressed by Magda. When the lights were out,
+she asked Magda if Mr. Calcraft still slept.
+
+"No, ma'am; after drinking the beer he went out."
+
+"Oh! he went out after all, did he?" responded Tekla in a sleepy voice
+and immediately passed into happy dreams....
+
+It was sullen afternoon when she stood in her room regarding with
+instant joy a large bunch of roses. Calcraft came in without slamming
+the doors as usual. She turned a shining face to him. He looked
+factitiously fresh, with a Turkish bath freshness, his linen was
+spotless, and in his hand he held a newspaper.
+
+"That was a fine, dark potion you brewed for me last night, Sieglinde!"
+he mournfully began. "No wonder your Tristan sang so well in the
+_Watchman_ this morning!" The youthful candors of her Swedish blue eyes
+with their tinted lashes evoked his sulky admiration.
+
+"I knew, Cal, that you would do the young man justice for his
+magnificent performance," she replied, her cheeks beginning to echo the
+hues of the roses she held; her fingers had just closed over an angular
+bit of paper buried in the heart of the flowers....
+
+For answer, Calcraft ironically hummed the Pity motif from "Die Walküre"
+and went out of the house, the doors closing gently after him to the
+familiar rhythm of that sadly duped warrior, Hunding.
+
+
+
+
+THE CORRIDOR OF TIME
+
+
+    Ah! to see behind me no longer on the Lake of Eternity the
+    implacable Wake of Time. --EPHRAÏM MIKAËL.
+
+When Cintras was twenty he planned an appeal to eternity. He knew "Émaux
+et Camées" as pious folk their Bible; he felt that naught endured but
+art. So he became a pagan, and sought for firmness and delicacy in the
+texture, while aiming to fill his verse with the fire of Swinburne, the
+subtlety of Rossetti and the great, clear day-flame of Gautier. A
+well-nigh impossible ideal; yet he cherished it for twice ten years, and
+at forty had forsworn poetry for prose....
+
+Then he read the masters of that "other harmony of prose" until he
+dreamed of long, sweeping phrases, drumming with melody, cadences like
+the humming of slow, uplifting walls of water tumbling on sullen
+strands. He knew Sir Thomas Browne, and repeated with unction: "Now
+since these dead bones have already outlasted the living ones of
+Methusaleh, and in a yard under ground, and thin walls of clay, outworn
+all the strong and spacious buildings above it; and quietly rested
+under the drums and tramplings of three conquests; what prince can
+promise such diuturnity unto his relicks." ... He wondered if Milton, De
+Quincey, Walter Pater or even Jeremy Taylor had made such sustained
+music. He marvelled at the lofty structures of old seventeenth century
+prose-men, and compared them with the chippy staccato of the modern
+perky style, its smug smartness, its eternal chattering gallop. He
+absorbed the quiet prose of Addison and Steele and swore it tasted like
+dry sherry. Swift, he found brilliantly hard, often mannered; and he
+loved Dr. Goldsmith, so bland, loquacious, welcoming. In Fielding's
+sentences he heard the clatter of oaths; and when bored by the pulpy
+magnificence of Pater's harmonies went back to Bunyan with his stern,
+straightforward way. For Macaulay and his multitudinous prose, Cintras
+conceived a special abhorrence, but could quote for you with unfailing
+diction Sir William Temple's "Use of Poetry and Music," and its sweet
+coda: "When all is done, human life is at the greatest and the best, but
+like a froward child that must be played with and humored to keep it
+quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over."
+
+Cintras had become enamoured with the English language, and emptied it
+into his eyes from Chaucer to Stevenson. He most affected Charles Lamb
+and Laurence Sterne; he also loved the Bible for its canorous prose,
+and on hot afternoons as the boys lolled about his room, he thundered
+forth bits of Job and the Psalms. Cintras was greatly beloved by the
+gang, though it was generally conceded that he had as yet done nothing.
+This is the way Berkeley put it, down at Chérierre's, where they often
+met to say obvious things in American-French....
+
+"You see boys, if Cintras had the stuff in him he would have turned out
+something by this time. He's a bad poet--what, haven't you ever read any
+of his verse?--and now he's gone daft on artistic prose. Artistic
+rubbish! Who the devil cares for chiselled prose nowadays? In the days
+when link-boys and sedan chairs helped home a jag they had the time to
+speak good English. But now! Good Lord! With typewriters cutting your
+phrases into angular fragments, with the very soil at your heels
+saturated with slang, what hope in an age of hurry has a fellow to think
+of the cadence? I honestly believe Stevenson was having fun when he
+wrote that essay of his on the technical elements of style. It's a
+puzzle picture and no more to be deciphered than a Bach fugue."
+
+"When Bill Berkeley gets the flow on, he's worse than Cintras with his
+variable vowels. Say, Bill, I think you're jealous of old Pop Cintras."
+It was Sammy Hodson, a newspaper man, who spoke, and as he wrote on
+space he was usually the cashier of the crowd....
+
+Chérierre's is on University Place, and the spot where the artistic
+set--Berkeley, Hodson, Pauch, the sculptor, and Cintras--happened to be
+hanging about just then. The musician of the circle was a tall thin
+young man named Merville. It was said that he had written a symphony;
+and one night they all got drunk when the last movement was finished,
+though not a soul had heard a note. Every one believed Merville would do
+big things some day.
+
+Cintras entered. He was hopelessly uninteresting looking and wore a
+beard. Berkeley swore that if he shaved he would be sent to prison; but
+Cintras pleaded economy, a delicate throat, also the fact that his nose
+was stubby. But set him to talking about the beauties of English prose,
+and his eyes blazed with a green fire. The conversation turned on good
+things to drink; wine at twenty-five cents a litre was ordered, and the
+chatter began....
+
+"It seems to me, Berkeley," Cintras spoke, "that you modern fellows are
+too much devoted to the color scheme. I remember when I was a boy,
+Gautier set us crazy in Paris with his color sense. His pages glowed
+with all the pigments of the palette; he vied with the jeweller in
+introducing precious stones of the most ravishing brilliancy within the
+walls of his paragraph; I sickened of all this splendor, this Ruskin
+word-painting, and went in for cool grays, took up Baudelaire and
+finally reached Verlaine, whose music is the echo of music heard in
+misty mediæval parks while the peacock dragging by with its twilight
+tail, utters shrill commentary on such moonshine. After that I reached
+Chopin and found him too dangerous, too treacherous, too condensed, the
+art too filled out; and so I finally landed in the arms of Wagner, and
+I've been there ever since."
+
+"Look here, Cintras, you're prose-mad and you've landed nowhere."
+Berkeley lighted one of Hodson's cigarettes. "When a new, big fellow
+comes along you follow him until you find out how he does the trick and
+then you get bored. Don't you remember the day you rushed into my studio
+and yelled, 'Newman is the only man who wrote prose in the nineteenth
+century,' and then persisted in spouting long sentences from the
+'Apologia'? First it was Arnold, then it was Edmund Burke." "It will
+always be Burke," interrupted Cintras. "Then it was Maurice de Guérin,
+and I suppose it will be Flaubert forever and ever." They all laughed.
+
+"Yes, Billy, it will always be Gustave Flaubert, and I worship him more
+and more every day. It took him forty years to write four books and
+three stories, and, as Henry James says, he deliberately planned
+masterpieces."
+
+Hodson broke in: "You literary men make me tired. Why, if I turned out
+copy at the rate of Slobsbert--what's his name?--I'd starve. What's all
+the fuss about, anyhow? Write natural English and any one will
+understand you"--"Ah, natural English, that's what one man writes in a
+generation," sighed Cintras. "And when you want something great,"
+continued the young man, "why, read a good 'thriller' about the great
+Cemetery Syndicate, and how it robbed the dead for gold fillings in
+teeth. The author just slings it out--and such words!"
+
+"Yes, with a whitewash brush." Berkeley scowled.
+
+"Why," pursued Hodson, unmoved, "why don't you get married, Cintras, and
+work for your living? Then you'll have to write syndicate stuff and that
+will knock the nonsense out of you. Or, fall in love and be miserable
+like me." Hodson paused to drink.
+
+    "O triste, triste était mon âme,
+    À cause, à cause d'une femme."
+
+"That's Verlaine; Hoddy, my boy, when you grow up, quit newspapering and
+become cultured, you may appreciate its meaning and beauty."
+
+"When I am cultured I'll be a night city editor; that's my ideal," said
+the youth, stoutly.
+
+"Let's go over to Merville's room and make him play Chopin," suggested
+Pauch, the sculptor, who seldom spoke, but could eat more than four
+men.... They drank their coffee and went across into Twelfth street,
+and at the top of the house they found the musician's room. It was
+large, but poorly fitted out. An old square-piano, a stove, a bed, three
+chairs, a big lounge and a washstand completed the catalogue. Merville
+made them comfortable and sat down to the piano. Its tone, as his
+fingers crept over the keys, was of faded richness and there were
+reverberations of lost splendors in the bass. Merville started with a
+Chopin nocturne, but Hodson hurt the cat as it brushed against him, and
+the noise displeased the pianist. He stopped.
+
+"I don't feel like Chopin, it's too early in the day. Chopin should be
+heard only in the early evening or after midnight. I'll give you some
+Brahms instead. Brahms suits the afternoon, this gray, dull day." All
+were too lazy to reply and the pianist began, with hesitating touch, an
+Intermezzo in A minor. It sounded like music heard in a dream, a dream
+anterior to this existence. It seemed as if life, tired of the external
+blaze of the sun, sought for the secret of hidden spaces; searched for
+the message in the sinuous murmuring shell. It was an art of an art, the
+penumbra of an art. Its faint outlines melted into one's soul and
+refused to be turned away. The recollection of other music seemed gross
+after this curiously introspective, this almost whorl-like, music. It
+was the return to the invertebrate, the shadow of a shadow, and the
+hearts of Merville's guests were downcast and purified....
+
+When he had finished, Cintras asked: "If that is Brahms, why then he has
+solved the secret of the age's end. He has written the song of humanity
+absorbed in the slime of a dying planet."
+
+"Very morbid, very perverse in rhythms, I should say," broke in
+Berkeley; they all shivered. Merville arose, his face glum and drawn,
+and brought whiskey and glasses.
+
+Cintras was the first to speak:
+
+"Hodson, you are a very young fellow and I wish to give you good advice.
+Yours to me was better than you supposed. Now don't you ever bother with
+art, music or artistic prose. Just marry a nice girl who goes to comic
+operas. You stick to her and avoid Balzac. He is too strong meat for
+you--" "Yes, but he's great; I read him!" "And no more understand him
+than you do Chopin. Because he is great he is readable, but his secret
+is the secret of the sphinx; it may only be unravelled by a few strong
+souls. So go your road and be happy in your plush way, read your
+historical hog-wash, and believe me when I swear that the most miserable
+men are those who have caught a glimpse of the eternal beauty of art,
+who pursue her ideal face, who have the vision but not the voice. I once
+wrote a little prose poem about this desire of beauty; I will see if I
+can remember it for you."
+
+"Go ahead, old man; I'll stand anything to-day," sang out Hodson.
+
+"Here it is:" and Cintras recited his legend of
+
+      THE RECURRING STAIRCASE
+
+      I first saw her on the Recurring Staircase. I had turned
+      sharply the angle of the hall and placed my foot upon the
+      bottom step and then I saw her. She was motionless; her back
+      I saw, and O! the grace of her neck and the glory of her
+      arrested attitude. I feared to move, but some portent,
+      silent, inflexibly eloquent, haled me to the staircase. That
+      was years ago. I called to her, strange calls, beautiful
+      sounding names; I besought her to bend her head, to make
+      some sign to my signals of urgency; but her glance was
+      aloft, where, illumined by the scarlet music of a setting
+      sun, I saw in a rich, heavy mullioned embrazure,
+      multi-colored glass shot through with drunken despairing
+      daylight. Again I prayed my Lady of the Recurring Staircase
+      to give me hope by a single dropped glance. At last I
+      conjured her in Love's fatal name, and she moved
+      languorously up the steep slope of stairs. As if the spell
+      had been thwarted, I followed the melodious adagio of her
+      footsteps. That was many years ago. She never mounted to the
+      heavy mullioned embrazure with the multi-colored glass shot
+      through with drunken, despairing daylight. I never touched
+      the hand of the Lady of the Recurring Staircase; for the
+      stairs were endless and I stood ever upon the bottom step;
+      and the others below slipped into eternity; and all this was
+      many years ago. I never have seen the glorious glance of My
+      Lady on the Recurring Staircase.
+
+They all applauded, Hodson violently. "I say, old chap, what would you
+have gained by overtaking the lady?" Cintras sniffed; Berkeley
+laughingly remarked that the staircase reminded him of the sort you see
+at a harvest with a horse on the treadmill.
+
+"Don't, fellows!" begged Merville. "Cintras is giving one ideas to-day
+for a symphonic poem. Go on, Cintras, with more, but in a different
+vein. Something in the classical style."
+
+"I can't do that," responded Cintras, trying not to look flattered, "but
+I will show you my soul when overtaken by doubt." "Cintras, your soul,
+like Huysmans's, is a cork one." They were aghast, for Hodson the
+uncultured one had spoken.
+
+"And where, Hoddy, my brave lad, did you ever in the world hear of
+Huysmans?" he was asked. "I read that; I thought it fitted Cintras. His
+soul is like a cork ball that is always rebounding from one idea to
+another." "Bravo! you will be the literary, not the night city editor,
+before you die, Hoddy." ... Then Cintras read another prose-poem which
+he had named
+
+      THE MIRROR OF UNFAITH
+
+      I looked into my mirror the next morning. With scared cry I
+      again looked into my mirror. With brutish, trembling fingers
+      I tried to cleanse the mist from my eyes, and once more I
+      looked into my mirror, scraped its surface tenderly, but it
+      availed not. There was no reflection of my features in its
+      polished depths; naught but vacancy, steely and profound.
+      There is no God, I had proclaimed; no God in high heaven, no
+      God with the world, no spirit ever moved upon the vasty
+      waters, no spirit ever travailed in the womb of time and
+      conceived the cosmos. There is no God and man is not made in
+      his image; eternity is an eyeless socket--a socket that
+      never beheld the burning splendors of the Deity. There is no
+      God, O my God! And my cries are futile, for have I not gazed
+      into my mirror, gazed with clear ironic frantic gaze and
+      missed my own image! There is no God; yet has my denial been
+      heard in blackest Eblis, and has it not reverberated unto
+      the very edges of Time? There is no God, and from that
+      moment my face was blotted out. I may never see it in the
+      moving waters, in mirrors, in the burnished hearts of
+      things, or in the liquid eyes of woman. I denied God. I
+      mocked His omnipotence. I dared him to mortal combat, and my
+      mirror tells me there is no Me, no image of the man called
+      by my name. I denied God and God denies me!
+
+"If I were in such a mental condition," Hodson eagerly commented, "I'd
+call a doctor or join the Salvation Army." "Why haven't you written
+more short stories?" inquired Merville. "Because I've never had the
+time," Cintras sadly answered. "Once I tried to condense what novelists
+usually spread over hundreds of pages, and say it in a couple of
+paragraphs. Every word must illuminate the past, in every sentence may
+be found the sequel."
+
+"Cintras, I vow your case is hopeless. You are a regular cherry-stone
+carver. Here you've shown us the skeletons of two stories and yet given
+none of them flesh enough to live upon." "Berkeley you belong to a past
+full of novelistic monsters. You are the three volume man with the happy
+ending tacked on willy-nilly. It is the tact of omission--" "Hang your
+art-for-art theories. I'll make more money than Cintras ever did when I
+publish my "Art of Anonymous Letter Writing!" cut in Hodson. Cintras
+calmly continued, "Here is my title and see if you can follow me."
+
+      INELUCTABLE
+
+      The light waned as with tense fingers he turned the round,
+      bevelled-edge screw of the lamp. Darkness, immitigable,
+      profound, and soft, must soon succeed yellow radiance. To
+      face this gloom, to live in it and breathe of it, set his
+      heart harshly beating. Yet he slowly turned with tense
+      fingers the bevelled-edge screw of the lamp. He would
+      presently be forced to a criticism of the day, that day,
+      which must brilliantly flame when night closed upon him. As
+      in the vivid agony endured between two bell-strokes of a
+      clock, he strove to answer the oppressing shape threatening
+      him. And his fingers lingeringly revolved the lamp-screw
+      with its brass and bevelled-edge. If only some gust of
+      resolution would arise like the sudden scud of the squall
+      that whitens far-away level summer seas, and drive forth
+      pampered procrastinations! Then might his fingers become
+      flexile, his mind untied. Poor, drab seconds that fooled
+      with eternity and supped on vain courage as they went
+      trooping by. Could not one keen point of consciousness
+      abide? Why must all go humming into oblivion like untuned
+      values? He grasped at a single strand of recollection; he
+      saw her parted lips, the passionate reproach of her eyes and
+      felt her strenuous tacit acquiescence; he sensed the
+      richness of her love. So he stood, unstable, vacillating and
+      a treacherous groper amidst cruel shards of an ineluctable
+      memory, powerless to stay the fair phantom and fearful of
+      looking night squarely in the front. And he remained a
+      dweller in the shadows, as he faintly fingered the
+      bevelled-edge screw of the lamp....
+
+"If Maeterlinck would feed on Henry James and write a dream fugue on
+your affected title, this might be the result," muttered Berkeley.
+"Hush!" whispered Merville; "can't you see that it is his own life he is
+unconsciously relating in this sequence of short stories; the tale of
+his own pampered procrastinations? If he had only made up his mind
+perhaps he could have kept her by his side and been happy but"--"But
+instead," said Berkeley sourly "he wrote queer impossible things about
+bevelled-edge lamp screws and she couldn't stand it. I don't blame her.
+I say, nature before art every time." ... Then Hodson shouted,
+dispelling dangerous reveries:
+
+"Cintras, why don't you finish that book of yours? Ten years ago you
+told me that you had finished it nearly one-half." "Yes, and in ten
+years more he will finish the other," remarked Berkeley.
+
+"If you knew how I worked you would not ask why I work slowly."
+"Flaubert again!" interjected Berkeley.
+
+"The title cost me much pain, and the first two lines infinite travail.
+I really write with great facility. I once wrote a novel in three weeks
+for a sensation monger of a publisher; but because of this ease I
+suspect every sentence, every word, aye, every letter that drops from my
+pen."
+
+"Hire a typewriter and you'll suspect nobody," suggested Hodson....
+
+The party began to break up; Cintras pressed hands and went first. There
+was some desultory conversation, during which Berkeley endeavored to
+persuade Hodson to buy him his dinner. Then they left Merville and Pauch
+alone. The musician looked at the sculptor.
+
+"And these makers of words think they have the secret of art; as if
+form, as if music, is not infinitely greater and nearer the core of
+life." Pauch grunted.
+
+"There's a man, that Brahms, you played, Merville; his is great art
+which will girdle the centuries. The man built solidly for the future.
+He reminds me of Rodin's Calais group: harsh but eternal; secret and
+sweetly harsh. Brahms is the Bonze of his art; his music has often the
+immobility of the Orient--I think the 'Vibrationists' would describe it
+as 'kinetic stability.' ... Cintras is done. He never did anything; he
+never will. He theorizes too much. If you talk too often of the
+beautiful things you are going to execute they will go sailing into the
+air for some other fellow to catch. Mark my words! No man may play tag
+with his soul and win the game. He is a study in temperament, or, rather
+the need of one, is Cintras. He must have received a black eye some
+time. Was he ever in love?"
+
+"Yes, but she went off with another fellow."
+
+"That explains all." Pauch stolidly asked for beer, and getting none
+strolled home....
+
+Cintras died. Among his effects was found a bulky mass of manuscript;
+almost trembling with joy and expectation Berkeley carried the treasure
+to Merville's room. On the title-page was read: "The Corridor of Time: A
+Novel. By George Cintras."
+
+Frantic with curiosity the friends found on the next page the following
+lines:
+
+"And the insistent clamor of her name at my heart is like the sonorous
+roll of the sea on a savage shore."
+
+The other pages were virginal of ink....
+
+
+
+
+AVATAR
+
+
+    Somewhere; in desolate wind-swept space,
+      In Twilight-land--in No-man's land--
+    Two hurrying shapes met face to face
+      And bade each other stand.
+
+    "And who are you?" cried one agape
+      Shuddering in the gloaming light;
+    "I know not," said the second shape,
+      "I only died last night!"
+
+    --ALDRICH.
+
+Mychowski was considered by grave critical authorities, the best living
+interpreter of Chopin. He was a Pole--any one could tell that by the way
+he spelt his name--and a perfect foil to Paderewski, being short,
+thick-set and with hair as black as a kitchen beetle. His fat amiable
+face, flat and corpulent fingers, his swarthy skin and upturned nose,
+were called comical by the women who thronged his recitals; but
+Mychowski at the keyboard was a different man from the Mychowski who sat
+all night at a table eating macaroni and drinking Apollinaris water.
+Then the funny profile vanished and the fat fingers literally dripped
+melody. His readings of the Polish master's music were distinguished by
+grace, dexterity, finesse, pathos and subtilty. The only pupils of
+Chopin alive--there were only six now--hobbled to Mychowski's concerts
+and declared that at last their dead idol was reincarnated, at last the
+miracle had taken place: a genuine interpreter of Chopin had
+appeared--then severe coughing, superinduced by emotion, and the rest of
+the sentence would finish in tears....
+
+The Chopin pupils also wrote to the papers letters always beginning,
+"Honored Sir,--Your numerous and intelligent readers would perhaps like
+to know in what manner Chopin's performance of the F minor Ballade
+resembled Mychowski's. It was in the year 1842 that--" A sextuple flood
+of recollections was then let loose, and Mychowski the gainer thereby.
+Still he obstinately refused to be lionized, cut his hair perilously
+near the prizefighter's line, and never went into society, except for
+money. He was a model business man; the impresarios worshipped him. Such
+business ability, such frugality, such absence of eccentricity, such
+temperance, were voted extraordinary.
+
+"Why, the man never gambles," said a manager, "drinks only at his
+meals"--"which are many," interrupted some one--"and always sends his
+money home to his wife and family in Poland. Yet he plays like a god. It
+is unheard of." ...
+
+The Polish servant Mychowski brought with him from home sickened in
+Paris and died. Although the pianist was playing the Erard, he went
+often to the Pleyel piano warerooms and there told a friend that he was
+without a valet.
+
+"We have some one here who will suit you. His father was Chopin's
+body-servant, who, as you must have read, was an Irish-Frenchman named
+Daniel Dubois. We call the son Daniel Chopin; he looks so much like some
+of the pictures of your great countryman. Best of all, he doesn't know
+one note of music from another."
+
+"Just the man," cried Mychowski; "my last valet always insisted on
+waking me in the morning with a Bach Invention. It was awful." Mychowski
+shuddered.
+
+"Wait, then; I'll send upstairs for him," said the amiable
+representative of the Maison Pleyel, and soon there appeared, dressed
+after the fashion fifty years ago, a man of about thirty, whose face and
+expression caused Mychowski to bound out of his seat and exclaim in his
+native tongue:
+
+"Slawa Bohu! but he looks like Frédéric."
+
+The man started a little, then became impassive. "My father was Daniel
+Dubois, in whose arms the great master died. May he keep company with
+the angels! When my mother bore me she wore a medallion containing a
+portrait of the great master, and my father, who was his pupil, played
+the nocturnes for her."
+
+The speaker's voice was slightly muffled in timbre, its accent was
+languid, yet it was indubitably the voice of a cultivated man. Mychowski
+regarded him curiously. A slim frame of middle height; fragile but
+wonderfully flexible limbs; delicately formed hands; very small feet; an
+oval, softly-outlined head; a pale, transparent complexion; long silken
+hair of a light chestnut color parted on one side; tender brown eyes,
+intelligent rather than dreamy; a finely-curved aquiline nose, a sweet,
+subtle smile; graceful and varied gestures--such was the outward
+presence of Daniel Dubois.
+
+"He looks just like the description given by Niecks," murmured the
+pianist. "Even the eyes are _piwne_, as we say in Poland, couleur de
+bière.
+
+"Yet you do not play the piano?" he continued. The man smiled and shook
+his head. Terms were arranged, and the valet sent to Mychowski's rooms.
+
+"And the mother, who was she?" Mychowski asked later.
+
+"Pst!" enjoined his friend discreetly. Mychowski smiled, sighed, shook
+his head, settled himself before a new piano and plunged into the
+preludes, playing the entire twenty-five without pause, while business
+was suspended in the ancient and honorable Maison Pleyel, so
+captivating, so miraculous, was the poetic performance of this
+commonplace and kind-hearted virtuoso....
+
+Mychowski discovered in Daniel an agreeable servant. He was noiseless,
+ubiquitous. He could make an omelette or sew on a button with woman's
+skill. His small, well-kept hands knew no fatigue, and his master often
+watched them, almost transparent, fragile and aristocratic, as they
+shaved his rotund oily face. Daniel was admirable in his management of
+the musical library, seeming to know where the music of every composer
+had to be placed. Mychowski wondered how he contrived to find time to
+learn so much and yet keep his hands from the keyboard. After the first
+month Mychowski began to envy his servant the possession of such a
+poetic personality.
+
+"Now if I had such a face and figure how much better an effect I should
+produce. I see the women laugh when I sit down to play, and if it wasn't
+for my fat fingers where would I be?" Mychowski sighed. He had conquered
+the musical world, but not his reflection in the mirror. He had made
+some charming conquests, but his better guides had whispered to him that
+it was his music, not his face, that had won the women. He was vain,
+sensitive and without the courage of his nose, unlike Cyrano de
+Bergerac. Nothing was lacking; talent, wealth, health, a capital
+digestion and success! Had they not poured in upon him? From his
+twentieth year he enjoyed the sunshine of popular favor and after ten
+years was enamoured of it as ever. He almost felt bitter when he saw
+Daniel's high-bred and delicate figure. He questioned him a hundred
+times, but could find out nothing. Where had he been raised? Who was his
+mother, and why did he select a servant's life? Daniel replied with
+repose and managed to parry or evade all inquiries. He confessed,
+however, to one weakness--insatiable love for music--and begged his
+master to be allowed the privilege of sitting in the room during the
+practising hours. When a concert was given Daniel went to the hall and
+arranged all that was necessary for the pianist's comfort. Mychowski
+caught him at a recital one night with a score of the F minor Ballade of
+Chopin, and warm and irritable as he was, for he had just played the
+work, he could not refrain from asking his servant how it had pleased
+him. Daniel shook his head gently. Mychowski stared at him curiously,
+with chagrin. Then a lot of women rushed in to congratulate the artist,
+but stopped to stare aghast at Daniel.
+
+"Ah, M. Mychowski!"--it was the beautiful Countess d'Angers--"We know
+now why you play Chopin so wonderfully, for have you not his ghost here
+to tell you everything? Naughty magician, why have you not come to me on
+my evenings? You surely received cards!" Mychowski looked so annoyed at
+the jest that Daniel slipped out of the room and did not appear until
+the carriage was ready....
+
+At the café where Mychowski invariably went for his macaroni Daniel
+usually had a place at the table. The pianist was easy in his manners,
+and not finding his man presumptuous he made him a companion. They had
+both eaten in silence, Mychowski gluttonously. Looking at Daniel and
+drinking a glass of chianti, he said in his most jocular manner:
+
+"Eh bien, mon brave! now tell me why you didn't like my F minor
+Ballade." Daniel lifted his eyes slowly to the other's face and smiled
+faint protestation. Mychowski would take no refusal. He swore in Polish
+and called out in lusty tones, "Come now, Daniel Chopin, what didn't you
+like, the tempo, the conception, the coda, or my touch?"
+
+"Your playing, cher maître, was yourself. No one can do what you can,"
+answered Daniel evasively.
+
+"Hoity-toity! What have we here, a critic in disguise?" said Mychowski
+good humoredly, yet at heart greatly troubled. "Do you know what the
+pupils of Chopin say of my interpretation?" Daniel again shook his head.
+
+"They know nothing about Chopin or his music," he calmly replied. A
+thunderbolt had fallen at Mychowski's feet and he was affrighted. Know
+nothing of Chopin or his music? Here was a pretty presumption. "Pray,
+Daniel," he managed to gasp out, "pray how does your lordship happen to
+know so much about Chopin and his music?" Mychowski was becoming angry.
+In a stifled voice Daniel replied:
+
+"Dear master, only what my father told me. But do let me go home and get
+your bed ready. I feel faint and I ask pardon for my impertinence. I am
+indeed no critic, nor shall I ever presume again." "You may go," said
+his master in gruff accents, and regretted his rudeness as soon as
+Daniel was out of sight. If any one of the managers who so ardently
+praised Mychowski's temperate habits had seen him guzzling wine, beer
+and brandy that night, they might have been shocked. He seldom went to
+excess, but was out of sorts and nettled at criticism from such a
+quarter. Yet--had he played as well as usual? Was not overpraise
+undermining his artistic constitution? He thought hard and vainly
+endeavored to recapture the mood in which he had interpreted the
+Ballade, and then he fell to laughing at his spleen. A great artist to
+be annoyed by the first adverse feather that happened to tickle him in
+an awkward way. What folly! What vanity! Mychowski laughed and ordered a
+big glass of brandy to steady his nerves.
+
+All fat men, he thought, are nervous and sensitive. I must really go to
+Marienbad and drink the waters and I think I'll leave Daniel Chopin
+behind in Paris. Chopin--Chopin, I wonder how much Chopin is in him?
+Pooh! what nonsense. Chopin only loved Sand and before that Constantia
+Gladowska. He never stooped to commonplace intrigue. But the
+resemblance, the extraordinary resemblance! After all, nature plays
+queer pranks. A thunderstorm may alarm a Mozart into existence, and why
+not a second Chopin? Ah, if I had that fellow's face and figure or he
+had my fingers what couldn't we do? If he were not too old to study--no,
+I won't give him lessons, I'll be damned if I will! He might walk away
+with me, piano and all. Chopin face, Chopin fingers.
+
+Mychowski was rapidly becoming helpless and at two o'clock the patron of
+the café sent a message to Daniel, who was hard by, that he had better
+fetch his master away. The pianist was lifted into a carriage, though he
+lived just around the corner, and with the aid of the concierge, a
+cynical man of years, was helped into his apartment and put to bed. It
+was a trying night for Daniel, whose nature revolted at any suggestion
+of the grosser vices....
+
+From dull, muddy unconsciousness the soul of Mychowski struggled up into
+thin light. He fought with bands of villainous appearing men holding
+tuning forks; he was rolled down terrific gulfs a-top of pianos; while
+accompanying him in his vertiginous flight were other pianos, square,
+upright and grand; pianos of sinister and menacing expression; pianos
+with cruel grinning teeth; pianos of obsolete and anonymous shapes;
+pianos that leered at him, sneered at him with screaming dissonances.
+The din was infernal, the clangor terrific; and as the pianist, hemmed
+in and riding this whirlwind of splintered sounding-boards, jangling
+wires and crunching lyres, closed his eyes expecting the last awful
+plunge into the ghastly abyss, a sudden, piercing tone penetrated the
+thick of the storm; as if by sorcery, the turmoil faded away, and,
+looking about him, Mychowski's disordered senses took note of an
+exquisite valley in which rapidly flowed a tiny silvery stream. Carpeted
+with green and fragrant with flowers, the landscape was magical, and
+most melancholy was the music made by the running waters. Never had the
+artist heard such music, and in the luminous haze of his mind it seemed
+familiar. Three tones, three Gs in the treble and in octaves, sounded
+clear to him; and again and once more they were heard in doubled rhythm.
+A rippling prelude rained upon the meadows and Mychowski lay perfectly
+entranced. He knew what was coming and knew not the music. Then a melody
+fell from the trees as they whispered over the banks of the brook and it
+was in the key of F minor. A nocturne; yet the day was young. Its
+mournful reiterations darkened the sky; but about all, enchantment lay.
+In G flat, so the sensitive ear of the pianist warned him, was his life
+being borne; but only for a time. Back came the first persistent theme,
+bringing with it overpowering richness of hue and scent, and then it
+melted away in prismatic vapors....
+
+"What is all this melodic madness?" asked Mychowski. He knew the music
+made by the little river and trees, yet he groped as if in the toils of
+a nightmare to name it. That solemn narrative in six-eight time in B
+flat, where had he heard it? The glowing, glittering arabesques, the
+trilling as if from the throats of a thousand larks, the cunning
+imitations as if leaf mocked leaf in the sunshine! Again the first theme
+in F minor, but amplified and enlarged with a spray of basses and under
+a clouded sky. Without knowing why, the unhappy man felt the impending
+catastrophe and hastened to escape it. But in vain. His feet were as
+lead, and suddenly the heavens opened, fiercely lightened, the savage
+thunder leaping upon him in chromatic dissonances; then a great
+stillness in C major, and with solemn, silent steps he descended in
+modulated chords until he reached an awful crevasse. With a howl the
+tempest again unloosed, and in screeching accents the end came, came in
+F minor. For many octaves Mychowski fell as a stone from a star, and as
+he crashed into the very cellarage of hell he heard four snapping chords
+and found himself on the floor of his bedroom....
+
+"The F minor Ballade, of course," he cried; "and a nice ass I made of
+myself last night. Oh, what a head! But I wonder how I came to dream of
+the Ballade? Oh, yes, talking about it with Daniel, of course. What a
+vivid dream! I heard every note, and thought the trees and the brook
+were enjoying a duo, and--Bon Dieu! what's that?"
+
+Mychowski, his face swollen and hair in disorder, slowly lifted himself
+and sat on the edge of the bed as he listened.
+
+"Who the devil is playing at this hour? But what's this? Am I dreaming
+again? There goes that damnable Ballade." Mychowski rushed out of his
+room, down the short hall and pushed open the door of the music-room.
+The music stopped. Daniel was dusting some music at the end of the piano
+as he came in.
+
+"Ah! dear master, I hope you are not sick," said the faithful fellow,
+dropping his feather-duster and running to Mychowski, who stood still
+and only stared.
+
+"Who was playing the piano?" he demanded. "The piano?" quoth Daniel.
+"Yes, the piano. Was any one here?"
+
+"No one has called this morning," answered Daniel, "except M. Dufour,
+the patron of the café, who came to inquire after your health." "It's
+none of his business," snapped Mychowski, whose nerves were on edge. "I
+heard piano playing and I wasn't dreaming. Come, no nonsense, Daniel,
+who was it?"
+
+Just then his eyes fell on the desk; he strode to it and snatched the
+music. "There," he hoarsely said, "there is damning proof that you have
+lied to me; there is the Ballade in F minor by Chopin, and who, in the
+name of Beelzebub, was playing it? Not you?"
+
+Daniel turned white, then pink, and trembled like a cat. Mychowski, his
+own face white, with cold shivers playing zither-wise up and down his
+back, looked at the servant and, in a feeble voice, asked him, "Who are
+you, man?" Daniel recovered himself and said in soothing tones, "Cher
+maître, you were up too late last night and you are nervous, agitated. I
+ask your pardon, but I never did tell you that I drum a little on the
+piano, and thinking you fast asleep I ventured on the liberty, and--"
+
+"Drum a little! You call that drumming?" said Mychowski slowly. The two
+men looked into each other's eyes and Daniel's drooped. "Don't do it
+again; that's all. You woke me up," said Mychowski roughly, and he went
+out of the room without hearing Daniel reply:
+
+"No, Monsieur Mychowski, I will not do it again." ...
+
+From that time on Mychowski was obsessed. He weighed the evidence and
+questioned again and again the validity of his dream, in the margin
+between sleep and waking. During the daytime he was inclined to think
+that it had been an odd trance, music and all; but when he had drunk
+brandy he grew superstitious and swore to himself that he really had
+heard Daniel play; and he became so nervous that he never took his man
+about with him. He drank too much, and kept such late hours that Daniel
+gently scolded him; finally he played badly in public and then the
+critical press fairly pounced upon him. Too long had he been King
+Pianist, and his place was coveted by the pounding throng below. He
+drank more, and presently there was talk of a decadence in the
+marvellous art of M. Mychowski, the celebrated interpreter of Chopin.
+
+All this time Mychowski watched Daniel, watched him in the day, watched
+him in the night. He would prowl about his apartment after midnight,
+listening for the tone of a piano, and, after telling Daniel that he
+would be gone for the day, he would sneak back anxious and expectant.
+But he never heard any music, and this, instead of calming his nerves,
+made him sicker. "Why," he would ask himself, "if the fellow can play as
+he does, why in the name of Chopin does he remain my servant? Is it
+because his servant blood rules, or--His servant blood? Why, he may have
+Polish blood in his veins, and such Polish!" Mychowski grew white at the
+idea. He could not sleep at night for he felt lonely, and drank so much
+that his manager declined to do business with him. Daniel prayed,
+expostulated and even threatened to leave; but Mychowski kept on the
+broad, downward path that leads to the mirage called Thirst.
+
+One afternoon Mychowski sat at his accustomed table in the café. He was
+sick and sullen after a hard night of drinking, and as he saw himself in
+the mirror he bitterly thought, "He has the face, he has the figure,
+and, by God, he plays like Chopin." A voice interrupted him.
+
+"Bon jour, Monsieur Mychowski; but how can you duplicate yourself, for
+just a minute ago I passed your apartment and heard such delicious piano
+playing?"
+
+"The devil!" cried Mychowski, jumping up, and meeting the gaze of one of
+the six original Chopin pupils. "No, not the devil," said the other;
+"but Chopin. Surely you could not have been playing the F minor Ballade
+so marvellously and so early in the day? Now, Chopin always asserted
+that the F minor Ballade was for the dusk--"
+
+"No," interrupted Mychowski, "it was not I; it was only Daniel, my
+valet, and my pupil. The lazy scamp! If I catch him at the piano instead
+of at his work I'll break every bone in his body." Mychowski's eyes were
+evil.
+
+"But I assure you, cher monsieur, this was no servant, no pupil; this
+sounded as if the master had come back." "You once said that of me,"
+returned the pianist moodily, and as he got up, his face ugly with
+passion, he reiterated:
+
+"I tell you it was Daniel Chopin. But I'll answer for his silence after
+I've finished with him."
+
+Mychowski hurried home....
+
+
+
+
+THE WEGSTAFFES GIVE A MUSICALE
+
+
+I had promised Mrs. Wegstaffe and so there was no escape; not that my
+word was as good as my bond--in the matter of invitations it was
+not--but I liked Edith Wegstaffe, who was pretty, even if she did murder
+Bach. Hence the secret of my acceptance of Mrs. Wegstaffe's rather
+frigid inquiry as to whether I was engaged for the fourteenth. I am a
+bachelor, and next to cats, hate music heartily. Almost any other form
+of art appeals to my æstheticism, which must feed upon form, color,
+substance, but not upon impalpabilities. Silly sound waves, that are
+said to possess color, form, rhythm--in fact, all attributes of the
+plastic arts. "Pooh! What nonsense," I cried on the evening of the
+fourteenth, as I cursed a wretched collar that would not be coerced....
+When I reached the Wegstaffe mansion I found my progress retarded by
+half a hundred guests, who fought, but politely, mind you, for
+precedence. At last, rumpled and red, I reached the men's dressing room,
+and the first person I encountered was Tompkins, Percy Tompkins, a man I
+hated for his cocksure manner of speech and know-it-all style on the
+subject of music. Often had he crushed my callow musical knowledge by an
+apt phrase, and thinking well of myself--at least Miss Edith says I
+do--I disliked Tompkins heartily. "Hello!" with a perceptible raising of
+his eyebrows, "what are you doing here?" "The same as yourself," I
+tartly answered, for he was not l'ami de la maison any more than I, and
+I didn't purpose being sat upon, that night at least. "My good fellow,
+I'm here to listen and--to be bored," he replied in his wittiest way.
+
+"Indeed! well I'm in the same boat about the music, but I hope I sha'n't
+be bored."
+
+"But good heavens, man, it's an amateur affair--musicale, as the
+Wegstaffes call it in true barbarous American jargon--and I fear Edith
+Wegstaffe will play Chopin!"
+
+This angered me; I had long suspected Tompkins of entertaining a
+sneaking admiration for Edith, and resolved to tell her of this slur at
+the first opportunity. I didn't have a chance to answer him; a dozen men
+rushed into the room, threw their hats and coats on the bed and rushed
+out again.
+
+"They're in a hurry for a drink before the music begins," said
+Tompkins....
+
+Going slowly down the long staircase we found a little room on the
+second floor crowded with men puffing cigarettes and drinking brandy and
+soda. Old Wegstaffe was a generous host, and knew what men liked best
+at a musicale. On the top floor four or five half-grown boys were
+playing billiards, and the ground floor fairly surged with women of all
+ages, degrees and ugliness. To me there was only one pretty girl in the
+house, Edith Wegstaffe; but of course I was prejudiced.
+
+It was nine o'clock before Mrs. Wegstaffe gave the signal to begin. The
+three long drawing-rooms were jammed with smart looking people, a fair
+sprinkling of Bohemians, and a few professionals, whose hair, hands and
+glasses betrayed them. The latter stood in groups, eying each other
+suspiciously, while regarding the rest of the world with that indulgent
+air they assume at musicales. Everything to my unpractised eye seemed in
+hopeless disorder; a frightful buzz filled the air, and a blond girl at
+the big piano was trying to disentangle a lot of music. Near her stood a
+long-haired young man who perspired incessantly. "Ah!" I gloated.
+"Nervous! serves him right; he should have stayed at home!"
+
+Just then Mrs. Wegstaffe saw me. "You're just the man I'm looking for,"
+said she hurriedly. "Now be a good fellow; do go and tell all those
+people in the other room to stop talking. It's nine o'clock, and we're a
+half hour behind time." Before I could expostulate she had gone, leaving
+me in the same condition as the long-haired young man I had just
+derided.
+
+"How tell them to stop talking?" I madly asked myself. Should I go to
+each group and politely say: "Please stop, for the music is about to
+begin," or should I stand in a doorway and shout:
+
+"Say, quit gabbling, will you? the parties in the other room are going
+to spiel." My embarrassment was so hideous that the latter course would
+probably have been adopted, but Miss Edith touched me on the arm and I
+followed her to the hall.
+
+"Oh, Mr. Trybill!" she gasped; "I'm so nervous that I shall surely faint
+when it comes my turn. Won't you please turn the music for me? I shall
+really feel better if some one is near me."
+
+I looked at the sweet girl. There was not a particle of coquetry in her
+request. Dark shadows were under her eyes, two pink spots burnt in her
+pretty cheeks and her hands shook like a cigarette-smoker's.
+
+"But think, think of your technique, your mamma, your guests," I blurted
+out desperately. She shook her head sadly and I shuddered. Are all
+amateur musicales such torturing things?...
+
+The house was packed. A strong odor of flowers, perfumes and cooking
+mingled in the air; one stout woman fought her way to a window and put
+her head out gasping. It was Madame Bujoli, the famous vocal teacher,
+three of whose crack pupils were on the programme. Not far from her sat
+Frau Makart, the great instructor in the art of German Lieder
+interpretation, a hard-featured woman who sneered at Italians, Italian
+methods and Italian music. Two of her pupils were to appear, and I saw
+trouble ahead in the superheated atmosphere.
+
+Crash! went the piano. "They're off!" hoarsely chuckled a sporting man
+next to me, with a wilted collar, and Moszkowski's "Nations" welled up
+from the vicinity of the piano, two young women exploiting their fingers
+in its delivery. The talking in the back drawing-rooms went on
+furiously, and I saw the hostess coming toward me. I escape her by
+edging into the back hall, despite the smothered complaints of my
+displaced neighbors.
+
+I got into the doorway, or rather into the angle of a door leading into
+the back room. The piano had stopped; while wondering what to do next my
+attention was suddenly attracted by a conversation to which I had to
+listen; it was impossible to move away. "So she is going to sing, is
+she? Well, we will see if this great and only true Italian method will
+put brains into a fool's head or voice into her chest." This was said in
+a guttural voice, the accent being quite Teutonic. A soprano voice was
+heard, and I listened as critically as I could. The voice sang the Jewel
+Song from "Faust," and it seemed to me that its owner knew something
+about singing. I understood the words. She sang in English, and what
+more do you want in singing?
+
+But the buzz at my left went on fiercely. "So the Bujoli calls _that_
+voice-production, does she? Humph! In Germany we wouldn't call the cows
+home with such singing." It was surely Frau Makart who spoke. There was
+a huge clapping of hands, fans waved, and I heard whispers, "Yes, rather
+pretty; but dresses in bad taste; good eyes; walks stiffly. Who is she?
+What was it she sang?"
+
+More chatter. I wriggled away to my first position near the piano, but
+not without much personal discomfort. I was allowed to pass because, for
+some reason or other, I was supposed to be running the function. Upon
+reaching the piano Edith beckoned to me rapidly, and I slid across the
+polished floor, where she was talking to that hated Tompkins, and asked
+what I could do for her.
+
+"Hold my music until I play; that's a good fellow." I hate to be
+considered a "good fellow," but what could I do? Edith, who seemed to
+have recovered her aplomb, continued her conversation with Percy
+Tompkins.
+
+"You know, Mr. Tompkins, Chopin is for me the only composer. You know,
+his nocturnes fill me with a sense of nothingness--the divine _néant_,
+_nirvana_, you call it. Now, Grünfeld--"
+
+Tompkins interrupted rudely: "Grünfeld can't play Chopin. Give me the
+'Chopinzee.' He plays Chopin. As Schumann says: 'The Chopin polonaises
+are cannon buried in flowers,' Now, Grünfeld is a--"
+
+"No poet!" said I, indignantly, for I never could admire the chubby
+Viennese pianist. Tompkins turned and looked at me, but never noticed my
+correction.
+
+"Oh, Miss Wegstaffe," he continued vivaciously--how I hated that
+vivacity--"did you hear that new story about a wit and the young man who
+asked him to define George Meredith's position in literature?
+'Meredith,' said the other, pompously, 'Meredith is a prose Browning,'
+and the young man thanked the great man for this side light thrown on
+English letters, when the poet added with a twinkle in his eye,
+'Browning himself was a prose Browning.' Now, isn't that delicious, Miss
+Wegstaffe; isn't that--"
+
+A volley of _hists-hists_ and _hushes_ came over the room as I vainly
+tried to see the point of Tompkins' story. Every one laughed at his
+jokes, but to me they seemed superficial and flippant.
+
+The piano by this time was being manipulated by a practical hand. Herr
+Wunderheim, a Bulgarian pianist, was playing what the programme called a
+sonata in X dur, by Tschaïkowsky, op. 47, A, B, C, D, E, F, G. I
+listened: I didn't understand it all, but I was sitting next to Edith
+and would have endured the remainder of the alphabet rather than let
+Tompkins gain one point.
+
+The piano thundered and roared; lightning flew over the keys, and we
+were of course electrified. Herr Wunderheim jammed the notes in an
+astounding manner, and when he reached the letter G the sporting man
+said to me in a pious whisper, "Thank God! we didn't go to
+H---- altogether, but near it, my boy, near it!" I shrugged my shoulders
+and longed for my club.
+
+Mighty was the applause. Herr Wunderheim looked delighted. Mrs.
+Wegstaffe, sailing up to the distinguished Bulgarian pianist, said
+loudly:
+
+"Dear Herr Wunderheim, charmed, I assure you! We are all charmed; dear
+Tschaïkowsky, charming man, charming composer. Dear Walter Damrosch
+assured me that he was quite the gentleman; charming music altogether!"
+
+The pianist grew red in the face. Then, straightening himself quite
+suddenly, he said in tones that sounded like a dog barking:
+
+"Dot vasn't Schykufski I blayed, lieber madame; dot vas a koprice by me,
+myself."
+
+Even the second drawing-room people stopped talking for a minute....
+
+The musicale merrily proceeded. We heard the amateur tenor with the
+cravat voice. We heard the society pianist, who had a graceful bow and
+an amiable technic; then two of Frau Makart's pupils sang. I couldn't
+get near the Italian contingent, but they chattered loudly. One of the
+girls sang Dvořák's "Gute Nacht," and her German made me shiver. The
+other tried a Brahms song and everybody talked. I turned to ask Edith
+the girl's name but she had gone--so had Tompkins.
+
+This angered me but I couldn't get up then. Opposite me was a Yankee
+college professor--an expert on golfing poetry--who had become famous by
+an essay in which he proved that Poe should not have written Poe; next
+to me sat a fat lady who said to her daughter as she fanned herself
+vigorously, "Horrid music, that Brahms. He wrote 'The Rustic Cavalier,'
+didn't he? And some nasty critics said it was written by De----"
+
+"No, mamma. He wrote--" more buzzing and I fled upstairs.
+
+The men's room was crowded to suffocation. Everybody was drinking hard,
+and old Wegstaffe was telling a story to a group of young men among whom
+I recognized the fat author of that affected book "How to play Chopin
+though Happy." He was pretty far gone.
+
+"Shee here, bhoys; thish bloody music--thish classhic music--makesh me
+shick--I mean tired. I played Bluebottle for plashe to-day--50 to 1
+shot--whoop!"
+
+Another bottle was opened.
+
+In a corner they were telling the story of Herr Schwillmun, the famous
+pianist who was found crazy with wine in a Fourth Avenue undertaker's
+shop trying to play the Dvořák Concerto on the lid of a highly
+polished coffin. The Finnish virtuoso thought he was in a piano
+wareroom. Another lie, I knew, for Schwillmun was most poetic in
+appearance and surely not an intemperate man!
+
+Wherever I went I heard nothing but malicious remarks, slurring
+accusations and tittle-tattle. Finally I joined a crowd in the upper
+hall attracted by the appearance of a white-haired man of intelligent
+aspect, who, with kindly smile and abundant gesture was making much
+merriment about him. I got close enough to hear what he was saying.
+
+"Music in New York! There is none. You fellows ought to work for your
+grub, as I do, on a daily, and write up the bosh concerts that
+advertise. Humbug, boys; rank humbug! Modern music is gone to the devil.
+Brahms was a fraud who patched up a compound of Beethoven and Schumann,
+put in a lot of mystifying harmonic progressions, and thought he was
+new. Verdi, the later Verdi was helped out by Boito: Just compare
+'Otello' and 'Falstaff' with 'Mefistofele'! Dvořák, old 'Borax' as
+they call him, went in for 'nigger' music and says there's no future for
+American music unless it is founded on plantation tunes. Hence the
+'coon' song and its long reign. Tschaïkowsky! Well, that tartar with his
+tom-tom orchestra makes me tired; he should have been locked up in the
+'Ha-Ha House.' Rubinstein never could do ten bars of decent
+counterpoint. Saint-Saëns, with his symphonic poems, his Omphalic Roués,
+is a Gallic echo of Bach and Liszt--a Bach of the Boulevards. The
+English have no composers; the Americans never will have, and, begad,
+sir, we're all going to the dogs. Music--rot!"
+
+I was shocked. Here was a great critic abusing the gods of modern music
+and not a dissenting voice was raised. I determined to do my duty. I
+would ask this cynical old man why he belittled his profession. "Sir!"
+said I, raising my voice, but got no further, for a household servant,
+whose breath reeked, caught me by the arm and in a whisper explained:
+
+"Oh, Mr. Trybill, Miss Edith is a-lookin' for you everywheres and sent
+me to tell you as how you're wanted in the music-room. It's her turn
+next."
+
+My heart sank below my boots but I waded downstairs, spoiling many a
+tête-à-tête by my haste, for which I was duly and audibly execrated. Why
+do people at musicales flirt on the stairs?
+
+Upon reaching the front drawing-room I found Edith taking her seat at
+the demon piano. Tompkins was nowhere visible, and I felt relieved. The
+guests looked worn out, and knots of men were hanging suspiciously
+about the closed doors of the supper room.
+
+The musical part of the entertainment was about over, Edith's solo being
+the very last. Suddenly all became still; every one had to listen to the
+daughter of the hostess.
+
+She looked positively radiant. Her eyes sparkled, and of her early
+nervousness not a trace remained.
+
+"Do turn over the leaves nicely, that's a good fellow, Mr.
+Trybill"--again that odious phrase--"I feel so happy I'm sure I'll play
+well." Naturally, I was flattered at the inference. I was near her--the
+darling of my wildest dreams. Of course she would play well, and of
+course I would turn over the music nobly.
+
+She began. The piece was Liszt's Polonaise in E. My brave girl, how
+proud I felt of her as she began. How she rushed on! I could scarcely
+turn the leaves fast enough for my little girl, my wife that was to be.
+How sweet her face seemed. I was ravished. I must tell her all to-night,
+and she will put her plump little hand in mine and say, "Yes"; the sweet
+little--
+
+Bang! Smash, crash-bang! "Stupid fellow, I hate you!" I awoke as from a
+dream. Edith was standing up and in tears. Alas! Fatal dreamer that I
+am, I had turned over two pages at once, and trouble ensued, for Edith
+never memorized....
+
+As I stood in horrid silence Mrs. Wegstaffe swooped down on Edith and
+took her away, saying in a harsh voice, "The young man knows nothing of
+the divine art!" Then the supper signal was sounded, and a cyclone's
+fury was not comparable to the rush and crush.
+
+Old Wegstaffe, in a very shaky condition, led a gallant band of unsteady
+men in a gallop to the supper room, crying, "Bluebottle's the horsh for
+me." I lost heart. All my brilliant visions fled. As I stood alone in
+the hall Mrs. Wegstaffe triumphantly passed me on the arm of Herr
+Wunderheim. She looked at me a moment, then, seeming to pity my
+loneliness, leaned toward me, saying in acidulously sweet accents:
+
+"Ah, no partner yet, Mr. Trybill? Your first partner is engaged, and to
+Mr. Tompkins. Do go in and congratulate him, that's a good fellow."
+
+She swam away in the bedlam of shrieks and clattering of dishes and
+knives. I walked firmly upstairs, found my coat and hat, and left the
+house forever. It was my first and last experience at that occidental
+version of the Hara-Kiri, called a musicale.
+
+
+
+
+THE IRON VIRGIN
+
+
+    For there is order in the streets, but in the
+    soul--confusion.
+
+    --MAXIM GORKY.
+
+The carriage stood awaiting them in the Place Boïeldieu. Chardon told
+the coachman to drive rapidly; then closed the door upon Madame Patel
+and himself. Cautiously traversing the crowded boulevards they reached
+the Madeleine; a sharp turn to the left, down the Rue Royale, they were
+soon crossing the vast windy spaces of the Place de la Concorde and
+there he spoke to his companion.
+
+"It was a glorious victory! The Opéra Comique looked like a battlefield
+after the conflict." Chardon's voice trembled as if with timidity.
+Madame Patel turned from the half-opened window.
+
+"Yes, a glorious triumph. And _he_ is not here to enjoy it, to exult
+over his detractors." Her tone was bitter as winter.
+
+"My poor friend," the other answered as he laid his hand gently on her
+arm. She shuddered. "Are you cold? Shall I close the window?" "Thanks,
+no; it is too warm. How long this ride seems! Yet he always delighted
+in it after conducting." Chardon was silently polite. They were riding
+now at high speed along the Avenue Montaigne which the carriage had
+entered after leaving the Champs Élysées. From the Quai de Billy to the
+Quai de Passy their horses galloped over naked well-lighted avenues. The
+cool of the river penetrated them and the woman drew herself back into
+the corner absorbed in depressing memories. Along Mirabeau and Molitor,
+after passing the Avenue de Versailles; and when the street called
+Boileau appeared the carriage, its lanterns shooting tiny shafts of
+light on the road, headed for the _Hameau_, named after the old poet of
+Auteuil. There it stopped. Madame Patel and Chardon, a moment later,
+were walking slowly down the broad avenue of trees through which drawled
+the bourdon of the breeze this night in early May.
+
+It was one o'clock when they entered the pretty little house, formerly
+the summer retreat of the dead composer Patel. A winner of the _Prix de
+Rome_ he had produced many operas and oratorios until his death, just a
+year previous to the _première_ of "The Iron Virgin." Of its immense
+success widow and librettist were in no doubt. Had they not witnessed it
+an hour earlier! Such furore did not often occur at the Comique. All
+recollection of Patel's mediocre work was wiped away in the swelter and
+glow of this passionate music, more modern than Wagner, more brutal
+than Richard Strauss. "Who would have believed that the old dried-up
+mummy had such a volcano in his brain?"--this the bereaved woman had
+overheard as she descended the marble stairway of the theatre, and
+Chardon hurried her to the carriage fearing that the emotions of the
+evening--the souvenirs of the dead, the shouting of the audience and the
+blaring of the band as it had saluted her trembling, bowing figure in
+the box--finally would prove too strong for her. He, too, had come in
+for some of the applause, a sort of inverted glory which like a frosty
+nimbus envelopes the head of the librettist. Now he recalled all this
+and rejoiced that his charge was safely within doors.
+
+Madame Patel retained only one servant in her dignified, miniature
+household, for she was not rich; but the lamps were burning brightly,
+and on the table stood cold food, wine and fruit. The music-room was
+familiar to her late husband's associate. Patel's portrait hung over the
+fireplace. It represented in hard, shallow tones the face of a
+white-haired, white-bearded man whose thin lips, narrow nose and high
+forehead proclaimed him an ascetic of art. The deep-set eyes alone told
+of talent--their gaze inscrutable and calculating; a disappointed life
+could be read in every seam of the brow.
+
+Near the piano, where Chardon turned as he waited Madame Patel's return
+from her dressing-room, there swung a picture whose violence was not
+dissipated by the gloom of the half-hidden corner. He approached it with
+a lamp. Staring eyes saluted him, eyes saturated with the immitigable
+horror of life; eyes set in grotesque faces and smothered in a sinister
+Northern landscape. It was one of Edvard Munch's ferocious and ironic
+travesties of existence. And on the white margin of the lithograph the
+artist had pencilled: "I stopped and leaned against the balustrade
+almost dead with fatigue. Over the blue-black fjord hung clouds red as
+blood--as tongues of flame. My friends passed on, and alone, trembling
+with anguish, I listened to the great infinite cry of Nature."
+
+She tapped him on the shoulder. "Come," she said gravely, "leave that
+awful picture and eat. You must be dead--you poor man!" Chardon blushed
+happily until he saw her cold eyes. "I was trying to catch the color of
+that painter's mind--that Norwegian, Munch. Disordered, farouche as is
+his style its spiritual note enchains me. The title of the picture means
+nothing, yet everything--'Les Curieux,' is it not?" "Yes, you know it
+well enough by this time. What M. Patel could see in it I can't say." As
+she sat down to the table--not at the head: that was significantly
+empty--he admired her figure, maidenly still despite her majestic
+bearing; admired the terse contour of her head and noticed, not without
+a sigh, her small selfish ear. Madame Patel was nearing forty and her
+November hair had begun to whiten, but in her long gray eyes was
+invincible youth, poised, self-centred youth. She was deliberate in her
+movements and her complexion a clear brown. Chardon followed her
+example, eating and drinking, for they were exhausted by the ordeal of
+hearing under the most painful conditions, a posthumous opera.
+
+"The great, infinite cry of Nature,"--he returned to the picture. "How
+difficult that is to get into one's art." "Yes, _mon ami_; but our dead
+one succeeded, did he not?" She was plainly obsessed by the theme. "His
+enemies--ah! the fools, fools. What a joy to see their astonished faces!
+Did you notice the critics, did you notice Millé in particular? He was
+in despair; for years that man pursued with his rancorous pen every
+opera by M. Patel." She paused. "But now he is conquered at last. Ah!
+Chardon, ah! Robert, Patel loved you, trusted you--and you helped him so
+much with your experience, your superior dramatic knowledge, your poetic
+gifts. You have been a noble friend indeed." She pressed his hand while
+he sat beside her in a stupor. "The great, infinite cry of Nature," he
+muttered. "And think of his kindness to me, a poor singer, so many years
+younger than himself! No father could have treated a daughter with such
+delicacy!" ...
+
+Chardon looked up. "Yes," he assented, "he was very, very old--too old
+for such a beautiful young wife." She started. "Not too old, M.
+Chardon," she said, slightly raising her contralto voice: "What if he
+was thirty years my senior! He married me to spare me the peril and
+fatigue of a singer's life; few women can stand them--I least of all. He
+loved me with a pure, narrow affection. I was his daughter, his staff.
+You, he often called 'Son.'" She grazed the hem of tears. Chardon was
+touched; he seized her large, shapely hand, firm and cold as iron, and
+spoke rapidly.
+
+"Listen, Madame Patel, listen Olivie--you were like a daughter to him, I
+know it, he told me. I was his adopted son. I tried to repay him for his
+interest in a young, unknown poet and composer--well, I compose a bit,
+you know--and I feel that I pleased him in my libretto of 'The Iron
+Virgin.' You remember the summer I spent at Nuremberg digging up the old
+legend, and the numberless times I visited the torture chamber where
+stands the real Iron Virgin, her interior studded with horrid spikes
+that cruelly stabbed the wretches consigned to her diabolical embraces?
+You recall all this?" he went on, his vivacity increasing. "Now on the
+night of the successful termination of our artistic enterprise, the
+night when all Paris is ringing with the name of Patel, with 'The Iron
+Virgin'"--he did not dare to add his own name--"let me tell you what
+you know already: I love you, Olivie. I have always loved you and I
+offer you my love, knowing that our dear one--" She dragged her hand
+from his too exultant grasp and sat down breathless on a low couch. Her
+eye never left his and he wavered at the thought of following her.
+
+"So this is the true reason for your friendship!" she protested in
+sorrowful accents. "For this you cultivated the good graces of an
+unsuspecting old man." "Olivie!" he exclaimed. "For this," she sternly
+pursued, "you sought my company after his death. Oh, Chardon! Robert!
+How could you be so soon unfaithful to the memory of a man who loved
+you? He loved you, Robert, he made you! Without him what would you be?"
+"What am I?" She did not reply for she was gazing at the portrait over
+the fireplace. "A neglected genius," she mused. "He was forced to
+conduct operas to support his life--and mine. Yet he composed a
+masterpiece. He composed 'The Iron Virgin.'" "Could he have done it
+without me?" Madame Patel turned upon him: "You ask such a question,
+_you_?" Chardon paced between table and piano. He stopped to look at the
+Munch picture and bit his lips: "The great, infinite cry of Nature! Much
+Patel knew of music, of nature and her infinite cries." His excitement
+increased with every step.
+
+"Olivie Patel, we must come to an understanding. You wonder at that
+picture, wonder what dread thing is happening. Perhaps the eyes are
+looking into this room, peering into our souls, into my soul which is
+black with sin and music." Like some timid men aroused he had begun to
+shout. The woman half rose in alarm but he waved her back. His forehead,
+full of power, an obstinate forehead, wrinkled with pain; his hands--the
+true index of the soul--were clasped, the fingers interlocked, wiry
+fingers agile with pen and piano. "Hear me out, Olivie," he commanded.
+"I've been too good a friend to dismiss because I've offended your sense
+of propriety"--she made an indignant gesture--"well, your idea of
+fidelity. But there is the other side of the slate: I've been a faithful
+slave, I've worked long years for my reward; and disciple of Nietzsche
+as I am, I have never attempted to assert my claims." "Your claims!" she
+uttered scornfully. "Yes, my claims, the claims of a man who sees his
+love sacrificed to miserable deception. Sit still! You must hear all
+now. I loved poetry but I loved you better. It was for that I endured
+everything. I spoke of my black soul--it is black, I've poisoned it with
+music, slowly poisoned it until now it must be deadened. Like the opium
+eater I began with small doses of innocent music: I absorbed Haydn,
+Mozart. When Mozart became too mild I turned to Beethoven; from
+Beethoven to the mad stuff of Schubert, Schumann, Chopin--sick souls
+all of them. They sustained me until even they failed to intoxicate. My
+nerves needed music that would bite--I found it in Liszt, Wagner and
+Tschaïkowsky; and like absinthe-drinkers I was wretched without my daily
+draughts." "You drink absinthe also, do you not?" she asked in her
+coldest manner. He did not notice her. "My soul gradually took on the
+color of the evil I sucked from all this music. Why? I can't say;
+perhaps because a poet has nothing in common with music--it usually
+kills the poetry in him. That is why I wonder what music Edvard Munch
+hears when he paints such pictures. It must be dire! Then Richard
+Strauss swept the torrid earth and my thirsty soul slaked itself in his
+tumultuous seas. At last I felt sure I had met my match. Your husband
+was like a child in my hands." She listened eagerly. "I did with him
+what I wished--but to please you I wrote 'The Iron Virgin.'" ...
+
+"The book," she calmly corrected. "As I wrote 'The Iron Virgin' I
+thought of you: You were my iron virgin, you, the wife of Patel. Will
+you hear the truth at last, the truth about a soul damned by music?
+Patel knew it. He promised me on his death-bed--" Olivie pushed by him
+and stood in the doorway. He only stared at her. "You are an Oread," he
+mumbled, "you still pine for your lost Narcissus till nothing is left
+of you but a voice--a voice which echoes him, echoes Ambroise Patel."
+
+She watched him until his color began to return. "Robert," she said
+almost kindly, "Robert, the excitement of to-night has upset your
+nerves. Drink some brandy, and sit down." He eyed her piteously, then
+covered his face with nervous hands, his hair falling over them. She
+felt surer of him. "You called me an echo a moment ago, Robert," she
+resumed, her voice deepening. "I can never forget Patel. And it was
+because of this and because of my last promise to him that your offer
+shocked me; I ask your pardon for my rudeness. You have been so like a
+brother for the past years that marriage seems sacrilegious. Come, let
+us be friends--we have been trusty comrades. 'The Iron Virgin' is a
+success"--"Yes," he whispered, "the iron virgin is always a success."
+"--and why should our friendship merely be an echo of the past? Come,
+let us be more united than ever, Patel, you and I." Her smooth voice
+became vibrant as she pointed triumphantly at the portrait. He followed
+her with dull eyes from which all fire had fled.
+
+"The echo," he said, drinking a tumbler of brandy. "The echo! I have it
+now: they _see_ the echo in that picture back of me. Munch is the first
+man who painted tone; put on canvas that ape of music, of our souls, the
+ape which mocks us, leaps out after our voice, is always ready to follow
+us and show its leering shape when we pass under dark, vaulted bridges
+or stand in the secret shadow of churches. The echo! What is the echo,
+Olivie, you discoursed of so sweetly? It is the sound of our souls
+escaping from some fissure of the brain. It has color, is a living
+thing, the thin wraith that pursues man ever to his grave. Patel was an
+echo. When his soul leans naked against the chill bar of heaven and
+bears false witness, then his echo will tell the truth about his
+music--this damnable reverberating _Doppelgänger_ which sneaks into
+corners and lies in wait for our guilty gliding footsteps." She began to
+retreat again; she feared him, feared the hypnotism of his sad voice.
+"Robert, I firmly believe that picture has bewitched you--you, a
+believer in the brave philosophy of Nietzsche!" He moved toward her.
+"Madame Patel, it is you who are the cruel follower of Nietzsche. So was
+the original iron virgin; so is the new 'Iron Virgin' which I had the
+honor to surround with--" "You mean instrumentation," she faltered. "Ah!
+you acknowledge so much?"
+
+"Patel told me."
+
+"He did not tell you enough."
+
+Chardon laughed, shook her hand, put on his top-coat and descended the
+steps that led into the garden.
+
+"Where are you going?" she asked affrightedly, regret stirring within
+her. "To Nuremberg to see the real iron virgin," he answered without
+sarcasm. They looked hard into each other's eyes--his were glowing like
+restless red coals--and then he plunged down the path leaving her
+strained and shaken to the very centre of her virginal soul. Had he
+spoken the truth! Ambroise Patel, upon whose grave would be strown
+flowers that belonged to the living! It was vile, the idea. "Robert!"
+she cried.
+
+A smoky, yellow morning mist hung over Auteuil. A long, slow rain fell
+softly. Chardon pulled the chord at the gate of the _Hameau_ roughly
+summoning the _concierge_. He soon found himself under the viaduct on
+the Boulevard Exelmans, where he walked until he reached Point-du-Jour.
+There a few workingmen about to take the circular railway to Batignolles
+regarded him cynically. He seemed like a man in the depths of a crazy
+debauch. He blundered on toward the Seine. "The echo! god of thunders,
+the echo!" he moaned as he heard his steps resound in the hollow arches.
+Near the water's edge he found a café and sat before a damp tin table.
+He pounded it with his walking stick. "The iron virgin," he roared; and
+laughed at the joke until the tears rolled over his tremulous chin.
+Lifting his inflamed eyes to the dirty little waiter he again brought
+his cane heavily upon the table. "Garçon," he clamored "the iron
+virgin!" The waiter brought absinthe; Chardon drank five. Doggedly he
+began his long journey.
+
+
+
+
+DUSK OF THE GODS
+
+
+A MASQUE OF MUSIC
+
+Stannum invited the pianist to his apartment several times, but concert
+engagements intervened, and when Herr Bech actually appeared his host
+did not attempt to conceal his pleasure. He admired the playing of the
+distinguished virtuoso, and said so privately and in print. Bech was a
+rare specimen of that rapidly disappearing order--the artist who knows
+all composers equally well. Not poetic, nor yet a pedantic classicist,
+he played Bach and Brahms with intellectual clearness and romantic
+fervor. All these things Stannum noted, and the heart of him grew elate
+as Bech sat down to the big concert piano that stood in the middle of
+his studio. It was a room of few lights and lofty, soft shadows; and the
+air was as free from sound as a diving bell. Stannum leaned back on his
+wicker couch smoking a cigar, while the pianist made broad preludes in
+many keys....
+
+The music, from misty weavings, tentative gropings in remote tonalities,
+soon resolved itself into the fluid affirmations of Bach's Chromatic
+Fantasia. Stannum noticed the burnished, argent surface of an
+old-fashioned Egyptian mirror of solid tin hanging in front of him, and
+saw in leaden shadows his features, dim and distorted. Being a man of
+astrological lore he mused, and presently mumbled, "Tin is the sign of
+Jupiter in alchemy and stands for the god of Juno and Thunders," and
+immediately begged Bech's pardon for having interrupted him. The pianist
+made no sign, having reached the fugue following the prelude. Stannum
+again speculated, his head supported by his hands. He stared into the
+tinny surface, and it seemed to take on new echoes of light and shade,
+following the chromatic changes of the music.... Presently rose
+many-colored smoke, as if exhaled from the enchantments of some oriental
+mage, and Stannum's eyes strove to penetrate the vaporous thickness. He
+plunged his gaze into its tinted steamy volutes, and struggled with it
+until it parted and fell away from him like the sound of falling waters.
+He could not see the source of the great roaring--the roaring of some
+cosmical cataract. He pushed boldly through the dense thunder-world into
+the shadow land, still knew that he lived. A few feet away was his
+chamber wherein Bech played Bach. Faintly the air cleared, yet never
+stopped the terrifying hum that attracted his attention. And now Stannum
+stood on the Cliff of the World, saw and heard the travailing and
+groaning of light and sound in the epochal and reverberating Void. A
+pedal bass, a diapasonic tone, that came from the bowels of the
+firmament struck fear to his heart; the tone was of such magnitude as
+might be overheard by the gods. No mortal ear could have held it without
+cracking and dying. This gigantic flood, this overwhelming and
+cataclysmic roar, filled every pore of Stannum's body. It blew him as a
+blade of grass is blown in a boreal blast; yet he sensed the pitch.
+Unorganized nature, the unrestrained cry of the rocks and their buried
+secrets; crushed aspirations, and the hidden worlds of plant, mineral,
+animal, and human, became vocal. It was the voice of the monstrous
+abortions of nature, the groan of the incomplete, experimental types,
+born for a day and shattered forever. All God's mud made moan for
+recognition; and Stannum was sorrowful....
+
+Light, its vibrations screeching into thin and acid flame-music,
+transposed his soul. He saw the battle of the molecules, the
+partitioning asunder of the elements; saw sound falling far behind its
+lighter-winged, fleeter-footed brother; saw the inequality of this race,
+"swifter than the weaver's shuttle," and felt that he was present at the
+very beginnings of Time and Space. Like unto some majestic comet that in
+passing had blazed out "Be not light; be sound!" the fire-god mounted to
+the blue basin of Heaven and left time behind, but not space; for in
+space sound abides not and cycles may be cancelled in a tone. Thus sound
+was born, and of it rhythm, the planets portioning it; and from rhythm
+came music, primordial, mad, yet music, and Stannum heard it as a single
+tone that never ceased, a tone that jarred the sun with mighty
+concussions, ruled the moon, and made rise etheric waves upon the rim of
+the interstellar milky way. Then quired the morning stars, and at their
+concordance Stannum was affrighted....
+
+His ear was become a monstrous labyrinth, a cortical lute of three
+thousand strings, and upon it impacted the early music at the dawn of
+things. In the planetary slime he heard the screaming struggles of fishy
+beasts; in the tanglewood of hot, aspiring forests were muffled roarings
+of gigantic mastodons, of tapirs that humped at the sky, beetles big as
+camels, and crocodiles with wings. Wicked creatures snarled crepitantly,
+and their crackling noises were echoed by lizard and dragon, ululating
+snouted birds and hissing leagues of snaky lengths. Stannum fled from
+these disturbing dreams seeking safety in the mountains. The tone
+pursued him, but he felt that it had a less bestial quality. Casting his
+eyes upon the vague plateau below he witnessed two-legged creatures
+pursuing game with stone hatchets; while in the tropical-colored
+tree-tops nudging apes eyed the contest with malicious regard. The cry
+of the pursuers had a suggestive sound; occasionally as one fell the
+shriek that reached Stannum plucked at his heart, for it was a cry of
+human distress. He went down the mountain, but lost his way, his only
+clue in the obscurity of the woods being the tone....
+
+And now he heard a strange noise, a noise of harsh stones bruised
+together and punctuated with shouts and sobbings. There was rhythmic
+rise and fall in the savage music, and soon he came upon a sudden secret
+glade of burial. Male and female slowly postured before a fire, scraping
+flints as they solemnly circled their dead one. Stannum, fascinated at
+this revelation of primeval music, watched until the tone penetrated his
+being and haled him to it, as is haled the ship to the whirlpool. It was
+night. The strong fair sky of the south was sown with dartings of silver
+and starry dust. He walked under the great wind-bowl with its few
+balancing clouds and listened to the whirrings of the infinite. A
+dreamer ever, he knew that he was near the core of existence; and while
+light was more vibratile than sound, sound touched Earth, embraced it
+and was content with its eld and homely face. Light, a mischievous Loge:
+Sound, the All-Mother Erda. He walked on. His way seemed clearer....
+
+Reaching a mighty and fabulous plain, half buried in sand he came upon a
+great Sphinx, looming in the starlight. He watched her face and knew
+that the tone enveloped him no longer. Why it had ceased set him to
+wondering not unmixed with fear. The dawn filtered over the head of the
+Sphinx, and there were stirrings in the sky. From afar a fluttering of
+thin tones sounded; as the sun shone rosy on the vast stone the tone
+came back like a clear-colored wind from the sea. And in the
+music-filled air he fell down and worshipped the Sphinx; for music is a
+window that looks upon eternity....
+
+Then followed a strange musical rout of the nations. Stannum saw defile
+before him Silence, "eldest of all things"; Brahma's consort Saraswati
+fingered her Vina; and following, Siva and his hideous mate Devi, who is
+sometimes called Durga; and the brazen heavens turned to a typhoon that
+showered appalling evils upon mankind. All the gods of Egypt and
+Assyria, dog-faced, moon-breasted and menacing, passed, playing upon
+dreams, making choric music black and fuliginous. The sacred Ibis
+stalked to the silvery steps of the Houris; the Graces held hands.
+Phœbus Apollo appeared; his face was as a silver shield, so shining
+was it. He improvised upon a many-stringed lyre made of tortoise shell,
+and his music was shimmering and symphonious. Hermes and his Syrinx
+wooed the shy Euterpe; the maidens went in woven paces: a medley of
+masques flamed by; and the great god Pan breathed into his pipes.
+Stannum saw Bacchus pursued by the ravening Mænads; saw Lamia and her
+ophidian flute; and sorrowfully sped Orpheus searching for his Eurydice.
+Neptune blew his wreathéd horn, the Tritons gambolled in the waves,
+Cybele clanged her cymbals; and with his music Amphion summoned rocks to
+Thebes. Jephtha's daughter danced to her death before the Ark of the
+Covenant, praising the Lord God of Israel. Behind her leered unabashed
+the rhythmic Herodias; while were heard the praiseful songs of Deborah
+and Barak, as Cæcilia smote her keys. Miriam with her timbrel sang songs
+of triumph. Abyssinian girls swayed alluringly before the Persian Satrap
+in his purple litter; the air was filled with the crisp tinklings of
+tiny bells at wrist and anklet as the Kabaros drummed; and hard by, in
+the brake, brown nymphs, their little breasts pointing to the zenith,
+moved in languorous rhythms, droning hoarse sacrificial chaunts. The
+colossus Memnon hymned; priests of Baal screamed as they lacerated
+themselves with knives; Druid priestesses crooned sybillic incantations.
+And over this pageant of woman and music the proud sun of old Egypt
+scattered splendid burning rays....
+
+From distant strands and hillsides came the noise of strange and unholy
+instruments with sweet-sounding and clashing names. Nofres from the
+Nile, Ravanastrons of Ceylon, Javanese gongs, Pavilions from China,
+Tambourahs, Sackbuts, Shawms, Psalteríes, Dulcimers, Salpinxes, Keras,
+Timbrels, Sistras, Crotalas, double flutes, twenty-two stringed harps,
+Kerrenas, the Indian flute called Yo and the quaint Yamato-Koto. Then
+followed the Biwa, the Gekkin and its cousin the Genkwan; the Ku, named
+after the hideous god; the Shunga and its cluttering strings; the
+Samasien, the Kokyu, the Yamato Fuye--which breathed moon-eyed
+melodies--the Hichi-Riki and the Shaku-Hachi. The Sho was mouthed by
+slant-haired yellow boys; while the sharp roll of drums covered with
+goat-skins never ceased. From this bedlam there occasionally emerged a
+splinter of tune, like a plank thrown up by the sea. Stannum could
+discern no melody, though he grasped its beginnings; double flutes gave
+him the modes, Dorian, Phrygian, Æolian, Lydian and Ionian; after Sappho
+and her Mixolydian mode, he longed for a modern accord....
+
+The choir went whirling by with Citharas, Rebecs, Citoles, Domras,
+Goules, Serpents, Crwths, Pentachords, Rebabs, Pantalons, Conches,
+Flageolets made of Pelicon bones, Tam-Tams, Carillons, Xylophones,
+Crescents of beating bells, Mandoras, Whistling Vases of Clay,
+Zampognas, Zithers, Bugles, Octochords, Naccaras or Turkish castanets
+and Quinternas. He heard blare the two hundred thousand curved trumpets
+which Solomon had made for his temple, and the forty thousand which
+accompanied the Psalms of David. Jubal played his Magrepha; Pythagoras
+came with his Monochord; Plato listened to the music of the spheres; the
+priests of Joshua blew seven times upon their Shofars or Rams-Horns. And
+the walls of Jericho fell.
+
+To this came a challenging blast from the terrible horn of Roland--he of
+Roncesvalles. The air had the resonance of hell, as the Guatemalan
+Indians worshipped their black Christ upon the plaza; and naked Istar,
+Daughter of Sin, stood shivering before the Seventh Gate. Then a great
+silence fell upon Stannum. He saw a green star drop over Judea, and
+thought music itself slain. The pilgrims with their Jews-harps dispersed
+into sorrowful groups; blackness usurped the sonorous sun: there was no
+music upon all the earth and this tonal eclipse lasted long. Stannum
+heard in his magic mirror the submerged music of Dufay, Ockeghem,
+Josquin Deprès and Orlando di Lasso, Goudimel and Luther; the cathedral
+tones of Palestrina; the frozen sweetness of Arezzo, Frescobaldi,
+Monteverde, Carissimi, Tartini, Corelli, Scarlatti, Jomelli, Pergolas,
+Lulli, Rameau, Couperin, Buxtehude, Sweelinck, Byrd, Gibbons, Purcell,
+Bach: with their Lutes, Monochords, Virginals, Harpsichords,
+Clavicytheriums, Clavichords, Cembalos, Spinets, Theorbos, Organs and
+Pianofortes and accompanying them was an army, vast and formidable, of
+all the immemorial virtuosi, singers, castrati, the night moths and
+midgets of music. Like wraiths they waved desperate ineffectual hands
+and made sad mimickings of their dead and dusty triumphs.... Stannum
+again heard the Bach Chromatic Fantasia which seemed old yet very new.
+In its weaving sonant patterns were the detonations of the primeval
+world he had left; and something strangely disquieting and feminine. But
+the man in Bach predominates, subtle, magnetic and nervous as he is.
+
+A mincing, courtly old woman bows low. It is Haydn, and there is
+sprightly malice in his music. The glorious periwigged giant of Halle
+conducts a chorus of millions; Handel's hailstones rattle upon the pate
+of the Sphinx. "A man!" cries Stannum, as the heavens storm out their
+cadenced hallelujahs. The divine youth approaches. His mien is excellent
+and his voice of rare sweetness. His band discourses ravishing music.
+The tone is there, feminized and graceful; troupes of stage players in
+paint and furbelows give startling pictures of rakes and fantastics. An
+orchestra mimes as Mozart disappears....
+
+Behold, the great one approaches and the earth trembles at his
+tread--Beethoven, the sublime, the conqueror, the demi-god! All that has
+gone before, all that is to be, is globed in his symphonies, is divined
+by the seer: a man, the first since Handel. And the eagles triumphantly
+jostle the scarred face of the Sphinx.... Then appear Von Weber and
+Meyerbeer, player folk; Schubert, a pan-pipe through which the wind
+discourses exquisite melodies; Gluck, whose lyre is stringed Greek
+fashion, but bedecked with Paris gauds and ribbons; Mendelssohn, a
+charming girlish echo, Hebraic of profile; Schumann and Chopin, romantic
+wrestlers with muted dreams, strugglers against ineffable madness and
+stricken sore at the end; Berlioz, a primitive Roc, half monster, half
+human, a Minotaur who dragged to his Crete all the music of the masters;
+and then comes the Turk of the keyboard, Franz Liszt, with cymbalom,
+čzardas and crazy Kalamaïkas. But now Stannum notices a shriller
+accent, the accent of a sun that has lost its sex and is stricken with
+soft moon-sickness. A Hybrid appears, followed by a vast cohort of
+players. The orchestra begins playing, and straightway the Sphinx
+smiles....
+
+Stannum saw what man had never seen before--the tone-color of each
+instrument. Some malign enchanter had seduced and diverted from its
+natural uses the noble instrumental army. He saw strings of rainbow
+hues, red trumpets, blue flutes, green oboes, garnet clarinets, golden
+yellow horns, dark-brown bassoons, scarlet trombones, carmilion
+ophecleides while the drums punctured space with ebon holes. That the
+triangle had always been silver he never questioned; but this new
+chromatic blaze, this new tinting of tones--what did it portend? Was it
+a symbol of the further degradation and effeminization of music? Was art
+a woman's sigh? A new, selfish goddess was about to be placed upon high
+and worshipped--soon the rustling of silk would betray her sex. Released
+from the wise bonds imposed upon her by Mother Church, music is a novel
+parasite of the emotions, a modern Circe whose feet "take hold on hell,"
+whose wand transforms men into listening swine. Gigantic as antediluvian
+ferns, as evil-smelling and as dangerous, music in the hands of this
+magician is dowered with ambiguous attitudes, with anonymous gestures,
+is color become sound, sensuality in the mask of Beauty. This Klingsor
+tears down, evirates, effeminates and disintegrates. He is the great
+denier of all things natural, and his revengeful, theatric music is in
+the guise of a woman. The art nears its end; its spiritual suicide is at
+hand. Stannum lifted his gaze. Surely he recognized that little
+dominating figure directing the orchestra. Was it the tragic-comedian
+Richard Wagner? Were those his ardent, mocking eyes fading in the mist?
+A fat cowled monk marches stealthily after Wagner. He shades his eyes
+from the fierce rays of the noonday sun; more grateful to him are
+moon-rays and the reflected light of lonely pools. He is the
+Arch-Hypocrite of Tone who speaks in divers tongues. It is Johannes
+Brahms, and he wears the mask of a musical masker.... Then swirled near
+a band of gypsies and moors, with guitars, tambourines, mandolins and
+castanets, led by Bizet; Africa seemed familiar land. Gounod and his
+simpering "Faust" went on tiptoe; a horde of Calmucks and Cossacks
+stampeded them, Tschaïkowsky and Rimski-Korsakoff at their head. These
+yelled and played upon resounding Svirelis, Balalaïkas, and Kobzas
+dancing the Ziganka all the while; and as a still more horrible uproar
+fell upon Stannum's ears, he was aware of a change in the face of the
+Sphinx: streaked with gray, it seemed to be crumbling. As the clatter
+increased Stannum diverted his regard from the great stone and beheld an
+orgiastic mob of men and women howling and playing upon instruments of
+fulgurating colors and vile shapes. Their skins were of white, their
+hair yellow, and their eyes of victorious blue. "Nietzsche's Great Blond
+Barbarians, the Apes of Wagner!" exclaimed Stannum, and he felt the
+earth falling away from him. The naked music, pulsatile and drowsy,
+turned hysterical as Zarathustra-Strauss waved on his Übermensch with an
+iron hammer and in frenzied, philosophic motions. Music was become
+vertiginous; a mad vortex, wherein whirled mad atoms, madly embracing.
+Dancing, the dissonant corybantes of the Dionysian evangel flitted by,
+scarce touching earth in their efforts to outvie the Bacchantes. With
+peals of thunderous and ironical laughter the Sphinx sank into the
+murmuring sand, yawning, "Music is Woman." ...
+
+And then the tone grew higher and ultra-violet; the air darkened with
+vapors; the shrillness was so exceeding that it modulated into Hertzian
+waves and merged into light; this vibratile, argent light pierced
+Stannum's eyes. He found himself staring into the Egyptian mirror while
+about him beat the torrential harmonies of Richard Strauss.... Herr Bech
+had just finished his playing, and, as he struck the last chord of
+"Death and Transfiguration," acidly remarked:
+
+"Tin must be a great hypnotizer, lieber Stannum!"
+
+"In alchemy, my dear Bech, tin is the sign of Jove, and Jove, you know,
+hath power to evoke apocalyptic visions!"
+
+"Both you and your Jove are fakirs!" The pianist then went away in a
+rage because Stannum had slept while he played.
+
+
+
+
+SIEGFRIED'S DEATH
+
+    But, as you will! we'll sit contentedly,
+    And eat our pot of honey on the grave.
+
+    --GEORGE MEREDITH.
+
+
+I
+
+It was finally arranged that the two women should not be present
+together at the funeral. The strain might prove too great; and as Marsoc
+wiped his forehead he congratulated himself that for the present at
+least a horrid scandal might be averted. He had pleaded in a most
+forceful manner with Selene, his sister, and it seemed to him that his
+arguments had taken root. Ever since Brazier's death there had been much
+talking, much visiting--and now he felt it soon would end. Oh, for the
+relief of a quiet house; for the relief that must follow when the
+newspaper men would stop haunting the neighborhood. The past two days
+had well-nigh worn him out, and yet he hated leaving Selene to face her
+troubles alone. Marsoc believed in blood and all its entailed
+obligations....
+
+The pitiless comment of the press he had hidden from his sister, but the
+visit of the other woman was simply unavoidable. There were certain
+rights not to be ignored, and the perfidy of the dead man placed beyond
+Marsoc's power all hopes of reprisal. Brazier had acted badly, but then,
+too, he had been forced by a fatal temperament into a false position--a
+position from which only sudden death could rout him; and death had not
+turned a deaf ear to his appeal. It came with implacable swiftness and
+with one easy blow created two mourning women, a world of surmise and
+much genuine indignation.
+
+Selene sent for her brother. He went to her chamber in rather a doubting
+mood. If there was to be any more backing and filling, any new
+programme, then he must be counted out. He had accepted his share of the
+trouble that had thrust itself into their life, and could endure no
+more. On this point he solemnly assured himself as he knocked at
+Selene's door. To his quick gaze she did not appear to be downcast as on
+the night before.
+
+"I sent for you, my dear Val," she said in rather acid tones, "because I
+wanted to reassure you about to-morrow morning. I have considered the
+matter a hundred times and have made up my mind that I shall not allow
+Bellona Brydges to sit alone at the head of his coffin--"
+
+"But you said--" interrupted her brother.
+
+"I know I said lots of things, but please remember that Sig Brazier was
+my husband, quite as much, if not more than Belle's, that he
+committed--that he died under our roof, and simply because the divorce
+laws of this country are idiotic is no reason why I should abdicate my
+rights as a wife--at least his last wife. If Belle attempts her grand
+airs or begins to lord it over me I'll make a scene--"
+
+Marsoc groaned. He knew that his sister was capable of making, not one,
+but half a dozen scenes with a well defined tragic crescendo at the
+close of each. The situation was fast becoming unbearable. With a
+gesture of despair he turned to leave the room but Selene detained him.
+
+"You poor fellow, how you do worry! But it is all your fault. You
+introduced Sig here--"
+
+"How the deuce did I know that he had a wife up in the hills somewhere?"
+cried Marsoc.
+
+"Very true; but you knew of his habits," his sister rejoined gently.
+"You knew what a boastful, vain, hard-drinking, immoral man he was, and
+at least you might have warned me."
+
+"What good would that have done?" asked her brother, in heated
+accents.... He was tall, very blond and his eyes were hopelessly blue.
+Brother and sister they were--that a dog might have discovered--but
+there was more reserve, chilliness of manner, coldness in the woman. She
+could never give herself to any one or anything with the same vigor as
+Val. She lacked enthusiasms and had a doubtful temper. Even now, as they
+faced each other, she forced him to drop his eyes; then the doorbell
+rang.
+
+"If it's Belle, send her up at once. Run, Val, and see." Selene almost
+pushed her brother down the short flight that led to the landing on the
+second floor. The house was old-fashioned, the drawing-room upstairs.
+Val went down grumbling and wondering what sort of a girl was his
+sister. He almost ran into a woman dressed in deep mourning.
+
+"Why, Belle--why, Mrs. Brazier, is that you?" he exclaimed, and then
+felt like biting his tongue.
+
+Bellona Brydges was as big as Brünnhilde and dark as Carmen. Her tread
+was majestic and her black eyes, aquiline nose and firm, large-lipped
+mouth, gave an expression of power to her countenance. Her bearing was
+one of command, her voice as rich as an English horn, and her manner
+forthright.
+
+"Never mind the Brazier part of it, Val," she replied, in an off-hand,
+unembarrassed tone. "I want to see Selene and have this dreadful
+business over before the funeral. Where is she?"
+
+Val motioned upstairs and the clear voice of his sister was heard:
+
+"Is that you, Belle? Come up right away...."
+
+
+II
+
+Both women were dry-eyed as they embraced. Belle showed signs of
+fatigue, so Selene made her comfortable on the divan.
+
+"Shall I ring for tea, Belle?" The other nodded. Then she burst forth:
+"And to think, Selene, to think that we should be the unlucky victims.
+To think that my dearest friend should be the wife of my husband." She
+began to laugh. Selene would not smile. The tea was brought by a
+man-servant, who did not lift his eyes, but the corners of his mouth
+twitched when he turned his back. Belle sipping the hot, comforting
+drink looked about her curiously. The apartment reflected unity of
+taste. It was rather low, and long, the ceiling panelled and covered
+with dull gilt arabesques. The walls were hung with soft material upon
+which were embroidered fugitive figures heavily powdered with gold dust.
+One wide window with a low sill covered the end of this room, and over
+the fireplace was swung a single painting, "The Rape of the Rhinegold,"
+by a German master. The grand piano loaded with music occupied the lower
+part of the room and there were plenty of books in the cases. Belle
+reflected that Sig's taste was artistic and sighed at the recollection
+of her--of their--big, bare, uncanny house on the hill. Selene began:
+
+"Belle, dear, I'm glad to see you, sorry to see you. The odious
+newspapers were the cause of your discovering the crime--don't stop
+me--the crime of that wretch downstairs--" Belle started. "I sha'n't
+mince words with you. Sig was a scamp, a gifted rascal; his singing and
+artistic love-making the cause of many a woman's downfall."
+
+"Oh, then there are some more?" asked Belle, in a most interested voice.
+
+"Yes, there are many more; but my dear girl, we mustn't become morbid
+and discuss the matter. I'm afraid what we are doing now is in rather
+bad taste, but I'm too fond of you, too fond of the girl I went to
+school with to quarrel because a bad man deceived us. I've been laying
+down the law to Val, Belle; we must _not_ be present at the funeral.
+We've got to bury our headstrong husband and we both can see the last of
+him from the closed windows, but neither of us must be present. Now,
+don't shake your head! In this matter I'm determined; besides what would
+the newspapers say? One miserable sheet actually compared us to
+Brünnhilde and Gutrune because--oh, you know why!"
+
+"When Sig left the opera-house," continued Belle, in a calm voice, "he
+always took a special train home and I suppose the railroad men gave the
+story to the reporters."
+
+"Not always; excuse me, Belle," contradicted Selene, in her coldest
+manner; "the last time Sig sang 'Götterdämmerung' he returned here."
+Belle stood up and waved her teaspoon.
+
+"Now, don't be ridiculous, Selene; this was not as much his home as ours
+in the mountains, and--"
+
+"There is no necessity of becoming excited, Belle; he told me of his
+affair with you." Selene's blue eyes were opened very wide. The other
+woman began to blaze.
+
+"Affair? Why, foolish child, I am his first wife--" "Common-law wife,"
+interjected Selene. "His first, his legal wife, and I mean to test it in
+the courts. His property--" "You mean his debts, Belle," interrupted
+Selene, contemptuously. "Sig owes even for his Siegfried helmet. He
+gambled his money away. He played poker-dice when he wasn't singing
+Wagner, and flirted when he wasn't drunk."
+
+Belle sat down and laughed again, and this time Selene joined in.
+
+"Tell me, dear, how and when he persuaded you," inquired Belle. Selene
+grew snappish. "Oh, you read the papers. We were married last month with
+Val as witness; then some fool got hold of the story; it was printed.
+Sig came home after the opera and told me that he was ruined because he
+had expected a fortune from Mrs. Madison--you know the old bleached
+blonde who sits in the first tier box at the opera--and, of course, I
+smelt another affair. I scolded him and sent for Val. Well, Val was a
+perfect fool on the subject of Sig, and when he heard of the gambling
+debts he said a lawyer might straighten the affair out. That night Sig
+began drinking absinthe and brandy, and in the morning James, the
+butler, found him dead. If the papers hadn't got hold of your story,
+the thing could have been nicely settled. As it is we are simply
+ridiculous, and the worst of all is that the management and the
+stockholders insist on a public funeral and speeches; Sig was such a
+favorite. Think! he was the first great American Wagner singer; and so
+here are we, a pair of fools in love with the same man"--"Excuse me,
+Selene, I never loved him. He forced me to marry him." "And my own
+brother, Belle, with his nonsensical Wagner worship, drove me to marry a
+man I had only met twice." Selene sighed.
+
+"We were fools," they said in chorus, as Val entered, his eyes red from
+weeping. "You silly, silly boy, Sig never cared a rap for any one on
+earth but himself. Look at us and follow our example in grieving," and
+the widows laughed almost hysterically....
+
+
+III
+
+As early as seven o'clock there was a small crowd in front of the Marsoc
+residence, from which was to be buried the famous tenor, Siegfried
+Brazier. His death, his many romances, his marriages, his debts and his
+stalwart personality canalized public curiosity, and after the doors had
+been thrown open a constantly growing stream of men, women, children,
+and again women, women, women, flowed into the house through the hall,
+into the big reception-room, past the modest coffin with its twin
+bouquets of violets, out of the side door and into the street again. The
+fact that at midday there were to be imposing public obsequies, did not
+check the desire of the morbid-minded to view the corpse in a more
+intimate fashion. No members of the family were downstairs; but over the
+broad balustrade hung two veiled women, their eyes burning with
+curiosity. As the tide of humanity swept by Belle felt her arm pinched:
+
+"There, there! the old woman in a crape veil. That's mother Madison.
+She'll have to alter her will now. Perhaps she's done it already. She
+was in love with Sig. Yes, that old thing." Selene gave a husky titter.
+"And she's sneaking in to see the poor boy and thinks no one will
+recognize her. I'd like to call out her name." Belle clapped her hand
+over Selene's mouth.
+
+"Look, now," said the latter, releasing herself; "look at those chorus
+girls. What cheek! All with violets, because it was _his_ favorite
+flower. What a man; what a man!" ...
+
+Belle's companion leaned heavily on her, and Val came up and persuaded
+his sister to go to the front room. His eyes were hollow and his voice
+broke as he whispered to Belle that they might be seen. Besides, it was
+nearly time--he went downstairs....
+
+From the latticed window the two women watched. First, the police
+cleared the way; the ragamuffins were driven into the street. Then the
+fat undertaker appeared with Val and stood on the curb as the coffin, an
+oak affair with silver handles and plate, was carried to the hearse. Val
+and the undertaker got into a solitary carriage, and amidst much
+gabbling and wondering gossip were driven off. It was a plain, very
+plain, funeral, every one said, and without a note of music. As the
+crowd dribbled away, Selene recognized two of the prima donnas and the
+first contralto of the opera, and she nudged Belle in a sardonic manner.
+
+"More of them, Belle, more of them. We ought to feel flattered," then
+both women burst into hysterical sobbing and embraced desperately. They
+read in each other's eyes a mutual desire.
+
+"Shall we risk it?" whispered Belle. Selene was already putting on her
+heavy mourning veil. Belle at once began to dress, and James was
+despatched for a carriage. The street was clear when the widows went
+forth, and in half an hour they reached the opera-house. Here they were
+delayed. A mounted policeman tried to turn their hansom away.
+
+Selene beckoned to him and explained:
+
+"I am Mrs. Brazier," and the officer bowed. They were driven to a side
+entrance, and the assistant-manager took the pair to his box. There
+they sat and trembled behind their long crape veils....
+
+Some one on the stage was speaking of music, the "Heavenly Maid," and
+the women dissolved in tears at the glowing eulogies upon their husband.
+The huge auditorium was draped entirely in black. In it was thronged a
+sombre-coated mass of men and the women known in the fashionable and
+artistic world. The stage was filled with musicians, and in its centre,
+banked by violets, violets only, was the catafalque. The numerous
+candles and flowers made the air dull and perfumed; the large
+chandeliers burned dimly, and when the Pilgrims' Chorus began, Belle
+felt that she was ready to swoon.
+
+The stage-setting was the last scene of "Götterdämmerung", and the
+chorus was in costume. A celebrated orator had finished; the chorus
+welled up solemnly, and Selene said again and again:
+
+"Oh, Sig! Sig! what a funeral, what a funeral for such a man!" "It's
+just the kind he would have liked," remonstrated Belle, in a barely
+audible voice, and Selene shivered. When the music ceased a soprano sang
+the Immolation music and there was weeping heard in the body of the
+house. The ushers with difficulty kept the aisles clear, and the lobbies
+were packed with perspiring persons. Wherever Selene peeped she saw
+faces, and they all wore an expression of grief. Nearly all the women
+carried handkerchiefs to their eyes, and many of the men seemed
+shamefaced at the tears they could not keep back. In one of the front
+stalls a solitary figure knelt, face buried in hands.
+
+"There's Val, Belle. There, near the stage, to the left. I do believe
+he's praying. And for what? For a man who had no brains, no heart; a
+reckless, handsome man, who was simply a voice, a sweet, lying voice."
+
+"For shame, Selene, for shame! He was your--he was our husband." Belle's
+lips were white and trembling as she murmured, "May God rest his poor
+soul. He was a sweet boy, poor Sig, may God rest his soul. Oh, how I
+wish he were alive!" Selene looked disdainful, and her eyes grew black.
+
+"I don't," she said, so loudly that a man in the next box leaned over,
+and then as "Siegfried's Trauermarsch" sounded, the coffin was carried
+in pompous procession from the building. There was a brief conflict
+between the ushers and a lot of women over the flowers on the stage, and
+every one, babbling and relieved, went out into the daylight.... The
+widows waited until the police had emptied the house, then sent for
+their carriage. They lunched at home and later, after many exchanges of
+affection, Belle drove away to catch the evening train. Selene watched
+her from the window.
+
+"I do believe she loved him after all! I wish she'd set her cap now for
+Val. Pooh! what a soft fool she is. Sig was _my_ legal husband, and I
+alone can bear his name, for she has no certificate. What an interesting
+name, Mrs. Siegfried Brazier, widow of the famous Wagnerian tenor. Is
+that you, Val?" Val came in, dusty and exhausted.
+
+"Did you go to the cemetery?" "Yes." "Was any one there?" "Only one old
+woman." "Mrs. Madison!" cried Selene, in rasping, triumphant tones.
+
+"No," wearily answered the man, lying....
+
+
+
+
+INTERMEZZO
+
+
+In his hand Frank Etharedge held a cablegram. The emotion of the moment
+was one of triumph mixed with curiosity; his sensitive face a keyboard
+over which his feelings swept the octave. He was alone in his office,
+and from the windows on the top floor of this giant building he saw the
+harbor, saw the river maculated with craft; saw the bay, the big
+Statue--best of all saw steamships. This caught his fancies into one
+chord and the keynote sounded: Yes, life was a good thing sometimes. A
+few months more, in the spring, he would be sailing on just such an iron
+carrier of joy, sailing to Paris, to Edna. He looked at the pink message
+again. It announced in disconnected words that Mrs. Etharedge had been
+bidden to the Paris Grand Opéra. The cable was ten days old, and on each
+of these days the lawyer had gone to his private consulting room
+immediately after luncheon, and, facing seaward, read the precious
+revelation: "Engaged by Gailhard for Opéra. Will write. Edna." That was
+all--but it was the top of the hill for both after three years of
+separation and work. He was not an expansive man and said little to his
+associates of this good fortune, though there were times when he felt as
+if he would like to throw open the windows and shout the glorious news
+across the chimneys of the world.
+
+Etharedge was a slim, nervous man with dark eyes and pointed beard. He
+believed in his wife. Europe, artistic Europe, had for him the
+fascination which sends fanatics across hot sands to Mecca shrines. He
+had never seen Paris but knew its people, palaces, galleries. His whole
+life was a preparation for deliberate assault upon the City by the
+Seine. He spoke American-French, ate at French-American table d'hôtes,
+and had been married four years to a girl of Gallic descent whose
+singing held such promise of future brilliancy that finally their
+household was disrupted by music and its fluent deceptions. The advice
+of friends, the unfortunate praise of a few professional critics, and
+Edna Etharedge accompanied by her cousin, a widow, sailed for Paris.
+Each summer he made up his mind to join her; once the death of his
+mother had stopped him, and a second time money matters held him in a
+vise of steel, but the third season--he did not care to dwell upon that
+last summer: his conscience was ill at ease. And Edna worked like the
+galley slave into which operatic routine transforms the most buoyant
+spirit. For the first two years her letters were as regular as the mail
+service--and hopeful. She was getting on famously. Her cousin
+corroborated the accounts of plain living and high singing. There were
+no vacations in the simple pension on the Boulevard de Clichy. She had
+the best master in Paris, the best répétiteur; and the instructor who
+came to coach her in stage business declared that madame held the future
+in the hollow of her pretty palm. But the third year letters began to
+miss. Edna wrote irregularly in pessimistic phrases. Art was so long and
+life so gray that she felt, thus she assured her husband, as if she must
+give up everything and return to him. Did he miss her? Why was he
+cool--above all, patient? Didn't he long for wings to fly across the
+Atlantic? Then a silence of three weeks. Etharedge grew frantic. He
+neglected business, spent much money in telegraph tolls, and was at last
+relieved by a letter from Emmeline relating Edna's severe illness, her
+close sailing to the perilous gate, and her slow recovery. He was told
+not to come over as they were on the point of starting for Switzerland
+where the invalid had been ordered. Frank felt happy for the first time
+since his wife had gone away. After that, letters began again--old
+currents ran smooth and the climax came with the wonderful news.
+
+He would go to Paris--go in a few months, go without writing. Then,
+gaining the beautiful city, he would read the announcements of Edna's
+singing. With what selfish, subtle joy would he buy a box and listen to
+the voice of his beautiful wife, watch the lithe figure, hear the
+applause after her aria! He had sworn this was to reward his long months
+of loneliness, of syncopated hopes, of tiresome labor; his profession
+had become unleavened drudgery. Perhaps Edna would make him her business
+man, her constant companion. Ah! what enchantment to stand in the
+_coulisses_ and hold her wraps while she floated near the footlights on
+the pinions of song. He would give up his distasteful practice and
+devote the remainder of his life to the service of a great artist, hear
+all the music he longed for, see the Paris of his dreams.
+
+The door opened. Plunged in reverie he felt that this was but an
+extension of his vision. "Edna!" he cried and flung wide his arms.
+"Frank, you dear old boy, how thin you've grown! Heavens! You're not
+sick? Wait, wait until I raise the window." She pushed up the sash
+noisily and Frank felt the brisk air on his temples. He smiled though
+his heart nipped sadly. It was Edna, Edna his wife in the flesh; and the
+excitement of holding her in his willing arms drove from his brain the
+vapors of idle hope. She was looking down at him a strong, handsome girl
+with eyes too bright and hair too golden. "Edna," he cried, "your hair,
+what have you done to your lovely black hair?" "There's a salute from a
+loving husband. No surprise, though I've dropped from the clouds. But my
+hair is quizzed. Now, what do you mean, Frank Etharedge?" Both were
+agitated, both endeavored to dissemble. Then his eyes fell on the
+cablegram. He started.
+
+"In the name of God, Edna, is anything the matter? This cable! Why are
+you here? Are you in trouble?" The dark shadows under her eyes lightened
+at the commonplace questions. She had time to tune her whirring
+thoughts.
+
+"Frank, don't ask too much at once. I'm here because I am. We have just
+landed. I left Emmeline on the pier with the custom officers and came to
+you immediately. Say you're glad to see me--my old Frank!"
+
+"But, but--" he stammered.
+
+"Yes, I know what you are thinking. I was engaged for the Paris Opéra--"
+"Was?" he blankly ejaculated--"and I couldn't stand it. Locatéli--"
+"Who?" "Locatéli. You remember him, Frank, my old teacher? He got me
+into the Opéra and he got me out of it." "Do you mean that low-lived
+scamp who gave you lessons here, the man I kicked out of doors?" She
+flushed. Etharedge stared at her. He was near despair. His dream of an
+artistic life on the Continent was as a bubble burst in the midday
+sunlight. He loved his wife, but the shock of her unheralded arrival,
+the hasty ill-news, proved too much for this patient man's nerves. So
+he transposed his wrath to Locatéli.
+
+"Well, I'm damned!" he blurted, kicking aside the chair and walking the
+floor like a caged cat. "And to think that scoundrel of an Italian--"
+"Frenchman, Frank," she interposed--"that foreigner, who ought to have
+been shot for insulting you, that Locatéli, followed you to Paris and
+mixed up in your affairs! And you say he had you pushed out of the
+Opéra? The intriguing villain! How did you come to see him?"
+
+"He gave me lessons in Paris." "Locatéli gave you--Lord!" The man was
+speechless. He put his hand to his forehead several times, and then
+gazed at his wife's hair. She fell to sobbing. "Frank," she wailed,
+"Frank! I've come back to you because I couldn't stand it any longer--it
+was killing me. Can't you see it? Can't you believe me? No woman, no
+American girl can go through that life and come out of it--happy. It
+made me sick, Frank, but I did not like to tell you. And now, after I've
+thrown up a career simply because I can't be your wife and a great
+artist at the same time, your suspicions are driving me mad." Her tone
+was poignant. He looked out on the harbor as another steamer passed the
+Statue bound for Europe.
+
+"Ask Emmeline!" She, too, followed the vessel with hopeless expression
+and clasped his shoulder. "Oh! Sweetheart, aren't you glad to have me
+back again? It's Edna, your wife! I've been through lots for the sake of
+music. Now I want my husband--I'm not happy away from him." He suddenly
+embraced her. Forgotten the disappointment, forgotten the fast vanishing
+hope of a luxurious life, of seeing his dream--Paris; forgotten all in
+the fierce joy of having Edna with him forever. Again he experienced a
+thrill that must be happiness: as if his being were dissolving into a
+magnetic slumber. He searched her eyes. She bore it without blenching.
+
+"Are you my same little Edna?" "Oh, my husband!" There was a knock at
+the door; an office boy entered and gave Etharedge a letter which bore a
+foreign stamp. She put out her hand greedily. "It will keep until after
+dinner, Edna. We'll go to some café, drink a bottle of champagne and
+celebrate. You must tell me your story--perhaps we may be able to go to
+Paris, after all." "To Paris!" Edna shivered and importuned for the
+letter until he showed it. "Why, it's mine!" she exclaimed. "It's the
+letter I wrote you before we sailed." "You said nothing about it when
+you came in?" He put it in his pocket and looked for his hat. She was
+the color of clay. "It is my letter. Let me have it," she begged. "Why,
+dear, what's the matter? I'll give it to you after I have read it. Why
+this excitement? Besides, the address is not in your handwriting." He
+trembled. "Emmeline wrote it for me; I was too busy--or sick--or--"
+"Hang the letter, my dear girl. I hear the elevator. Let's run and catch
+it. This is the happiest hour of my life. An 'intermezzo' you musicians
+call it, don't you?" "Yes," she desperately whispered following him into
+the hall, "an intermezzo of happiness--for you!"
+
+Suddenly with a grin the man turned and handed her the letter: "Here!
+I'd better not juggle with the future. You can tell me all about
+it--to-morrow."
+
+And now for the first time Edna hated him.
+
+
+
+
+A SPINNER OF SILENCE
+
+    She was only a woman famish'd for loving.
+      Mad with devotion and such slight things.
+    And he was a very great musician
+      And used to finger his fiddle strings.
+
+    Her heart's sweet gamut is cracking and breaking
+      For a look, for a touch--for such slight things
+    But he's such a very great musician
+      Grimacing and fing'ring his fiddle strings.
+
+    --THÉOPHILE MARZIALS.
+
+
+I
+
+In his study Belus sat before a piano, his slender troubled fingers
+seeking to follow the quick drift of his mind. He played Liszt's
+"Waldesrauschen," but murmured, "She is the first to doubt me." He
+laughed, and shifted by an almost unconscious cut to the F minor
+Nocturne of Chopin. With the upward curve of his thoughts the music grew
+more joyous; then came bits of a Schubert impromptu, boiling scales and
+flashes of clear sky. The window he faced looked out upon the park.
+Beyond the copper gleam from the great, erect synagogue was the placid
+toy lake with its rim of moving children; the trees swept smoothly in a
+huge semi-circle, and at their verge was the driveway. The glow of the
+afternoon, the purity of the air, and the glancing metal on the rolling
+carriages made a gay picture for the artist. But he was not long at
+ease, though his eyes rested gratefully upon the green foliage. The
+interrogative note in the music betrayed inquietude, even mental
+turbulence.
+
+A certain firmness of features, long, narrow eyes set under a square
+forehead, heavily accented cheek-bones, almost Calmuck in width, a
+straight feminine nose, beckoning black hair--these, and a distinction
+of bearing made Belus the eighth wonder of his day. That is what the
+hypnotized ones averred. Master of a complex art, his nature complex,
+the synthesis was irresistible. His expression was complicated; he had
+not a frank gaze, nor did he meet his friends without a nameless
+reticence. This veiled manner made him difficult to decipher. Upon the
+stage Belus was like a desert cat, a gliding movement almost
+incorporeal, a glance of feline intensity, and then--the puissant attack
+upon the keyboard. As in sullen dreams one struggles to throw off the
+spell of hypnotic suggestion, so there were many who mutely fought his
+power, questioning with rebellious soul his right to conquer. But
+conquer he did--so all the conservatory pupils said. A steady stream of
+victorious tone came from under his supple fingers, and his instrument
+of shallow thunders and tinkling wires sang as if an archangel had
+smote it, celestially sang. Belus was the Raphael of the piano, and
+master of the emotional world. His planetary music gathered about him
+women, the ailing, the sorrowful, the mad, and there were days when
+these Mænads could have slain him in their excess of nervous fury, as
+was slain Bacchus of old. Thus wrote some enthusiastic critics of the
+impressionist school.
+
+Zora came in. She was brune and broad, her eyes of changeful color, and
+her temper wifely. Belus flashed his fingers in the air, and she bowed
+her head. His own language was Hungarian, that tongue of tender and
+royal assonances, but Zora had never heard it. She was quite deaf; and
+so, barred from the splendors of this magician's inner court, she ever
+watched his face with a curiosity that honeycombed her very life.
+
+The man's love of paradox had piqued him to select this deaf woman; he
+confessed to his intimate friends that the ideal companion for a
+musician was one who could never hear him practise his piano. She
+rapidly made a request in her little voice, the faded voice of the deaf:
+"Can't I go to the concert with you? Oh, do not put me off. I am crazy
+to see you play, to see the public." He drew back at once. "If you go
+you will make me nervous--and the recital is sold out," he signalled.
+She regarded him steadily. "Your art usually ends in the box-office."
+They drank their coffee sadly. Leaving her with a pad upon which he had
+scribbled "Patience, Fatima, wife of Bluebeard!" Belus went to his
+concert, she to her hushed dreams....
+
+
+II
+
+Zora drowsed on the balcony. The park was a great, shapeless, soft
+flowing river of trees over which the tall stars hung, while the
+creeping plumes of rhythmic steam, and the earthly echoes of light from
+the flat-faced hotels on the west side set her wondering if any one
+really stayed at home when Belus played Chopin. No one but herself, she
+bitterly thought. Her mood turned jealous. His magnetism, her husband's
+magnetism, that vast reservoir upon which floated the souls of many,
+like tiny lamps set adrift upon the bosom of the Ganges by pious
+Mohammedan widows, must it ever be free to all but herself? Must she,
+who worshipped at his secret shrine, share her adoration, her idol, with
+the first sentimental school girl? It was revolting. She would bear with
+it no longer. The ride through the park cooled her blood and eased her
+headache. Just to be nearer to him; that might set her throbbing nerves
+at rest. As if she had been cut off from the big central current of
+life, so this woman suffered during the absence of her husband. In
+trance-like condition she stepped out of the carriage, and slowly
+walked down Seventh avenue. When Fifty-sixth Street was reached, she
+turned eastward and went up the few steps that led into the artists'
+room.
+
+A man half staggered by her at the dimly lighted door, but steadied
+himself when he saw her.
+
+"I am Madame Belus," she said in her pretty English streaked with soft
+Magyar cadences. He stared at her, and she thought him crazy. "All
+right, ma'am," he said after a pause. His speech was thick, yet he was
+not drunk; it was more the behavior of a drug eater.
+
+"Don't go back there, lady!" he begged, "don't go back to the professor.
+He is doing wonderful things with the piano, but somehow I couldn't
+stand it, it made me dizzy. I had no business there anyhow.... You know
+his orders. Every door locked in the building when he plays. If the
+public knew it, what a row!" The man gasped in the spring air. Zora was
+terrified. What secret was being withheld from her? Who could be with
+him? Perhaps he was deceiving her, Belus, her husband! She tried to pass
+the man, who stared at her vacantly.
+
+"Don't go in, ma'am, don't go in. Every door is locked, all except the
+two little doors looking out on the stage. My God, don't go there! I saw
+a mango tree--I know the mango, for I've been in India--I saw the tree
+bloom out over the keys, and its fruit fell on the stage. I saw it. And
+I swear to the ladder, the rope ladder, which he threw up with his left
+hand while he kept on playing with the other. If you had only seen what
+came tumbling down that rope as he played the cradle-song! Baby faces,
+withered faces, girls and mothers, the sweetest and the most fearful you
+ever saw. They all came rolling down and the people in front sat still,
+the old ones crying softly. And there were wings and devilish things. I
+couldn't stand the air, it was alive; and your man's face, white and
+drawn, with the eyes all gone like those jugglers I knew when I was a
+boy in India--out there in India."
+
+She trembled like the strings of a violin. Then after a sharp struggle
+with her beating heart, and bravely pushing the man aside, she went on
+rapid feet up the circular stairway, her head buzzing with the clamor of
+her nerves. India! Belus had once confessed that his youth had been
+spent in Eastern lands. What did it mean? As she mounted to the little
+doors she listened in vain for the sound of music. She heard nothing,
+not even the occasional singing of the electric lights. Not a break in
+the air told her of the vast assembly on the other side of the wall.
+Belus, where was he? Possibly in his room above. But why had she met
+none of the usual officials? What devilry was loosed in the large
+spaces of this hall? Again her heart roared threateningly and she was
+forced to sit on a chair to catch her breath. A humming like the wind
+plucking at the wires of a thousand Æolian harps set her soul shivering
+in fresh dismay. The two little arched doors were in front of her, but
+they seemed leagues away. To go to one and boldly open it she must; yet
+her tissues were dissolving, her eyes dim. That door!--if she could see
+him, see Belus, then all would be well. Across the stair she wavered, a
+wraith blown across the gulf of time. She grasped at the cold knob of
+the door--gripped but could not turn it, for it was locked. Zora fell to
+her knees, her heart weeping like the eyes of sorrow. Oh! for one firm,
+clangorous chord struck by Belus; it would be as wine to the wounded.
+Zora crawled to the other door, perhaps--! It was not locked, and slowly
+she opened it and peered out upon the stage, the auditorium.
+
+The humming of the harps ceased and the chaplet of iron that bound her
+brow relaxed. The house was full of faces, pink human faces, the faces
+of women, and as these faces rose tier after tier, terrifying terraces
+of heads, Zora recalled the first council of the Angel of Light;
+Lucifer's council sung of by Milton and mezzo-tinted by John Martin. The
+faces were drained of expression, but in the rows near by she saw
+staring eyes. Belus--what was he doing?
+
+He sat at the piano and over its keyboard his long, ghost-like fingers
+moved with febrile velocity. But no music reached her ears. Instead she
+saw suspended above him the soul of Belus. It was like a coat of many
+colors. It glistened with the subtle hues of a flying fish; and it swam
+in the air with passionate flashes of fire. This soul that wriggled and
+leapt, this burning coal that blistered the hearts of his audience, was
+it truly the soul of her husband? As the multitude rose in cadenced
+waves of emotion, the soul seemed to shrink, to become more remote. Then
+leaf by leaf it dropped its petals until only an incandescent core was
+left. And this, too, paled and died into numb nothingness. Where was the
+soul of Belus? What was the soul of Belus? A bit of carbon lighted by
+the world's applause? A trick-nest of boxes each smaller than the other,
+with black emptiness at the end? A musical mirage of the world?
+
+Belus was bowing. Then she saw the faces ravished with delight, the
+swaying of crazy people. They had heard--but she alone knew the
+secret....
+
+
+III
+
+Belus shook Zora's shoulders when he returned from the concert. "Why,
+your hair is wet; you must have been asleep on the balcony in the rain,"
+he irritably fingered in the deaf code. Still possessed by the
+melodious terror of her dream, the rare audible dream of one born to
+silence, she arose from her chair and waved him a gentle good-night. He
+stared moodily after her and rang for the servant....
+
+The hearts of some women are as a vast cathedral. Its gorgeous high
+altars, its sounding gloom, its lofty arches are there; and perhaps a
+tiny taper burns before an obscure votive shrine. Many pass through life
+with this taper unlighted, despite the pomps and pleasures of the
+conjugal comedy. But others carry in the little chapel of their hearts a
+solitary glimmering lamp of love which only flames out with death. Zora
+knows this glimmering light is not love, but renunciation. Is not she
+the wife of a great artist?
+
+
+
+
+THE DISENCHANTED SYMPHONY
+
+    The Earth hath bubbles--
+
+    --MACBETH.
+
+
+Pobloff began to whistle the second theme of his symphony. He was a
+short, round-bellied man with a high head upon which stood quill-like
+hair; when he smiled, his little lunar eyes closed completely, and his
+vast mouth opened--a trap filled with white blocks of polished bone;
+when he laughed, it sounded like a snorting tuba.... Nature had
+hesitated whether to endow him with the profile of Punch or Napoleon. He
+was dark, not in the least dangerous, and a native of Russia, though
+long a resident of Balak. Pobloff's wife dusted the music on the top of
+his old piano. "In God's name, Luga, let my manuscript in peace," he
+adjured her. She snapped at him, but he continued whistling. "More
+original music?" She was ironically inquisitive as she danced about the
+white porcelain stove, tumbled over scores that littered the apartment
+as grass grown wild in a deserted alley; pushed violin cases that
+rattled; upset an empty bird-cage and finally threw wide back the
+metal-slatted shutters, admitting an inundation of sunshine.... It was
+early May, but in Balak, with its southeastern Europe climate, the
+weather was warm as a July day in Paris. "Hurrah!" Pobloff suddenly
+bellowed, "I have it, I have it!" Luga glanced at him sourly. "I suppose
+you'll set the world on fire this time for sure, my man; and then little
+Richard Strauss will be asking for advice! What are you going to call
+the new symphonic poem, Pobloff? Oh, name it after me!" She shrieked
+down the passage way at a slouching maid, and ran out, leaving Pobloff
+jolly and unruffled.
+
+"Ouf!" he ejaculated, as her sarcasm finally penetrated his
+consciousness, "I'll call it 'The Fourth Dimension'--that's what I will.
+Luga! Where's that idle cat? Luga, some tea, tea, I'm thirsty." And he
+again whistled the second theme of his new symphony.
+
+
+I
+
+Pobloff loved mathematics more than music--and he adored music. He was
+fond of comparing the two, and often quoted Leibnitz: "Music is an
+occult exercise of the mind unconsciously performing arithmetical
+calculations." For him, so he assured his friends, music was a species
+of sensual mathematics. Before he left St. Petersburg to settle in Balak
+as its Kapellmeister he had studied at the University under the famous
+Lobatchewsky, and absorbed from him not a few of the radical theories
+containing the problematic fourth dimension. He read with avid interest
+of J. K. F. Zöllner's experiments which drove that unfortunate Leipzig
+physicist into incurable melancholia. Ah, what madmen these! Perpetual
+motion, squaring the circle, the fourth spatial dimension--all new
+variants of the old alchemical mystery, the vain pursuit of the
+philosophers' stone, the transmutation of the baser metals, the
+cabalistic Abracadabra, the quest of the absolute! Yet sincere and
+certainly quite sane men of scientific training had considered seriously
+this mathematic hypothesis. Cayley, Pobloff had read, and Abbot's
+"Flatland"; while the ingenious speculations of W. K. Clifford and the
+American, Simon Newcomb, fascinated him immeasurably. He cared
+little--being idealist and musician--for the grosser demonstrations of
+hyper-normal phenomena, though for a time he had wavered before the
+mysterious cross-roads of demoniac possession, subliminal divinations,
+and the strange rappings that emanate from souls smothered in hypnotic
+slumber. The testimony of such a man as Professor Crookes who had
+witnessed feats of human levitation greatly stirred him; but in the end
+he drifted back to his early passions--music and mathematics.
+
+Zöllner had proved to his own satisfaction the existence of a fourth
+dimension, when he turned an India-rubber ball inside out without
+tearing it; but Pobloff, a man of tone, was more absorbed in the
+demonstration that Time could be shown in two dimensions. He often
+quoted Hugh Craig, who compared Time to a river always flowing, yet a
+permanent river: If one emerged from this stream at a certain moment and
+entered it an hour later, would it not signify that Time had two
+dimensions? And music--where did music stand in the eternal scheme of
+things? Was not harmony with its vertical structure and melody's
+horizontal flow, proof that music itself was but another dimension in
+Time? In the vast and complicated scores of Richard Strauss, the
+listener has set in motion two orders of auditions: he hears the music
+both horizontally and vertically. This combination of the upright and
+the transverse amused Pobloff immensely. He declared, with his
+inscrutable giggle, that all other arts were childish in their demands
+upon the intellect when compared to music. "You can see pictures, poems,
+sculpture, and architecture--but music you must hear, see, feel, smell,
+taste, to apprehend it rightfully: and all at the same time!" Pobloff
+shook his heavy head and tried to look solemn. "Think of it! With every
+sense and several more besides, going in different directions,
+brilliantly sputtering like wet fireworks, roaring like mighty
+cataracts! Ah, it was a noble, crazy art, and the only art, except
+poetry, that moved. All the rest are beautiful gestures arrested....
+
+Pobloff ate five meals a day, and sometimes expanding his chest to its
+utmost and extending his arms to the zenith, yawned prodigiously. Born a
+true pessimist, often was bored to the extreme by existence. In addition
+to the fortnightly symphony concerts and their necessary rehearsals, he
+did nothing but compose and dream of new spaces to conquer. He was a
+Czar over his orchestra, and though a fat, good-humored man, had a
+singularly nasty temper.
+
+Convinced that in music lay the solution of this particular mathematical
+problem, he had been working for over a year on a symphonic poem which
+he jocularly christened "The Abysm." Untouched by his wife's daily
+tauntings--she was an excellent musician and harpist in his band--he
+could not help admitting to his interior self, that she was right in her
+aspersions on his originality: Richard Strauss had shown him the way.
+Pobloff decided to leave map and compass behind, and march out with his
+music into some new country or other--he did not much care where. Could
+but the fourth dimension be traced to tone, to his tones, then would his
+name resound throughout the ages; for what was the feat of Columbus
+compared with this exploration of a vaster spiritual America! Pobloff
+trembled. He was so transported by the idea, that his capacious frame
+and large head became enveloped in a sort of magnetic halo. He diffused
+enthusiasm as a swan sheds water; and his men did not grumble at the
+numerous extra rehearsals, for they realized that their chief might
+make an important discovery.
+
+The composer was a stern believer in absolute music. For him the charms
+of scenery, lights, odor, costume, singers, and the subtle voice of the
+prompter seemed factitious, mere excrescences on the fair surface of
+art. But he was a born colorist, and sought to arouse the imagination by
+stupendous orchestral effects, frescoes of tone wherein might be
+discerned terrifying perspectives, sinister avenues of drooping trees
+melting into iron dusks. If Pobloff was a mathematician, he was also a
+painter-poet. He did not credit the theory of the alienists, that the
+confusion of tone and color--_audition colorée_--betrayed the existence
+of a slight mental lesion; and he laughed consumedly at the notion of
+confounding musicians with madmen.
+
+"Then my butcher and baker are just as mad," he asserted; and swore that
+a man could both pray and think of eating at the same time. Why should
+the highly organized brain of a musician be considered abnormal because
+it could see tone, hear color, and out of a mixture of sound and
+silence, fashion images of awe and sweetness for a wondering,
+unbelieving world? If Man is a being afloat in an ocean of vibrations,
+as Maurice de Fleury wrote, then any or all vibrations are possible. Why
+not a synthesis? Why not a transposition of the _neurons_--according to
+Ramon y Cajal being little erectile bodies in the cells of the cortex,
+stirred to reflex motor impulse when a message is sent them from the
+sensory nerves? The crossing of filaments occurs oftener than imagined,
+and Pobloff, knowing these things, had boundless faith in his
+enterprise. So when he cried aloud, "I have it!" he really believed that
+at last he saw the way clear; and his symphonic poem was to be the key
+which would unlock the great mystery of existence.
+
+
+II
+
+Rehearsal had been called at eight o'clock, a late hour for Balak, which
+rises early only to get ready the sooner for the luxury of a long
+afternoon siesta. The conductor of the Royal Filharmonie Orchestra had
+sent out brief enough notice to his men; but they were in the opera
+house before he arrived. Pobloff believed in discipline; when he reached
+the stage, he cast a few quick glances about him: fifty-two men in all
+sat in their accustomed places; his concertmaster, Sven, was nodding at
+the leader. Then Pobloff surveyed the auditorium, its depths dimly
+lighted by the few clusters of lights on the platform; white linen
+coverings made more ghastly the background. He thought he saw some one
+moving near the main door. "Who's that?" He rapped sharply for an answer
+but none came. Sven said that the women who cleaned the opera house had
+not yet arrived. "Lock the doors and keep them out," was the response,
+and one of the double-bass players ran down the steps to attend to the
+order. The men smiled; and some whispered that they were evidently in
+for a hard morning--all signs were ominous. Again the conductor's stick
+commanded silence.
+
+In a few words he told them he would rehearse his new symphonic poem,
+"The Abysm:" "I call it by that title as an experiment. In fact the
+music is experimental--in the development-section I endeavor to
+represent the depths of starry space; one of those black abysms that are
+the despair of astronomer and telescope. Ahem!" Pobloff looked so
+conscious as he wiped his perspiring mop of a forehead that the tenor
+trombone coughed in his instrument. The strange cackle caused the
+composer to start: "How's that, what's that?" The man apologized. "Yes,
+yes, of course you didn't do it on purpose. But how did you do it? Try
+it again." The trombone blatted and the orchestra roared with laughter.
+"Gentlemen, gentlemen, this will never do. I needed just such a crazy
+tone effect and always imagined the trombone too low for it." "Try the
+oboe, Herr Kapellmeister," suggested Sven, and this was received with
+noisy signs of joy. "Yes, the crazy oboe, that's the fellow for the
+crazy effects!"--they all shouted. Luga, at her harp, arpeggiated in
+sardonic excitement.
+
+"What's the matter with you men this morning?" sternly inquired Pobloff.
+"Did you miss your breakfasts?" Stillness ensued and the rehearsal
+proceeded. It was very trying. Seven times the first violins, divided,
+essayed one passage, and after its chromaticism had been conquered it
+would not go at all when played with the wood-wind. It was nearly eleven
+o'clock. The heat increased and also the thirst of the men. As the doors
+were locked there was no relief. Grumbling started. Pobloff, very pale,
+his eyes staring out of his head, yelled, swore, stamped his feet, waved
+his arms and twice barely escaped tumbling over. The work continued and
+a glaze seemed to obscure his eyes; he was well-nigh speechless but beat
+time with an intensity that carried his men along like chips in a high
+surf. The free-fantasia of the poem was reached, and, roaring, the music
+neared its climacteric point. "Now," whispered Pobloff, stooping, "when
+the pianissimo begins I shall watch for the Abysm." As the wind
+sweepingly rushes to a howling apex so came the propulsive crash of the
+climax. The tone rapidly subsided and receded; for the composer had so
+cunningly scored it that groups of instruments were withdrawn without
+losing the thread of the musical tale. The tone, spun to a needle
+fineness, rushed up the fingerboard of the fiddles accompanied by the
+harp in a billowing glissando and--then on ragged rims of wide thunder
+a gust of air seemed to melt lights, men, instruments into a darkness
+that froze the eyeballs. With a scorching whiff of sulphur and violets,
+a thin, spiral scream, the music tapered into the sepulchral clang of a
+tam-tam. And Pobloff, his broad face awash with fear saw by a solitary
+wavering gas-jet that he was alone and upon his knees. Not a musician
+was to be seen. Not a sound save dull noises from the street without. He
+stared about him like a man suffering from some hideous ataxia, and the
+horror of the affair plucking at his soul, he beat his breast, groaning
+in an agony of envy.
+
+"Oh, it is the Fourth Dimension they have found--my black abysm! Oh, why
+did I not fall into it with the ignorant dogs!" He was crying this over
+and over when the doors were smashed and Pobloff taken, half delirious,
+to his home....
+
+
+III
+
+The houses of Balak are seldom over two storeys high; an occasional
+earthquake is the reason for this architectural economy. Pobloff's
+sleeping apartment opened out upon a broad balcony just above the
+principal entrance. As he lay upon his couch his thoughts revolved like
+a coruscating wheel of fire. What! How! Where! And Luga, was she lost to
+him in that no-man's land of a fourth dimension? He closed his weary
+wet eyes. Then pricked by a sudden thought he sat up in jealous rage.
+No-man's land? Yes, but the entire orchestra of fifty-two men were with
+her--and he hated the horn-player, for had he not intercepted poisonous
+glances between Luga and that impertinent jackanapes? In his torture
+Pobloff groaned aloud and wondered how he had reached his home: he could
+remember nothing after the ebon music had devoured his band. How did it
+come about? Why was he not drawn within the fatal whirlpool of sound? Or
+was he outside the fringe of the vortex? As these questions thronged the
+chambers of his brain the consciousness of what he had discovered,
+accomplished, flashed over him in a superior hot wave of exultation. "I
+am greater than Pythagoras, Kepler, Newton!" he raved, only stopping for
+breath. Too well had he calculated his trap for the detection of a third
+dimension in Time, a fourth one in Space, only to catch the wrong game;
+for he had counted upon studying, if but for a few rapt moments, the
+vision of a land west of the sun, east of the moon--a novel territory,
+perhaps a vast playground for souls emancipated from the gyves of
+existence. But this!--he shuddered at the catastrophe: a very Pompeian
+calamity depriving him at a stroke of his wife, his orchestra--all, all
+had been engulfed. Forgetting his newly won crown, forgetting the
+tremendous import of his discovery to mankind, Pobloff began howling,
+"Luga, Luga, _Akh_! Wife of my bosom, my tender little violet of a
+harpist!"
+
+His voice floated into the street, and it seemed to him to be echoed by
+a shrill chorus. Soprano voices reached him and he heard his name
+mentioned in a foreboding way.
+
+"Where is the pig? Pobloff! Pobloff! Why don't you show your ugly face?
+Be a man! Where are our husbands?" He recognized a voice--it was the
+wife of the horn-player who thus insulted him. She was a tall, ugly
+woman and, as gossip averred, she beat her man if he did not return home
+sober with all his wages. Pobloff rushed out upon the balcony; it was
+not many feet above the level of the street. In the rays of a sinking
+sun he was received with jeers, groans, and imprecations. Balakian women
+have warm blood in their veins and are not given to measuring their
+words over-nicely. He stared about him in sheer wonderment. A mob of
+women gazed up at him and its one expression was unconcealed wrath.
+Children and men hung about the circle of vengeful amazons laughing,
+shouting and urging violence. Pobloff, in his dressing-gown, was a fair
+target. "Where are our husbands? Brute, beast, in what prison have you
+locked them up? Where is your good woman, Luga? Have you hidden her, you
+old tyrant?" "No!" shrieked the horn-player's wife, "he's jealous of
+her." "And she's run away with your man," snapped the wife of the crazy
+oboist. The two women struggled to get at each other, their fingers
+curved for hairplucking, but others interfered--it would not be right to
+promote a street fight, when the cause of the trouble was almost in
+their clutches. A disappointed yell arose. Pobloff had sneaked away,
+overjoyed at the chance, and, as his front door succumbed to angry
+feminine pressure, he was safely hidden in the opera house which he
+reached by running along back alleys in the twilight. There he learned
+from one of the stage hands that the real secret was his and his alone.
+
+Alarmed by the absence of their husbands, the musicians' wives hung
+around the building pestering the officials. Pobloff has been found,
+they were informed, in a solitary fit, on the floor of the auditorium.
+The stage was in the greatest confusion--chairs and music stands being
+piled about as if a tornado had visited the place. Not a musician was
+there, and with the missing was Luga, the harp-player. A thousand wild
+rumors prevailed. The men, tired of tyrannical treatment, brutal
+rehearsals and continual abuse, had risen in a body and thrashed their
+leader; then fearing arrest, fled to the suburbs carrying off Luga with
+them as dangerous witness. But the summer-garden, where they usually
+foregathered, had not seen them since the Sunday previous--Luga not for
+weeks. This had been ascertained by interested scouts. The fact that
+Luga was with the rebels gave rise to disconcerting gossip. Possibly her
+husband had discovered a certain flirtation--heads shook knowingly. At
+five o'clock the news spread that Pobloff had by means of a trap in the
+stage, dropped the entire orchestra into the cellar, where they lay
+entombed in a half-dying condition. No one could trace this tale to its
+source, thought it was believed to have emanated from the oboe-player's
+wife. Half a hundred women rushed to the opera house and fell upon their
+hands and knees, scratching at the iron cellar gratings, and calling
+loudly through the little windows whose thick panes of glass were grimed
+with age. Finding nothing, hearing nothing, the dissatisfied crew only
+needed an angry explosion of bitterness from the lips of the
+horn-player's spouse to hatch hatred in their bosoms and to set them
+upon Pobloff at his home.
+
+Now knowing that he was safe for the moment behind the thick walls of
+the opera house, he consoled himself with some bread and wine which his
+servant fetched him. And then he fell to thinking hard.
+
+No, not a soul suspected the real reason for the disappearance of the
+band--that secret was his forever. By the light of a lamp in the
+property room he danced with joy at his escape from danger; and the
+tension being relaxed, he burst out sobbing: "Luga! Luga! Oh, where are
+you, my little harpist! I have not forgotten you, my violet. Let me go
+to you!" Pobloff rolled over the carpetless floor in an ecstasy of
+grief, the lamp barely casting enough light to cover his burly figure,
+his cheeks trilling with tears.
+
+
+IV
+
+A thin rift of sunshine fell across Pobloff's nose and awoke him. He sat
+up. It took fully five minutes for self-orientation, and the fixed idea
+bored vainly at his forehead. He groaned as he realized the hopelessness
+of the situation. Sometime the truth would have to be told. The
+king--what would His Majesty not say! Pobloff's life was in danger; he
+had no doubt on that head. At the best, if he escaped the infuriated
+women he would be cast into prison, or else wander an exile, all his
+hopes of glory gone. The prospect was chilling. If he had only kept the
+score--the score, where was it? In a moment he was on his feet,
+rummaging the stage for the missing music. It had vanished. Pobloff
+jumped from the platform to the spot where he had fallen; his sharp eye
+saw something white beneath the overturned music-stand. It did not take
+long to reveal the missing _partitur_. All was there, not a leaf
+missing, though some rumpled and soiled. When Pobloff had tumbled into
+the aisle, miraculously escaping a dislocated neck, the music and the
+rack had kept him company. Curiously he fingered the manuscript. Yes,
+there was the fatal spot! He gazed at the strange combination of
+instruments on the page in his own nervous handwriting. How came the
+cataclysm? Vainly the composer scanned the various clefs, vainly he
+strove to endow with significance the sparse bunches of notes scattered
+over the white ruled paper. He saw the violins in the highest, most
+screeching position; saw them disappear like a battalion of tiny
+balloons in a cloud. No, it was not by the violins the dread enigma was
+solved. But there were few other instruments on the leaf except the
+harp. Pooh! The harp was innocent enough with its fantastic spray of
+arpeggios; it was used only as gilding to warm the bitter, wiry tone of
+the fiddles. No, it was not the harp, Pobloff decided. The tam-tam, a
+pulsatile instrument! Perhaps its mordant sound coupled to the hissing
+of the fiddles, the cheeping of the wood-wind, and the roll of the harp;
+perhaps--and then he was gripped by a thrilling thought.
+
+He paced the length of the empty hall talking aloud. What an idea! Why
+not put it into execution at once? But how? Pobloff moaned as he
+realized its futility. He could secure no other musicians because every
+one that once resided in Balak had disappeared; there was no hope for
+their recrudescence. He tramped the parquet like a savage hyena. To
+play the symphonic poem again, to rescue from eternity his lost Luga,
+his lost comrades, to hear their extraordinary stories!... Trembling
+seized him. If the work could by any possibility be played again would
+not the same awful fate overtake the new men and perhaps himself?
+Decidedly that way would be courting disaster.
+
+As he strode desperately toward the stage, staring at its polished
+boards as if to extort their secret, he discerned the shining pipes of
+the monster mechanical organ that Balakian municipal pride had imported
+and installed there. Pobloff was a man of fertile invention: the organ
+might serve his purpose. But then came the discouraging knowledge that
+he could not play it well enough. No matter; he would make the attempt.
+He clambered over the stage, reached the instrument, threw open the case
+and inspected the manuals. By pulling out various stops he soon had a
+fair reproduction of the instrumental effects of his score. Trembling,
+he placed the music upon the rack, tremblingly he touched the button
+that set in movement the automatic motor. Forgetting the danger of
+detection, he set pealing in all its diapasonic majesty this Synthesis
+of Instruments. He reached the enchanted passage, he played it, his
+knees knocking like an undertaker's hammer, his fingers glued to the
+keys by moisty fear. The abysm was easily traversed; nothing occurred.
+Despair crowned the head of Pobloff, pressing spikes of remorse into
+his sweating brow. What could be the reason? Ah, there was no tam-tam!
+He rushed into the music-room and soon returned with an old, rusty
+Chinese gong. Again the page was played, the tam-tam's thin edge set
+shivering with mournful resonance. And again there was no result.
+Pobloff cursed the organ, cursed the gong, cursed his life, cursed the
+universe.
+
+The door opened and the stage carpenter peeped in. "Say, Mr. Pobloff, do
+come and have your coffee! The coast's clear. All the women have gone
+away to the country on a wild goose chase." His voice was kind though
+his expression was one of suspicion. Pobloff did seem a trifle mad. He
+went into the property room. As he drank his coffee the other watched
+him. Suddenly Pobloff let out a huge cry of satisfaction. "Fool! Dolt!
+Idiot that I am! Of course the passage will have to be played backward
+to get them to return, to disenchant the symphony!" He leaped with joy.
+"Yes, governor, but you've upset your coffee," said the carpenter
+warningly. Pobloff heard nothing. The problem now was to play that vile
+passage backward. The organ--there stood the organ but, musician as he
+was, he could not play his score in reverse fashion. The thing was a
+manifest impossibility. Then a light beat in upon his tortured brain.
+The carpenter trembled for the conductor's reason.
+
+"Look here, my boy," Pobloff blurted, "will you do me a favor? Just take
+this music--these two pages to the organ factory. You know the address.
+Tell the superintendent it is a matter of life or death to me. Promise
+him money, opera tickets for the season, for two seasons, if he will
+have this music reproduced, cut out, perforated, whatever it is--on a
+roll that I can use in this organ. I must have it within an hour--or
+soon as he can. Hurry him, stand over him, threaten him, curse him, beat
+him, give him anything he asks--anything, do you hear?" Thrusting the
+astonished fellow out of the room into the entry, into the street,
+Pobloff barred the door and standing on one leg he hopped along the hall
+like a gay frog, lustily trolling all the while a melancholy Russian
+folk-song. Then throwing himself prostrate on the floor he spread out
+his arms cruciform fashion and with a Slavic apathy that was fatalistic
+awaited the return of the messenger.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The deadly solemnity of the affair had robbed it for him of its
+strangeness, its abnormality; even his sense of its ludicrousness had
+fled. He was consumed by a desire to see Luga once more. She had been a
+burden: she was waspish of tongue and given to seeking the admiration of
+others, notably that of the damnable horn-player--Pobloff clenched his
+fists--but she was his wife, Luga, and could tell him what he wished
+most to know....
+
+He seemed to have spent a week, his face pressed to the boards, his eyes
+concentrated on the uneven progress of a file of ants in a crack. The
+cautious tap at the stage door had not ceased before he was there
+seizing in a clutch of iron the carpenter. "The rolls! Have you got them
+with you?" he gasped. A cylinder was shoved into his eager hand and with
+it he fled to the auditorium, not even shutting the doors behind him.
+What did he care now? He was sure of victory. Placing the roll in
+reverse order in the cylinder he started the mechanism of the organ.
+Slowly, as if the grave were unwilling to give up its prey the music
+began to whimper, wheeze and squeak. It was sounding backward and it
+sounded three times before the unhappy man saw failure once more
+blinking at him mockingly. But he was not to be denied. He re-read the
+score, set it going on the organ, then picked up the tam-tam. "These old
+Chinese ghosts caused the trouble once and they can cause it again," he
+muttered; and striking the instrument softly, the music for the fourth
+time went on its way quivering, its rear entering the world first....
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The terrified carpenter, in relating the affair later swore that the
+darkness was black as the wings of Satan. A lightning flash had ended
+the music; then he heard feet pausing in the gloom, and from his
+position in the doorway he saw the stage crowded with men, the musicians
+of the Balakian orchestra, all scraping, blaring and pounding away at
+the symphony, Pobloff, stick in hand, beating time, his eyes closed in
+bliss, his back arched like a cat's.
+
+When they had finished playing, Pobloff wiped his forehead and said,
+"Thank you, gentlemen. That will do for to-day." They immediately began
+to gabble, hastily putting away their instruments; while from without
+entered a crazy stream of women weeping, laughing, and scolding. In five
+minutes the hall was emptied of them all. Pobloff turned to Luga. She
+eyed him demurely, as she covered with historic green baize her brave
+harp.
+
+"Well," she said, joining him, "well! Give an account of yourself, sir!"
+Pobloff watched her, completely stupefied. Only his discipline, his
+routine had carried him through this tremendous resurrection: he had
+beaten time from a sense of duty--why he found himself at the head of
+his band he understood not. He only knew that the experiment of playing
+the enchanted symphony backward was a success: that it had become
+disenchanted; that Luga, his violet, his harpist, his wife was restored
+to him to bring him the wonderful tidings. He put his arms around her.
+She drew back in her primmest attitude.
+
+"No, not yet, Pobloff. Not until you tell me where you have been all
+day." He sat down and wept, wept as if his heart would strain and crack;
+and then the situation poking him in the risible rib he laughed until
+Luga herself relaxed.
+
+"It may be very funny to you, husband, and no doubt you've had a jolly
+time, but you've not told where or with whom." Pobloff seized her by the
+wrists.
+
+"Where were _you_? What have you been doing, woman? What was it like,
+that strange country which you visited, and from which you are so
+marvellously returned to me like a stone upcast by a crater?" She lifted
+her eyebrows in astonishment.
+
+"You know, Pobloff, I have warned you about your tendency to apoplexy.
+You bother your brain, such as it is, too much with figures. Stick to
+your last, Mr. Shoemaker, and don't eat so much. When you fell off the
+stage this morning I was sure you were killed, and we were all very much
+alarmed. But after the hornist told us you would be all right in a few
+hours, we--" "Whom do you mean by _we_, Luga?" "The men, of course."
+"And you saw me faint?" "Certainly, Pobloff."
+
+"Where did you go, wife?" "Go? Nowhere. We remained here. Besides, the
+doors were locked, and the men couldn't get away." "And you saw nothing
+strange, did not notice that you were out of my sight, out of the
+town's sight, for over thirty hours?" "Pobloff," she vixenishly
+declared, "you've been at the vodka."
+
+"And so there is no true perception of time in the fourth dimension of
+space," he sadly reflected. His brows became dark with jealousy: "What
+did you do all the time?" That accursed horn-player in her company for
+over a day!
+
+"Do?" "Yes," he repeated, "do? Were there no wonderful sights? Didn't
+you catch a glimpse, as through an open door, of rare planetary vistas,
+of a remoter plane of existence? Were there no grandiose and untrodden
+stars? O Luga, tell me!--you are a woman of imagination--what did you
+see, hear, feel in that many-colored land, out of time, out of space?"
+
+"See?" she echoed irritably, for she was annoyed by her husband's poetic
+foolery, "what could I see in this hall? When the men weren't grumbling
+at having nothing to drink, they were playing _pinochle_."
+
+"They played cards in the fourth dimension of space!" Pobloff boomed out
+reproachfully, sorrowfully. Then he went meekly to his home with Luga,
+the harpist.
+
+
+
+
+MUSIC THE CONQUEROR
+
+
+The hot hush of noon was stirred into uneasy billows by the shuffling of
+sandals over marble porches; all Rome sped to the spectacle in the
+circus. A brave day, the wind perfumed, a hard blue sky, the dark
+shadows cool and caressing and in the breeze a thousand-colored canopies
+fainted and fluttered. The hearts of the people on the benches were gay,
+for Diocletian, their master, had baited the trap with Christians;
+living, palpitating human flesh was to be sacrificed and the gossips
+spoke in clear, crisp sentences as they enumerated the deadly list,
+dwelling upon certain names with significant emphasis. This multitude
+followed with languid interest the gladiatorial displays, the chariot
+races; even a fierce duel between two yellow-haired barbarians evoked
+not a single cry. Rome was in a killing mood: thumbs were not often
+upturned. The imperial one gloomed as he sat high in his gold and ivory
+tribune. His eyes were sullen with satiety, his heart flinty.
+
+As the afternoon waned the murmurs modulated clamorously and a voice
+shrilled forth, "Give us the Christians!" The cry was taken up by a
+thundrous chorus which chaunted alternately the antiphonies of hate and
+desire until the earth trembled. And Diocletian smiled.
+
+The low doors of the iron cages adjoining the animals opened, and a
+dreary group of men, women, children were pushed to the centre of the
+arena; a half million of eyes, burning with anticipation, watched them.
+Shouts of disappointment, yells of disgust arose. To the experts the
+Christians did not present promise of a lasting fight with the lions.
+The sorry crew huddled with downcast looks and lips moving in silent
+prayer as they awaited the animals. In the onslaught nothing could be
+heard but the snarls and growls of the beasts. A whirlwind of dust and
+blood, a brief savage attack of keepers armed with metal bars heated
+white, and the lions went to their cages, jaws dripping and bellies
+gorged. The sand was dug, the bored spectators listlessly viewing the
+burial of the martyrs' mangled bones; it was all over within the hour.
+
+Rome was not yet satisfied and Diocletian made no sign. Woefully had the
+massacre of the saints failed to please the palate of the populace. So
+often had it been glutted with butcheries that it longed for more
+delicate devilries, new depths of death. Then a slim figure clad in
+clinging garments of pure white was led to the imperial tribune and
+those near the Emperor saw him start as if from a wan dream. Her
+bronze-hued hair fell about her shoulders, her eyes recalled the odor
+of violets; and they beheld the vision of the Crucified One. She was a
+fair child, her brow a tablet untouched by the stylus of sin.
+
+The populace hungered. Fresh incense was thrown on the brazier of coals
+glowing before the garlanded statue of Venus as flutes intoned a
+languorous measure. A man of impassive priestly countenance addressed
+her thrice, yet her eyes never wandered, neither did she speak. She thus
+refused to worship Venus, and angered at the insult offered to the
+beautiful foe of chastity, Rome screamed and hooted, demanding that she
+be given over to the torture. Diocletian watched.
+
+A blare of trumpets like a brazen imprecation and the public pulse
+furiously pounded, for a young man was dragged near the Venus. About his
+loins a strip of linen, and he was goodly to see--slender,
+olive-skinned, with curls clustering over a stubborn brow; but his eyes
+were blood-streaked and his mouth made a blue mark across his face. He
+stared threateningly at Diocletian, at the multitude cynically
+anticipating the punishment of the contumacious Christians.
+
+Sturdy brutes seized the pair, but they stood unabashed, for they saw
+open wide the gates of Paradise. And Diocletian's eyes were a deep
+black. Urged by rude hands maid and youth were bound truss-wise with
+cords. Then the subtile cruelty caught the mob's fancy. This couple,
+once betrothed, had been separated by their love for the Son of Galilee.
+She looked into his eyes and saw there the image of Jesus Christ and Him
+crucified. He moistened his parched lips. The sun blistered their naked
+skins and seemed to laugh at their God, while the Venus in her cool grot
+sent them wreathéd smiles, bidding them worship her and forget their
+pale faith. And the two flutes made dreamy music that sent into the
+porches of the ear a silvery, feverish mist. Breathless the lovers gazed
+at the shimmering goddess. The vast, silent throng questioned them with
+its glance. Suddenly they were seen to shudder, and Diocletian rose to
+his feet rending his garments. In the purple shadows of the amphitheatre
+a harsh, prolonged shout went up.
+
+That night at his palace the Master of the World would not be comforted.
+And the Venus was carried about Rome; great was the homage accorded her.
+In their homes the two flute players, who were Christians, wept
+unceasingly; well they knew music and its conquering power for evil.
+
+
+
+
+By JAMES HUNEKER
+
+
+MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC
+
+Essays on
+
+BRAHMS, TSCHAÏKOWSKY, CHOPIN, RICHARD STRAUSS, LISZT, WAGNER
+
+
+12mo ... $1.50
+
+
+_Opinions of the Press_:
+
+Seven essays are included in this work: a masterly and exhaustive study
+of Brahms entitled "The Music of the Future;" "A Modern Music Lord,"
+dealing with Tschaïkowsky (the only personal and professional study of
+the kind in print); "Strauss and Nietzsche;" "The Greater Chopin," an
+inquiry into what Chopin was and was not, that has no superior; "A Liszt
+Étude;" "The Royal Road to Parnassus," a fluent survey of modern
+primitive works; and last, "A Note on Richard Wagner."--_Literature._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most interesting contribution to musical criticism that has come
+from the American press in years. It is marked by that exceptionally
+brilliant style which is Mr. Huneker's individual gift.--_New York
+Sun._
+
+
+
+
+By JAMES HUNEKER
+
+
+MEZZOTINTS IN MODERN MUSIC
+
+
+_Opinions of the Press:_
+
+Mr. Huneker is, in the best sense, a critic; he listens to the music and
+gives you his impressions as rapidly and in as few words as possible; or
+he sketches the composers in fine, broad, sweeping strokes with a
+magnificent disregard for unimportant details. And as Mr. Huneker is, as
+I have said, a powerful personality, a man of quick brain and an
+energetic imagination, a man of moods and temperament--a string that
+vibrates and sings in response to music--we get in these essays of his a
+distinctly original and very valuable contribution to the world's tiny
+musical literature.--_London Saturday Review._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The most valuable treatise ever written on pianoforte studies is
+incorporated in Mr. Huneker's recent volume, "Mezzotints in Modern
+Music."--_New York Evening Post._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is rare indeed to find a critic on music who can in his criticisms
+combine German accuracy with French grace, and above all with American
+independence and freedom of speech.--_Musical Courier._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Mr. Huneker's book is a series of essays filled with literary charm and
+individuality, not self-willed or over-assertive, but gracious and
+winning, sometimes profoundly contemplative, and anon frolicsome and
+more inclined to chaff than to instruct--but interesting and suggestive
+always.--_New York Tribune._
+
+
+
+
+By JAMES HUNEKER
+
+
+CHOPIN THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC
+
+With etched Portrait. 12mo, $2.00
+
+
+Part I. The Man
+
+I. POLAND: YOUTHFUL IDEALS. II. PARIS: IN THE MAËLSTROM. III. ENGLAND,
+SCOTLAND, AND PÈRE LA CHAISE. IV. THE ARTIST. V. POET AND PSYCHOLOGIST.
+
+
+Part II. His Music
+
+VI. THE STUDIES: TITANIC EXPERIMENTS. VII. MOODS IN MINIATURE: THE
+PRELUDES. VIII. IMPROMPTUS AND VALSES. IX. NIGHT AND ITS MELANCHOLY
+MYSTERIES: THE NOCTURNES. X. THE BALLADES: FAËRY DRAMAS. XI. CLASSICAL
+CURRENTS. XII. THE POLONAISES: HEROIC HYMNS OF BATTLE. XIII. MAZURKAS:
+DANCES OF THE SOUL. XIV. CHOPIN THE CONQUEROR. BIBLIOGRAPHY.
+
+
+_Opinions of the Press_:
+
+No pianist, amateur or professional, can rise from the perusal of his
+pages without a deeper appreciation of the new forms of beauty which
+Chopin has added, like so many species of orchids, to the musical flora
+of the nineteenth century.--_The Nation._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have not space to follow him through his luxurious jungle of
+interpretations, explanations, and suggestions; but we cordially invite
+our readers, especially our piano-playing readers, to do so.--_The
+Saturday Review._
+
+
+
+
+By JAMES HUNEKER
+
+
+CHOPIN: THE MAN AND HIS MUSIC
+
+
+_Opinions of the Press_:
+
+It is written at white heat from beginning to end; the furnace of the
+author's enthusiasm never abates its flame for a moment.... I ransack my
+memory in vain for another instance of such unflagging fervor in
+literature.... I think it not too much to predict that Mr. Huneker's
+estimate of Chopin and his works is destined to be the permanent one. He
+gives the reader the cream of the cream of all noteworthy previous
+commentators, beside much that is wholly his own. He speaks at once with
+modesty and authority, always with personal charm.... Mr. Huneker's
+business was to show the world Chopin as he, after years of study and
+spiritual communion, had come to see him; and this he has done with a
+brilliancy and vividness that leave nothing to be desired.--_Boston
+Transcript._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+It is a work of unique merit, of distinguished style, of profound
+insight and sympathy, and the most brilliant literary quality.--_New
+York Times Review._
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+We have received from the Messrs. Scribner an admirable account of
+Chopin, considered both as a man and an artist, by James Huneker. There
+is no doubt that this volume embodies the most adequate treatment of the
+subject that has yet appeared.--_New York Sun._
+
+
+=CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK=
+
+
+
+
+    +-----------------------------------------------------+
+    |             Transcriber's Note:                     |
+    |                                                     |
+    | Some inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the   |
+    | original document have been preserved.              |
+    |                                                     |
+    | Typographical errors corrected in the text:         |
+    |                                                     |
+    | Page 107  Monna changed to Mona                     |
+    | Page 116  unwieldly changed to unwieldy             |
+    | Page 118  Torvold changed to Torvald                |
+    | Page 132  dithyrhambic changed to dithyrambic       |
+    | Page 138  Torvold changed to Torvald                |
+    | Page 145  theure changed to teure                   |
+    | Page 273  enterprize changed to enterprise          |
+    | Page 288  Correlli changed to Corelli               |
+    | Page 288  Pergolese changed to Pergolesi            |
+    | Page 288  Brynd changed to Byrd                     |
+    | Page 288  Clavicytherums changed to Clavicytheriums |
+    | Page 318  Mahommedan changed to Mohammedan          |
+    +-----------------------------------------------------+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Melomaniacs, by James Huneker
+
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