She carried both tureens and dishes, and went into the closet after bottles of wine and a tablecloth; and everything she did was very orderly, and done very quietly. She spoke to Aronach, having arranged the table; and he arose, wiped his pen, and closed the bureau. Then he came to Santonio, and addressed him in most beautiful clear German, such German as was my mother's mother-tongue.
"I travelled very comfortably, thank you," said Santonio, in reply to some inquiry suggestive of the journey, "and I am glad to see you younger than ever."
"Oh! my sort don't die; we are tough as hempen cloth. It isthatmake which frets itself threadbare,"—he pointed obviously at me. "What is to be done with him, eh?"
"To be left here, of course, as we agreed."
"Recollect my conditions. I turn him out if he become ill."
"Oh! he is very well indeed; they are all pale in England, they have no sun."
"Bewell then!" said Aronach, threateningly, yet not terrifyingly, "andkeepwell!"
What a silvery stream swept over his shirt-bosom! it was soft as whitest moonlight. "Is that a beard?" thought I—"how beautiful must the high-priest have looked!" This thought still touched me, when in came a boy in a blouse, and I heard no more of his practice as I now recognized it, though the wail still came from above, fitful and woebegone. This boy was tall and slender, and his face, though he had an elegant head, was too formed and adult to be agreeable or very taking for me. His only expression was that of haughty self-content; but there was no real pride in his bearing, and no reserve. His hands were large, but very well articulated and extremely white; there was no spirit in them, and no spirituality in his aspect. He took no notice of me, except to curl his upper lip—which was not short, and which a curl did not become—as he lifted a second stool and carried it up to the table; nor did he wait to be asked to sit down upon it, and having done so, to smooth his hair off his forehead and lean his elbows upon the table. Then Aronach took a chair, and admonished Santonio to do the same. The latter made himself instantly at home, but most charmingly so, and began to help himself from a dish directly. The young gentleman upon the stool was just about to lift the cover from the tureen in the same style, when Aronach roused, and looking grandly upon him said, or rather muttered, "Where are thy manners? Is it thy place in my house to ape my guests? See to thy companionthere, who is wearier than thou, and yet he waits. Go and bring him up, or thou shalt give thy supper to the cat's daughter."
"So I will," responded the blouse, with assurance; and leaving his stool abruptly, he ran into the closet aforementioned, and brought back a kitten, which as he held it by the nape of its neck came peaceably enough, but upon his dropping it roughly to the floor, set up a squeak. Now the wrath of Aronach appeared too profound for utterance. Raising his deep-set but lightsome eyes from a perfect thicket of lashes, he gave the impertinent one look which reminded me of Van Amburgh in the lion's den. Then, ladling three or four spoonfuls of soup or broth into a plate, he set the plate upon the floor and the kitten at it, so seriously, that I dared not laugh. The kitten, meantime, unused to strong meats, for it was not a week-old mite, mewed and whined in antiphon to the savage lamentations of another cat in the closet, its maternal parent. The blouse never stirred an inch, save carelessly to sneer over his shoulder at me; and I never loved him from that moment. But Santonio nodded to me significantly, as to say, "Come here!" and I came and planted my stool at his side.
Aronach took no notice, but went on pouring coffee, one cup of which he set by the kitten. Again she piteously smelled, but finding it even worse than the broth, she crept up to the closet-door and smelled at that.
"Go up!" said Aronach, to the blouse, "and send Burney to his supper. He shall have the cat's supper, as thou hast given thine to the cat."
He went out sulkily, and the wail above ceased. I also heard footsteps, but he came back again alone.
"He won't come down."
"Won't! Did he say 'won't,' Iskar? Have a care!"
"He says he wants no supper."
"That I have taken away his stomach, eh? Come hither, thou black and white bird that art not yet a pyet."
This was to me; I was just sliding from my stool.
"Eat and drink first, and then thou shalt carry it to him. Thou lookest better brought up. Don't grimace, Iskar, or thou shalt sleep in the cupboard with the cat, and the rats shall dance in thy fine curls. So now eat, Aukester, if that be thy name."
"Sir, I am Carl; will you please to call me Carl?"
He gave me a glance from behind the coffee-stand. Sparks as from steel seemed to come out of his orbs and fly about my brain; but I was not frightened the least, for the lips of this austerest of autocrats were smiling like sunlight beneath the silver hair. I saw at this moment that Aronach had a bowl of smoking milk crammed with bread by his side, and believing it to be for the violin up in the clouds, and concluding inferentially that the unseen was some one very small, I entreated Aronach without fear to let me carry it to him while yet it smoked.
He did not object, but rather stared, and observed to Santonio, "His father makes a baby of him; to give a boy such stuff is enough to make a girl grow up instead." Still he handed it to me with the caution, "If thou fallest on thy nose in going up to heaven, the kitten will lose her supper, for the milk is all used up in the town." I could just see a very narrow set of steps, exactly like a belfry-stair, when I opened the door, and having shut it again and found myself in darkness, I concluded to leave the bowl on the ground till I had explored to thetop. I did so, and spun upwards, discovering another door, to which, though also in darkness, the wail of the violin became my light. I just unlatched it, and returned for my burden, carefully adjusting spoon and basin on the road back. I knocked first, not to alarm the semi-tonic inhabitant; and then, receiving no intimation, entered of my own accord. It was a queer region, hardly so superior as a garret, extremely low and vast, with mountains of lumber in every corner, and in the midst a pile of boxes with a portmanteau or two, and many items of property which for me were nondescript. It had no furniture of its own besides, but to do it justice it was weather-proof. I could see all this rugged imagery on the instant, but not so easily I discerned a little figure in the very centre of the boxes, sitting upon the least of the boxes, and solitarily regaling the silence, without either desk or book, with what had made me suffer below stairs. The organ-pipes came up here, and reached to the very roof; they gave me a strange feeling as of something misplaced and mangled, but otherwise I was charmed to discover them. I hastened across the floor. The player was certainly not an adept,—a tiny, lonely looking boy, who as I went up to him almost let his fiddle fall with fright, and shrank from me as some little children do from dogs. I was as tall again as he, and felt quite manly. "I am only come," I said, "to bring your supper,—have it while it is hot; it is so good then!"
Do not believe, sweet reader, that my German was more polished than my English,—it was quite the same. He dropped his bow upon the nearest box, and depressing his violin so that it touched the ground while he still held it, looked up at me with such a wistful wonder, his lip still quivering, his pretty hair all ruffled up.
"I don't want it, thank you."
"You must eat it; you have been up here ever so long."
"Yes, a good while; please take it away. Are you the new one who was coming?"
"Who said I was coming?"
"The master. He said you would beat us both, and get first to Cecilia."
"That is because I am older. I can't play the least in the world. I don't know even how to hold the bow. Come,doeat this good-looking stuff."
"I don't think I can, I feel so sick."
"That is because youdowant something to eat."
"It is not that"—he touched my jacket. "This is what they wear in England. I do wish you would talk English to me."
I was touched almost into tears. "You are such a little darling!" I exclaimed; and I would have given anything to fondle him, but I was afraid of staying, so I took a spoonful of the milk and put it to his lips, still another and another, till he had taken it all; and then I said, "Do not practise any more;" for he was disconsolately gathering up his bow.
"I must until bed-time; but I am so sleepy."
"Why are you left up here? I will stay with you."
"No, no, you must not. I only came up here because the master caught me looking out of the window this morning, and the windows here don't show you anything but the sky."
As I went out at the door I looked after him again. He was just finishing one of those long yawns that babies delight in. The moment I found my way below, I marched to the master's chair. He was awful in his dignity then, with the wine-bottle beside him and a glass held half-way to his lips.
"Sir, he has eaten it all, but he is so very sleepy; mayn't he go to bed?"
Santonio was so overcome with laughter at my audacity, though I was really very much alarmed, that he leaned back in his chair and shook again. Aronach bent upon me his flowing beard: "Dost thou know to refrain thyself, as well as thou knowest to rebuke thine elders?" But I could plainly see he was not angry, for he arose and tapped upon the ceiling with a stout oak staff that he fished from the unimagined closet. Then the little one came down and into the room, shy of Santonio, and keeping behind his chair, as he murmured "Good-night" to Aronach. The latter gave him a nod which would not have disgraced Jove in full council. Santonio requested very kindly that I too might go to bed; and in a few minutes I found myself in that little cave of my own of which he had made mention.
Its entrance was hard by, through one of the very doors I had noticed when the glimmer showed me the staircase, and it entirely answered my expectations, in so far as it was very dim and haunted-looking, very unlike my own room in England, or any of our rooms at home. It had a stove, a looking-glass, and a press large enough to contain a bride's trousseau complete. There was also a recess which seemed lined with London fog, but which, on examination by the light of my candle, I found to contain the bed in a box of which my mother had forewarned me. I could no more have slept in it than if it had been a coffin, and for the first time I fully appreciated her provision for my comfort in this particular. My boxes were all there, and I uncorded them and drew forth my keys. My excellent sister Clo had packed in one trunk the bed and bedding,and one set of night-clothes, also a variety of toilet necessaries in holland bags. It was quite an affair to lift out the pieces; they were fitted into each other so beautifully that it was natural to imagine they could never be got back again. None but an experienced feminine hand could have accomplished such a feat, and very carefully had I been inducted into the puzzlement of putting the parts together. I had just unfolded the tight white mattress, so narrow, but so exactly wide enough, when Santonio knocked at the door to bid me good-night and farewell; and as he came in he assisted me in the accomplishment of my plans with that assiduous deftness which pre-eminently distinguishes the instrumental artist. He most kindly offered to see me into bed; but that was out of the question, so I let him go with my hearty thanks. It was not the least a melancholy feeling with which I stretched myself, all tingling with my rapid ablutions, beneath my home-blanket. I did not the least long after home, nor the least experience the mother-sickness that is the very treble-string of humility to many a hero in his inaugurative exile; but I felt extremely old, grand, and self-reliant, especially satisfied, in spite of my present ignorance, that by some means or other this Aronach would make a man of me, and not a trifler. I was just asleep when I heard a hand on the lock, and that no dream, for a voice vociferated, roughly enough,—"Out with the light!" I sprang up and opened the door.
"It is only my little lamp, sir, that I brought with me, and it is very safe, as you see; but still, if you wish it, I will try to sleep in the dark. I have never liked to do so, because it excites me."
"Bah! thou art too young to know the meaning of excitement. But for the sake of some one else wholoves the night-lamp, thou mayest keep thine eyes open with it, and thank him too, for it is his doing. Now get back to bed! and don't come out again,—the quick and living walk not about in night-smocks here."
I heard him bolt me in as soon as I shut the door. I cannot say this proceeding pleased me, but on the contrary cost me many a cold sweat until I became accustomed to it. I lay a little while awake, now spying out such variations from English style as had escaped me on my first acquaintance with my quarters; then reverted to Aronach's dark hint about the person who, like me, was excited by the darkness; and at last recollected my contemporaries, and speculated upon their present circumstantials. Most softly did that poor little soul present himself to mine as he played with my buttons, and I secretly determined to become his protector and ally. As for the imp in the blouse, I abjured him at first sight; perhaps because he was, though repugnant to my taste, handsome and elegant, and I was neither.
I awoke with sonorous cries, and sounds of bells, and songs of sellers, and the dim ringing of wheels on a frosty soil. Hard and white the day-dews stood upon the windows; the sky was clear as light itself, and my soul sprang as into the arms of freedom. It occurred to me that I was perhaps late, and I dressed fast. About half-way to the end, I heard the violins begin, both of them; but now they outrageously contradicted each other in different directions, and I could keep by my ear to neither.
I made the utmost haste, but, as in most cases, it was least speed. I pulled off a button, and then a shoestring came loose; I had to begin very nearly all over again. And when at length equipped, I recalled the incarceration of the previous night, and wondered how long I should stay there; but a sudden impulse sent me to the door, and immediately it yielded to my hand. "He has been here, then," I thought, "and has not awakened me, because I was tired last night. How good, to be sure! Not at all what I expected." I sallied forth to the landing; it was like a room itself, but still dark,—dark for day-time; and I could only make out its extent by the glimmer through the crack beneath every door. I listened at each first, not knowing at the instant which was which; but the violins asserted themselves, and I chose one to unlock on my own responsibility. I had made a mistake here, and come into the untenantedorgan-room where we had supped. There the wintry light reigned full, and freshened up the old tints till they gleamed no more dusky, but rich.
The pictures and wreaths of other years gave welcome to me, that magic child especially; nor less the harpsichord unopened, quiet, while those sounds of younger violins broke through and through my fancy, and made my heart swell up till I could have fainted with emotion.
But of all that pressed upon me, the crowning sense was of that silent organ lost in the shady roof; the sun playing upon those columned tubes, and the black-white key-board clustering to hide its wealth of "unheard melodies," sweeter than those "heard" as one has sung, who can surely never haveheardthem!
The chamber had been brushed and swept, but still the fine dust flew, and caught the sunshine on its eddies like another shade of light. There was no one in the room, and, my first flush over, I felt alone and idle. The table was spread for breakfast, as I discovered, last of all; and I question whether such coffee as stood upon the stove so cosily could be surpassed even in Arabia. It was so perfect that it stood the test of sugarlessness, which I preferred, if possible. Standing to eat and drink in all haste, a speculation stung me,—where was my violin? It had not even slept with me; I had missed it in my room,—that baby of mine, that doll, that ladykin! I looked everywhere,—at least everywhere I could; the closet-door I did not try, justly supposing that it was not my place to do so; and at last I concluded to attack my fellow-pupils.
I found my small friend's door very easily, and turned the key to admit myself. The room, to my amazement, was precisely like my own, even to that bed in therecess; and the inmate was not alarmed, for he evidently expected me.
"Oh!" he said, after putting up his lips to mine, "Marc has your study for this morning; the master gave it him to keep till you were ready. But mind you lock me in again when you get out, or he will flog you and me."
"Did he ever flog you yet?"
"No, and he does not call it 'flog;' but he did tie Marc's hands together one day, and he said it was the same to him to do that as for an English master to flog."
"A very mild type, I think. But who is Marc?"
"Marc Iskar; you saw him last night. He won't speak to me; he says I am too young."
"So much the better for you. And what is your little name?"
"I am Starwood Burney;[14]but I should like you to call me Star, as my papa does."
"That I will, my German aster!"
"Aster is Latin; I have begun Latin. But do please go, I have so much to do, and he will be so very angry,—so very, very cross!"
"How dare you say so, when he has never even tied your hands together! You should not be hurt nor disgraced, little Starling; if I were there, I would be punished instead, for I have twice your strength. But you should try to love him while you fear him."
"You speak like a great man, and I will try. But please to go now, for I find this very hard."
I left him, having selfishly shrunk from the necessity to interrogate Iskar.
I stole to his door. I was really electrified as I stood,—not with envy, but with amazement! He was already a wonderful mechanist. Such sallies of execution were to me tremendous, but his tone did not charm me, and I imagined it might be the defect of his instrument that it sounded thin and cold, unlike my notion altogether, and frosty as the frost without. Clearly and crisply it saluted me as I entered. The room was like ours,—the little one's and mine; but it was gayly adorned with pictures of the lowest order (such as are hawked about the streets in England), and only conspicuous from their unnaturally vivid coloring. They were chiefly figures of ladies dancing, or of gentlemen brandishing the sword and helmet,—theatrical subjects, as I afterwards discovered. Iskar was sitting before his desk, and had his face from me. As I approached, my awe was doubled at his performance, for I beheld Corelli's solos. I had heard of those from Davy. Another desk was also near him, and a second violin-case stood upon the floor. I asked him very modestly whether they were mine. He replied, without regarding me, "That sheet of paper has your exercise upon it, and if you cannot play it, you are to look in Marenthal's Prolusion, which is in the bureau under the desk. You are to take all these things into your own room."
There was something in the tones of the blouse—he was yet in blouse—that irritated me intensely. His voice was defined as that of his violin, and to the full as frosty. I was only too happy to retire. Then, sitting upon my own bed, I examined the exercise. Itwas drearily indistinct,—a copy, and I could make nothing of it. The mere Germanisms of the novel rests and signs appalled me. I could neither handle the violin nor steady the bow; but I had carefully borne in mind the methods I had observed when I had had opportunity, and I stooped to take this child of music from its cradle. It was no more mine own than I had expected; an awkward bulky frame it had, and I did not feel to love it nor to bring it to my heart. Something must be done, I felt, and I returned to the organ-room. I found the Prolusion, as Iskar said,—an awfully Faustish tome, with rusty clasps, the letters worn off the back. I was in doom certainly. It was close black national type, and I pored and bored myself over it,—leaf after leaf,—until, blissfully, I arrived at the very exercise prepared for me. It was presented in illustration, and there were saw-like enunciations of every step; but half the words were unknown to me, and I grew rigid with despair. "Oh!" I cried aloud, "if some one would only tell me! if Davy were only here! if Lenhart Davy knew!" Still I slackened not in my most laughable labor, endeavoring to interpret such words as I could not translate by their connection with others I did know, by their look and make,—their euphony. I was vocalizing them very loud, and had made out already the first position, when a rattle of the closet lock turned me all over cold. I listened, it came again; a tremendous "So!" followed, and the door, opening, displayed Aronach himself in the glories of a morning-gown. How could he have got in there, and how have come out upon me so suddenly without any warning? and above all, how would he behave to me, finding me so ignorant? I believe that on account of my very ignorance I found favor in his sight,—he truly wise; for, merely alluding to my conditionin this form, "Thou hast shown thyself faithful, only keep thy faith," he bade me bring my traps in there, and assured me—merely by his aspect—that he would clear every stone from my path.
When I returned he was standing between the organ and the window: a grander picture could not be perpetrated of the life-long laboring and, for love's sake, aspiring artist. His furrowed forehead was clear as rutted snow in the serene of sunlight as he appeared then; and through all the sternness with which he spoke I discerned the gentleness of art's impression. And after the most careful initiation into the simplest mechanical process, he dismissed me to work alone, nor did I relax from that one exercise for a week.
But a great deal chanced in that week besides. We spent each day alike, except Sunday. On other days we breakfasted very soon after it was light, on milk porridge, or bread and coffee. But sometimes Aronach would breakfast alone in his cave, which was that very closet I mentioned, and in which the day must have been developed about as decidedly as beneath the ground. However, he had his lamp in there, and his private escritoire, besides all kinds of books and papers, that were seldom produced in our presence, and then only one at a time.
The kitten's basket was there too, and there were shelves upon shelves, containing napery and all sorts of oddities, that had their nest there after being hatched in crannies of the old man's brain. The first time I took a peep I discerned my own violin, carefully enough housed, but quite above my reach. I fumed a little, of course, but did not betray myself; and it was well I did not, as Iskar and little Starwood both practised on common fiddles scraping could not rasp, nor inexperience injure.
After breakfast we worked till noon under lock and key. At noon we dined, and at two o'clock were sent to walk. I do not know whether I put down Aronach as a tyrant. He must, at least, be so written, in that his whims, no less than his laws, were unalterable. A whim it certainly was that we should always walk one way, and the same distance every day, unless he sent us on any special errand. This promenade, though monotonous, became dear to me, and I soon learned to appreciate themoraleof thatrégime. We could not go to Cecilia, which had its village only two miles off, and whose soft blue gentle hill was near enough to woo, and distant enough to tempt the dreamer, nor would our guide at hand permit us to approach the precinct consecrated to such artistic graduation as we had not yet attained.
In the mornings Aronach was either absent abroad instructing, or writing at home. But we never got at him, and were not suffered to apply to him until the evening. As we could not play truant unless we had battered down the doors, so we could not associate with each other unreservedly, except in our walks; and on those occasions, pretty often, our master came too, calling on his friends as he passed their houses, while we paraded up and down; but whenever he was by our side, silent as a ruminant ox, and awful as Apis to the Egyptians for Starwood and for me. When he came not, it would have been charming, but for Iskar, who was either too fine to talk, or else had nothing at his command to say, and whose deportment was so drearily sarcastic that neither of us, his companions, ever ventured an original or a sympathizing remark.
On my first Sunday I took Starwood to church,—that is, we preceded Aronach, who was lecturing Iskar, and sent us on beforehand. The little one was brightthis morning, and as I looked upon his musically built brow, and trembling color, and expressive eyes,—blue as the air at evening, and full of that sort of light,—I could not make clear to myself how it was that he so disliked his work, and drooped beneath it in the effort to master his frail body by his struggling soul. We had turned into the place of the church,—the leafless lindens were whispering to it,—and we rested by the stone basin, while the bells came springing through the frost-clear day like—yet how unlike—England! I was afraid my small companion would be cold, and I put one of his long little hands into my pocket with my own, while I made him tuck the other into both his warm gloves, till, by degrees,—having coaxed and comforted him to the utmost,—he told me more about himself than I had known before. He was extremely timid to talk, shy as a fawn, even to me. But at last I made out satisfactorily the secret of his antipathy to his violin. I cannot remember all his words,—besides, they were too infantine to write; but he described himself as having spent that most forlorn of all untended childhoods which befalls the motherless offspring of the needy artist in England. His father had lived in London and taught music, but had left him constantly alone; and I also discovered he had been, and was still, an organist. The child assured me his mamma had been a beautiful player, but that no one ever opened her grand piano, which stood in a parlor above the street.
"I always knew I was to grow up to music," said Starwood; "for mamma had told me so, and she taught me my notes when I was only four years old. When she died, no one taught me; and while papa was out all day, I played with my toys and sat upon the stairs. One day some men came up and nearly fell over me. Iran into the parlor, and they came too. They knocked the piano about, and began to take its legs off. I called out to them, 'You must not touch that,—it is my mamma's!'
"They did not take any notice, but made a great noise, and at last they carried it away—all of it—upon their shoulders. I saw it go downstairs, and I sat there all day and cried; I was very miserable, I know. Papa came home at last; when I was so unhappy I thought I must die, and it was all in the dark, and very cold. He carried me in his arms, and made me tell him why I cried. I said 'Because of the piano;' and he told me he had sold it because it was so large, and because he wanted the money. I know he was very poor, Charles; for a gentleman who was very kind to him gave him some more money to send me here, or I could not have come. But I wish he had kept me at home and taught me himself."
"But how," I replied, "can you be sorry now? We ought to be most gloriously happy to find ourselves here. But you fret, my dear little boy, and mope, and that makes you thin, and takes the strength out of you that you want for music."
"Ah! that is not it. You don't know, Charles, how I feel; I know you don't, for you love your violin."
"I should think I did!"
"Well, I am strange to it, and don't love it,—at least, don't love to play it."
"But why did you not tell your father so before he sent you here? You know you will never do anything well that you don't love to do,—it is impossible. And not to love the violin, Star, for shame!"
"It is not that,—oh, don't be angry with me!—but my music is in the beautiful cold keys."
"Darling little Star! I beg your pardon; but then, why don't you learn the piano?"
"But Charles, I cannot. I was sent here to learn the violin, and Imuststudy it. Aronach does not let any one study the pianoforte under him now."
"He did then?"
"Yes, a long time ago, when he lived in another place, about thirty miles off. Have you heard Aronach play the organ?"
"No; have you?"
"Oh! every Sunday."
"You don't say so, Star! is it not delicious?"
"Charles, I like it best of all the days in the week, because he plays. Such different playing from what they have at church in England!"
"I shall go up to the organ and see him play."
"Charles, Charles, don't; please don't,—we never do!"
"Then I shall be the first, for go I must. There is precious Aronach himself. I will run after him wherever he goes."
I did so most rudely—forsaking Starwood, who did not dare to follow me; but I would not miss the opportunity. I spun after Aronach so noiselessly as that he had no notion I was following, though in general he had eyes behind; and he did not perceive me until the service had absolutely begun. Then I made myself visible, and caught a frown, which was accompanied by a helpless condition truly edifying; for his arms and hands and eyes and feet were all equally on service. I therefore remained, and made out more about the instrument than I had made out my whole life before. His was a genuine organ-hand, that could stretch itself indefinitely, and yet double up so crawlingly that thefingers, as they lay, were like stems of corrugated ivory; and I watched only less than I listened. The choir—so full and perfect, trained to every individual—mounted its effects, as it were, upon those of the controlling harmonies. There was a depth in these that supported their air-waving tones, as pillars solid and polished a vaulted roof, where shadows waver and nestle. I found a book, and sang at intervals, but generally preferred to receive the actual impression. I think my first mother-feeling for Germany was born that Sunday in pleasurable pain.
None can know who has not felt—none feel who has not heard—the spell of those haunting services in the land of Luther! The chorale so grave and powerful, with its interpieces so light and florid, like slender fretworks on a marble shrine,—the unisonous pause, the antiphonal repose, the deep sense of worship stirred by the sense of sound. From that Sunday I always went with Aronach, unbidden, but unforbidden; and as I learned to be very expert in stopping, I substituted very speedily the functionary who had performed the office before my advent.
It cannot be supposed that I forgot my home, or that I failed to institute an immediate correspondence, which was thus checked in the bud. Aronach, finding me one night, after we had all retired, with my little ink-bottle on the floor and myself outsprawled writing upon my knees close into my lamp, very coolly carried my sheet, pen, and ink away, and informed me that he never permitted his pupils to write home at all, or to write anything except what he set them to do.
I should have revolted outright against this restriction but for a saving discovery I made on the morrow,—that our master himself dismissed from his own hand a bulletin of our health and record of our progress once a month. Precious specimens, no doubt, they were, these, of hard-hearted fact! Neither were we allowed to receive letters ourselves from home. Only simple communications were permitted to himself; and the effect of this rule, so autocratic, was desperately painful upon me at first. I hungered for some sweet morsel of English, served up in English character; I wanted to hear more than that all were well; and as for Lenhart Davy, had not my love informed my memory, I should have forgotten him altogether. But it was very soon I began to realize that this judicious interdiction lent a tonic bitterness to my life. I was completely abstracted, and upon that passage of my inwardly eventful history I can never glance back without a quiet tear or two; itwas heavenly in its unabsolved and absolute serenity. It was the one mood that befitted a growing heart too apt to burn,—a busy brain too apt to vision,—if that head and heart were ever to be raised from the valley of material life into the mountain heights of art.
I fear my remembrances are dull just here, for the glory that touched them was of the moment, and too subtle to be retrieved; but it is impossible not just to remind myself of them before returning to my adventure-maze.
For six months, that passed as swiftly as six weeks of a certain existence, we went on together—I should have said—hand-in-hand, but that my Starwood's diffident melancholy and Iskar's travestied hauteur would have held me back, and I was ardent to impel myself forward. So, though at first I had to work almost to desperation in order to join the evening contrapuntal class, I soon left the other two behind, and Aronach taught me alone,—which was an advantage it would be impossible to overrate. Not that he ever commended,—it was not in him; he was too exigent, too stern; his powers never condescended; he was never known to qualify; he was never personally made acquaintance with. Something of the hermit blended mystically with his acumen, so that the primary advantage of our position was his supreme standard, insensibly our own also,—the secondary, our undisturbed seclusion.
As I said, we walked the same distance day by day. Nothing is uniform to a soul really set on the idealities of art. Everything, though it changes not, suggests to the mind of the musician. Though not a full-grown mind, I had all joy in that unchanging route; for as the year grew and rounded, all, as it were, aspired without changing. Meditation mellowed every circumstance tillit ripened to an unalterable charm. I always walked with Starwood, who still made me very anxious; suddenly and increasingly so pale and frail he became that I fully expected him to die that spring. Indeed, he hardly cleared it; and I should have mentioned my fears to Aronach but that he seemed fully aware of all I feared. But instead of getting rid of the weakling, as I dreaded he might choose to do, he physicked him and kept him in his bed-box twice or thrice a week, and taciturnly indulged him; giving him hot possets at night, and cooling drinks by day. The poor little fellow was very grateful, but still sad; and I was astonished that Aronach still expected him to practise, unless he was in bed, and to write, except his head ached. The indefinite disorder very seldom reached that climax though, and chiefly asserted itself in baby-yawns and occasional whimpers, constant weariness, and entire loss of appetite. I at length discovered his age, and Iskar's also. The latter had passed eleven, but was not so nearly twelve as I; the first was scarcely nine, and so small he might have been only six. It struck me he would not be much older, and I had learned to love him too well in his infantine and affecting weakness. I ventured, one day, to ask Aronach whether his father knew he was ill. I was answered,—
"He is not ill."
"But, sir, he is low and weak!"
"He will always be weak while thou art petting him. Who can take more care of him than I? His father?"
"Oh, master! I know you are good; but what if he dies?"
"His work will not have killed him, nor his weakness. If people are to die, they die; if they are to live, they live."
I was silenced, not convinced; but from that hour I did not think he would die; nor did he.
Aronach was strict, he never departed from a rule; it was his chief and salient characteristic. He never held what one may call conversation with us on any subject except our studies, and then it was in exemplification, not suggestively. It was a beneficial reserve, perhaps, but I could not have endured it forever, and might have become impatient but for the auspices of the season; it was the very beginning of May. Though shut up to a great extent, as we were, the weather made itself an entrance, blue sky swelled, and the glow of morning woke me before dawn. The lindens near the fountain began to blossom, and in the garden of the church the oak-leaves clustered. I saw nothing of the country yet, and could only dream of unknown beauty in untraversed paths. The Cecilia examinations approached. Aronach attended almost every day at the school. I knew just so much and no more, and as much expected to assist thereat as I should have hoped to come of age on my twelfth birthday. My birthday was in that month of May, in the third week; and though I was innocent of the fact, it was a fact that it was one of Cecilia's feast-days as well as my own. It was, however, such a delicious morning that it nearly sent me mad up in my little room to be mewed there, when such thousands upon thousands roamed wheresoever they would; for I never took it into account how many of those wanderers would rejoice to be so shut up as I was, could they only rest. And it struck me that at least one day in the year one ought to be permitted to do exactly as one desired, even were the desire to drown one's self the prevalent aspiration. There are times when it is not only natural, but necessary, to rebelagainst authority; so that had I not been locked in, I would have certainly escaped and made a ramble on my own responsibility; for I should have acted upon as pure impulse as when—usually industrious enough as I was—I laid down my fiddle and wasted my time.
As I gazed upon the window and smelt the utter sweetness of the atmosphere, hardly so much air as flower spirit, the voice of perfume, I was wishful of the wings of all the flies, and envious of the butterflies that blundered in and floated out. I am sure I had been idle at least an hour, and had no prospect of taking heed to my ways, so long as the sky was blue as that sky, and the breeze blew in, when I felt, rather than heard, a soft little knock at the door. I fancied it was the servant dashing her broomstick upon the landing; but in a moment it was repeated, and I was very shy to take any notice, feeling that a goblin could let itself in, and had better do so than be admitted. Then I was roused indeed, and my own inaction scared me, for I recognized Starwood's voice.
"Charles, I want to come in,—mayn't I a minute, please?"
"Really, Star, it is too bad of you to give me such a turn! How can I open the door? Pray come in directly, and tell me what is the matter."
He boggled at the lock for a minute or two, but at last admitted himself.
"Why, Star, how frightened you look! Have you been flogged at last? and is the master home already?"
"No, no, Charles! Something most extraordinary."
I really could but laugh, the child repeated the words with such an awe.
"A gentleman, Charles, has come. He opened my door while I was practising. I should have beendreadfully frightened, but he was so kind, and came in so gently. He thought you were here, Charles, and asked for you; he says he does not know your name, but that he could tell me whether you were here if I would describe you. I said how pale you were, with such dark eyes, and about your playing, and he said,—
"'All right, go and fetch him, or send him to me: will you be so kind?'"
"How could you be quite sure? It may be some one for Iskar, who is pale, and has dark eyes."
"He said it was the violin that came at Christmas, I was to send; and you came at Christmas. Besides, he looks very like a friend you would have; he is not like anybody else."
"What is he like, Star?"
"His face is so very bright and clever that I could not look at it; but I saw his beautiful curling hair. I never saw such curling hair."
"Come in with me, then, Star."
"No, he said I was not to come too, that I might go on with my music. He calls it 'music,' but I don't think it is much like it."
Now, I knew who was there as well as if an angel had spoken to me and said, "It is he for whom you waited." Had I not known in very assurance, I should have forced my little friend to go back with me, that I might not meet alone a stranger; as it was, I only longed to fly, and to fly alone into that presence, for which I then felt I had been waiting, though I had known it not.
I rushed from my little prison enfranchised, ecstatic; but I misapprehended my own sensations. The magnetic power was so appalling that as I reached the threshold of that other room a dark shock came overmy eyes, and partly from my haste, in part from that dazzling blindness, I staggered and fell across the doorway, and could not try to rise.
But his arm was round me,—before I fell, I felt it; and as I lay I was crushed, abandoned in very worship. None worship as the child-enthusiast save the enthusiast who worshipped even as a child. I scarcely tried to rise; but he lifted me with that strong and slender arm, and set me upon my feet. Before he spoke I spoke, but I gasped so wildly that my words are not in my power to recall. I only remember that I named him "our Conductor—the Conductor!" and that still, with his light touch on my shoulder, he turned his head aside. I looked up freely then; and the glance I then caught of that brow, those eyes half averted, half bent upon me with the old pitying sweetness, partly shaded by earthly sympathy, but for the most part lifted into light beyond my knowledge,—the one glimpse forewarned me not to yield to the emotions he raised within me, lest I should trouble him more than needed. It was not a minute, I am sure, before I mastered myself and stood before him firmly.
"Sir, the Herr Aronach is at the Cecilia School to-day; it is the first day of the grand examination,—at least I believe so; I know they are all very busy there, and have been so for some time. I don't think the master will be home until quite the evening, for he told us to dine alone; but if you will allow me, I will run and bring you a coach from the Kell Platz, which will take you to Cecilia in an hour,—I have heard the master say so."
He was looking towards the window; and while I spoke, his face, so exquisitely pale, grew gradually warm and bright, his cheek mantled, his eyes laughed within the lashes.
"All very good and wise and amiable, most amiable!" said he; "and such pretty German too! But I came to see you, and not your master, here! I have been a long time coming, but I could not get here before, because I had not done my lessons. I have finished them now, and want a game of play. Will you have a game with me?"
Before I could answer, he resumed, in tones of the most ravishing gayety,—
"And you are all so pale,—so pale that I am ashamed of you! What have you been all doing?"
"Practising, sir,—at least not I, for I have been idle all the morning, for the very first time since I came here, I assure you. I kept thinking and thinking, and expecting and expecting, though I could not tell what, and now I know."
"But I am still very much ashamed of Aronach. Does he lock you up?" with a star of mischief shining from the very middle of each eye.
"Yes, sir, always, as well as the others, of course. I like it very much too; it is so safe."
"Not always, it seems. Well, now let us have a race to the river; and then if you are pale still, I shall take you to Cecilia, and show somebody that it is a question whether he can keep you at home, for all he bolts you in. The day is so fine, so beautiful, that I think the music itself may have a holiday."
"Sir, do you really mean it? Oh, if you do, pray let us go to Cecilianow; for perhaps there is music to hear, and oh! it is so very,verylong since I heard any."
"Is it so dear to you that you would rather seek it than all the sunshine and all the heart of spring? Ah! too young to find that anything is better than music, and more to be desired."
"Yes, sir, yes! please to take me. I won't be in the way, it will be enough to walk by you; I don't want you to talk."
"But I do want to talk; I cannot keep quiet. I have a lady's tongue, and yours, I fancy, is not much shorter. We will therefore go now."
"This moment, sir? Oh! I would rather go than have the festival over again."
"The festival! the festival! Itisthe festival! Is it not to-day a festival, andeveryday in May?"
He looked as he spoke so divinely happy that it is so the angels must appear in their everlasting spring. I rushed into my room and rummaged for my cap, also for a pair of new gloves; but I was not very long, though I shook so violently that it was a task to pull on those skins. Returning, I found him still at the window; he was leaning upon the bureau, not near the harpsichord, not before the organ, but gazing, child-like, into the bright blue morning. He was dressed in a summer coat, short and very loose, that hung almost in folds upon his delicate figure. The collar, falling low, revealed the throat, so white, so regal; and through the button-hole fluttered the ribbon of the Chevalier. He carried also a robe-like cloak upon his arm, lined with silk and amply tasselled. I ventured to take it from him, but he gently, and yet forcibly, drew it again to himself, saying, "It is too heavy for thee. May I not already say 'thou'?"
"Oh, sir, if you will, but let me go first; it is so dark always upon the stairs."
"One does not love darkness, truly; we will escape together."
He took my hand, and I tried to lead him; but after all, it was he who led me step by step. I did not know the road to Cecilia, and I said so.
"Oh, I suppose not; sly Aronach! But I do, and that is sufficient, is it not? Why, the color is coming back already. And I see your eyes begin to know me. I am so glad. Ah! they tell more now than they will tell some day."
"Sir, you are too good, but I thank you. I like to feel well, and I feel more than well to-day; I am too glad, I think."
"Never too well or glad, it is not possible. Never too bright and hopeful. Never too blissfully rejoicing. Tell me your name, if you please."
"Sir, my name is nothing."
"That is better thanNorval." He laughed, as at himself.
"Sir, however did you get to hear that? O!"—I quite screamed as the reminiscence shook me,—"oh, sir, did you write the 'Tone-Wreath'?"
He gave me a look which seemed to drink up my soul. "I plucked a garland, but it was beyond the Grampian Hills."
"Youdidwrite it! I knew it when I heard it, sir. I am so delighted! I knew the instant she played it, and she thought so too; but of course we could not be quite sure."
He made the very slightest gesture of impatience. "Never mind the 'Tone-Wreath'! There are May-bells enough on the hills that we are to go to."
I was insensibly reminded of his race; but its bitterness was all sheathed in beauty when I looked again. So beautiful was he that I could not help looking at his face. So we are drawn to the evening star, so to the morning roses; but with how different a spell! For just where theirs is closed, did his begin its secret, still attraction; the loveliness, the symmetry were lost as themajestic spirit seized upon the soul through the sight, and conquered.
"You have not told me your name. Is it so difficult for me to pronounce? I will try very hard to say it, and I wish to know it."
No "I will" was ever so irresistible.—"Charles Auchester."
"That is a tell-tale name. But I can never forget what was written for me on your forehead the day you were so kind to me in a foreign country. Do you like me, Charles,—well enough to wish to know me?"
I can never describe the innocent regality of his manner here,—it was something never to be imagined, that voice in that peculiar key.
"Sir, I know how many friends you must have, and how they must admire you. I don't think any of them love you as I do, and always did ever since that day. I wish I could tell you, but it's of no use. I can't, though I quite burn to tell you, and to make you know. I do love you better than I love my life, and you are the only person I love better than music. I would go to the other end of the world, and never see you any more, rather than I would be in your way or tire you. Will you believe me?"
"Come!" he answered brightly, delicately, "I know all you wish to say, because I can feel myself; but I could not bear you at the other end of the world just now, because I like you near me; and were you and I to go away from each other, as we must, I should still feel you near me, for whatever is, or has been, is forever to me."
"Sir, I can only thank you, and that means more than I can say; but I cannot think why you like me. It is most exquisite, but I do not understand it."
He smiled, and his eye kindled. "I shall not tell you, I see you do not know; I do not wish for you to know. But tell me now, will you not, do you enter the school this semester?"
"Yes, sir, I believe so,—at least, I came here on purpose; but Aronach does not tell us much, you know, sir."
"Is that tall young gentleman to enter?"
"Yes, sir,—Marc Iskar."
"And the least,—how do you name him?"
Like a flash of lightning a conception struck me through and through.
"Sir, he is called Starwood Burney, from England. How I do wish I might tell you something!"
"You can tell me anything; there is plenty of time and room, and no one to hear, if it be a pretty little secret."
"It is a secret, but not a little one, nor pretty either. It is about Starwood. I don't think I ought to trouble you about it, and yet I must tell you, because I think you can do anything you please."
"Like a prince in the Arabian tales," he answered brightly; "I fear I am poor in comparison with such, for I can only help inoneway."
"And that one way is the very way I want, sir. Starwood loves the pianoforte. I have seen him change all over when he talked of it, as if it were his real life. It is not a real life he lives with that violin."
"I wish it had been thyself, whose real life it is, my child," he replied, with a tenderness I could ill brook, could less account for; "but still thy wish shall be mine. Would the little one go with me? He seems terrified to be spoken to, and it would make my heart beat to flutter him."
"Sir, that is just like you to say so; but I am verycertain he would soon love you,—not as I do, that would be impossible, but so much that you would not be sorry you had taken him away. But oh! if I had known that you would take and teach, I would never have taken up the violin, but have come and thrown myself at your feet, sir, and have held upon you till you promised to take me. I thought, sir, somehow that you did not teach."
"Understand me, then, that what I say I say to satisfy you: you are better as you are, better than you could be with me. I am a wanderer, and it is not my right to teach; I am bound to another craft, and the only one for the perfecting of which it is not my right to call myself poor. Do you understand, Charles?"
"I think, sir, that you mean you make music, and that therefore you have no time for the dirty work."
He broke into a burst of laughter, like joy-bells. "There is as much dirty work, however, in what you callmakingmusic. But what I meant for you to understand was this, that I do not take money for instructing; because that would be to take the bread from the mouths of hundreds I love and honor. I have money enough; and you know how sweet it is even to give money,—how much sweeter to give what cannot be bought by money! I shall take this little friend of mine to my own home, if he will go and I am permitted to do so; and I shall treat him as my son, because he will, indeed, be my music-child, and no more indebted to me than I am to music, or than we all are to Jehovah."
"Sir, you are certainly a Jew if you say 'Jehovah;' I was quite sure of it before, and I am so pleased."
"I cannot contradict thee, but I am almost sorry thou knowest there are even such people as Jews."
"Why so, sir? Pray tell me. I should have thought thatyou, before all other persons, would have rejoiced over them."
"Why so, indeed! but because the mystery of their very name is enough to break the head, and perhaps the heart. But now of this little one: he must, indeed, be covered as a bird in the nest, and shall be. And if I turn him not forth a strong-winged wonder, thou wilt stand up and have to answer for him,—is it not so?"
"Sir, I am certain he will play wonderfully upon what he calls those 'beautiful cold keys.'"
"Ah!" he answered dreamily, "and so, indeed, they are, whose very tones are but as different shadows of the same one-colored light, the ice-blue darkness, and the snowy azure blaze. He has right, if he thinks them cold, to find themalonebeautiful." He spoke as if in sleep.
"Sir, I do not know what you mean, for I never heard even Milans-André."
"You are to hear him, then; it is positively needful."
Again the raillery pointed every word, as if arrows "dipped in balm."
"I mean that I scarcely know what those keys are like, for I never heard them really played, except by one young lady. I did not find the 'Tone-Wreath' cold, but I thought, when she played with Santonio, that her playing was cold,—cold compared with his; for he was playing, as you know, sir, the violin."
"You are right; yes. The violin is the violet!"
These words, vividly pronounced, and so mystical to the uninitiated, were as burning wisdom to my soul. I could have claimed them as my own, so exactly did they respond to my own unexpressed necessities. But indeed, and in truth, the most singular trait of the presencebeside me was that nothing falling from his lips surprised me. I was prepared for all, though everything was new. He did not talk incessantly,—on the contrary, his remarks seemed sudden, as a breeze up-borne and dying into the noonday. There was that in them which cannot be conveyed, although conserved,—the tones, the manner, so changeful, yet all cast in grace unutterable; passing from vagrant, never wanton mirth, into pungent, but never supercilious gravity. Such recollection only proves that the beautiful essence flows not well into the form of words,—for I remember every word he spoke,—but rather dies in being uttered forth, itself as music.
It was dusty in the highway, and we met no one for at least a mile except the peasants, who passed into the landscape as part of its picture. The intense green of May, and its quickening blossoms, strewed every nook and plantation; but the sweetness of the country, so exuberant just there, only seemed to frame, with fitting ornament, the one idea I contemplated,—that he was close at hand. There had been much sun, and one was naturally inclined to shade in the thrilling May heats, which permeate the veins almost like love's fever, and are as exciting to the pulses.
At last we came to a brook, a lovely freshet, broadening into a mill-stream; for we could see far off in the clear air the flash of that wheel, and hear its last murmuring fall. But here at hand it was all lonely, unspanned by any bridge, and having its feathery banks unspoiled by any clearing hand. A knot of beautiful beech-trees threw dark kisses on the trembling water; there were wildest rushes here, and the thick spring leaves of the yet unbloomed forget-me-not on either hand. The blue hill of Cecilia lay yet before us, but something in mycompanion's face made me conjecture that here he wished to rest. Before he even suggested it I pulled out my cambric handkerchief, and running on before him, laid it beneath the drooping beech-boughs on the swelling grass. I came back to him again, and entreated him to repose. He even flushed with satisfaction at my request, which I made, as I ever do, rather impertinently. He ran, too, with me, and taking out his own handkerchief, which was a royal-purple silk, he spread it beside mine, and drew me to that throne with his transparent fingers upon my hand. I say "transparent," for they were as though the roseate blood shone through, and the wandering violet veins showed the clearness of the unfretted palm. But it was a hand too refined for model beauty, too thin and rare for the youth, the almost boyhood, that shone on his forehead and in his unwearied eye. The brightness of heaven seemed to pour itself upon my soul as I sat beside him and felt that no one in the whole world was at that moment so near him as I. He pulled a few rushes from the margin, and began to weave a sort of basket. So fleetly his fingers twisted and untwisted themselves that it was as if he were accustomed to do nothing but sit and weave green rushes the livelong day.
"Pull me some more!" he said at length imploringly; and I, who had been absorbed in those clear fingers playing, looked up at him as I stretched my arm. His eyes shone with the starlight of pure abstraction, and I answered not except by gathering the rushes, breaking them off, and laying them one by one across his knees. The pretty work was nearly finished; it was the loveliest green casket I could have fancied, with a plaited handle. It looked like a fairy field-flung treasure. I wished it were for me. When it was quite ready,and as complete and perfect as Nature's own work, he rose, and seizing the lowest branch of the swaying beech grove, hung the plaything upon it and said, "I wish it were filled with ripe red strawberries."
"Why so, sir?" I ventured.
"Because one would like to imagine a little child finding a green basket by the dusty way, filled with strawberries."
We arose, and again walked on.
"Sir, I would rather have the basket than the strawberries."
"I wish a little child may be of your mind. Were you happy, Charles, when you were a little child?"
"Sir, I was always longing to be a man. I never considered what it was to be a little child."
"Thou art a boy, and that is to be a man-child,—the beautiful fate! But it is thy beautiful fate to teach others also, as only children teach."
"I, sir,—how?"
"Charles, a man may be always longing to be an angel, and never consider what it is to be a man."
His voice was as a sudden wind springing up amidst solitary leaves, it was so fitful, so vaguely sweet. I looked upon him indeed for the first time with trembling, since I had been with him that day. He had fallen into a stiller step, for we had reached the foot of the ascent. It never occurred to me that I was not expected at Cecilia. I thought of nothing but that I should accompany him. He suddenly again addressed me in English.
"Did St. Michel ever recover the use of his arm?"
I was quite embarrassed. "I never asked about him, sir; but I daresay he did."
"I thought you would have known. Youshouldhave asked, I think. Was he a rich man or a poor man?"
"How do you mean, sir? He was well off, I should suppose, for he used to dress a great deal, and had a horse, and taught all over the town. Mr. Davy said he was as popular as Giardini."
"Mr. Davy was who,—your godfather?"
"My musical godfather I should say, sir. He took me to the festival, and had I not accidentally met him I should never have gone there, have never seen you. Oh, sir!—"
"Nothing is accidental that happens to you, to such as you. But I should have been very sorry not to have seen you. I thought you were a little messenger from the other world."
"It does seem very strange, sir,—at least two things especially."
"What is the first, then?"
"First, that I should serve you; and the second, that you should like me."
"No, believe me, it is not strange,"—he still spoke in that beautiful pure English, swift and keen, as his German was mild and slow,—"not strange that you should serve me, because there was a secret agreement between us that we should either serve the other. Had you been in my place, I should have run to fetch you water; but I fear I should have spilled a drop or two. And how could I but like you when you came before me like something of my own in that crowd, that multitude in nothing of me?"
"Sir," I answered, to save myself from saying what I really felt, "how beautifully you speak English!"
He resumed in German: "That is nothing, because we can have no real language. I make myself think inall. I dream first in this, and then in that; so that, amidst the floating fragments, as in the strange mixture we call anorchestra, some accent may be expressed from the many voices of the language of our unknown home."
As he said these words, his tones, so clear and reverent, became mystical and inward. I was absolved from communion with that soul. His eye, travelling onwards, was already with the lime-trees at the summit of the hill we had nearly reached, and he appeared to have forgotten me. I felt how frail, how dissoluble, were the fiery links that bound my feeble spirit to that strong immortal. But how little I knew it yet!