* * * * *
"What is a chimera?" asked the little Gipsy of his great friend one day.
It was in the forenoon. Gesa had been turning over the leaves of a French book which he did not understand, "Les Fleurs du Mal," by Baudelaire. De Sterny meanwhile had been writing letters. He wore a yellow dressing gown of Japanese silk, in which he looked like a large mullein. He yawned and stretched himself, looked pale and used up. That he had not slept regularly for fifteen years was very evident from his appearance.
"What is a chimera?" asked Gesa.
"A chimera--a chimera--it is a siren with wings," defined the virtuoso, turning round.
"H'm!" Gesa lowered his eyes thoughtfully, then raised them inquiringly. "An ennobled siren then?"
"Yes,--as one takes it."
De Sterny sat down by the chimney to warm his feet. "Deuced cold!--hand me the chartreuse, so--Yes, a refined siren if you like," he continued. "The siren has soft human arms with which she draws us into destructive pleasures, the chimera has claws with which she tears our heart. The siren entices us into the mire, the chimera lures us toward heaven,--only we don't reach the heaven, and we often find ourselves very well off in the mire,--deucedly well off! Butsaperment! you don't understand that yet." And he pulled Gesa's ear.
The boy looked rather confused: he certainly had not understood a word of his patron's tirade. "But some of us reach heaven, the heaven of Art, the Walhalla, the Pantheon," cried he, eagerly, with the bombast of a very young person who has read more than he has understood, and likes to display his little knowledge--"If only one sets out early enough on the way."
"Oh yes, a few!" murmured the virtuoso with a queer smile.
"Michael Angelo, Raphael, Beethoven," cried the boy.
"Shakespeare, Milton, Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci," de Sterny laughed aloud as he continued the litany. "But I assure you a man must have quite astounding powers to reach that heaven, and lungs constructed expressly for the purpose in order to feel comfortable after he gets there." The pianist yawned slightly. He belonged among those who amuse themselves with the sirens without permitting them to acquire too much power, and who avoid chimeras on principle. But Gesa was not yet satisfied.
"Have all chimeras wings?" he asked, thoughtfully.
"God forbid!" cried de Sterny.
"But"--
"My dear," cried his patron, laughingly, "if you have any more questions to ask, say so, and I will ring for the waiter to bring up an encyclopœdia--I am at the end of my Latin!"
Eleven years later, in the middle of May, Gesa came back to Brussels after a long absence. Alphonse de Sterny had known how to make practical use of the enthusiasm in Brussels society. Gesa had been sent on a government pension and supported, moreover, by the favor of several eminent persons, to study under one of the most famous violinists of the time, then settled in Paris.
He had studied a little, dissipated a great deal, then studied again; had been much admired, much envied; had learned to empty his champagne glass, and to distinguish in women between a coquette and one who will repel an impertinence. He had made his first professional tour, with a famous Italian staccato singer, and a still more famous Moravian impressario, had earned many laurels, had finally quarreled at Nice with the violincellist of the troupe on the singer's account, had challenged the cellist, and insulted the manager. The latter was a reasonable being, however, who did not stand on trifles of that sort, and two months later in Paris, when he was engaging a company for his American tour he made Gesa a brilliant offer. But the young violinist was rich in the possession of a few thousand francs that remained to him from his last enterprise, and he curtly declined the great Marinsky's proposal, saying "the career of a soloist bored him, he wished to devote himself to composition." He was twenty-four years old. At that age many musicians have produced their greatest works. He had published nothing as yet, except a "Reverie" that appeared nearly seven years before, with a handsome vignette of the young composer on the title page, in all the pomp of a dilettante production, was bought by the whole Faubourg St. Germaine, and by hardly any one else. Since that time he had scribbled a great deal, but had finished nothing,--and yet he felt so rich! He had only not willed it as yet. He needed quiet for composing. But quiet in Paris is an article of luxury that none but very great gentlemen can compel. Brussels rose in his memory, Brussels with her Gothic churches and crooked streets, her zealous Catholicism, her luxuriant vegetation and stagnant life. A sort of homesickness overcame him,--he started for Brussels.
It was the middle of May; May is beautiful in Brussels. No long war, only gay skirmishes between sun and rain clear the air. Undulating golden vapors weave a dreamy halo, like the atmosphere of old legends, over the perspective of ancient streets that lose themselves in the far distance; they shimmer like luminous shadows around the Gothic lace work of St. Gudule, and spread their blonde veil over the green pomp of the park. There is something quite mysterious in this hazy light, this mist of dissolved sunbeams, this metallic vibrating and shimmering that illumines sober, grey old Brussels in the springtime, like a saint's nimbus. The statues in the park have lost their winter cowls of straw; through the trees, whose feathery foliage gives out a pleasant pungent spring odor, glide the sunbeams, outline the edge of a gnarled black bough with a streak of silver, paint broad spots of light on a mighty bole, slip gaily into the moist grass and play hide-and-seek among the transparent leaf-shadows. Around the house of the Prince of Orange luxuriant blooming lilac bushes toss their white and pale purple plumes; before the Koenigsgarten dreamily waves a sea of violet rhododendrons; and heavy with fragrance, warmly enervating, a scarcely perceptible breath of wind stirs the air, the Sirocco of the North.
Gesa went with vigorous strides from the Gare du Midi, across the Boulevard, to the Rue Ravestein. Everything interested him, everything seemed like home. He stood still, looked about him, smiled, went a little further, and again stood still, in his foolish absent fashion. Now he turned off from the Montagne de la Cour--before his eyes stretched the Rue Ravestein. A strange nameless feeling overcame him, a feeling of agitation and anxiety. He could have turned and fled, yet he drew nearer and nearer. Soft golden haze wove itself over everything. The strange little alley, with its architecture of the Middle Ages, and its crucifix leaning against the black church wall, looked like an old picture painted on a gold background.
"Is Monsieur Delileo at home?" asked Gesa at the door of the well-known dwelling. The unaccustomed Flemish words fell haltingly from his lips. The maid, who was busied (unexampled waste of time!) in cleaning the threshold, looked up at him somewhat astonished, and nodded. His heart beat as he entered the vestibule, and hastily cleared the old wooden stairs that groaned under the storming of his impatient young feet. He knocked at the door but received no answer, and he entered the chamber, which still contained the old green carpet. It was much cleaner than when he and Delileo had lived there together; even a little coquettish in its arrangement. A strange narcotic, dreamy odor streamed to meet him. Under the portrait of the Gualtieri, in the crumbling delft pitcher, stood a large bouquet of tempting iris-hued poppies,--those bewitching, beautiful, enormous flowers that are known by the name of "pavots de Nice."
The door of this first room was open; on the outer wall of the farther chamber was a glass enclosed balcony. There at a little round table, opposite one another, sat Delileo--and his daughter! Gesa started, and looked at the maiden dumb with admiration. Nowhere except in Italy had he seen features with at once such regular and such peculiarly rounded lines. The girl's little head rested upon a pair of strong classic shoulders, her colorless face was lighted by a pair of mysterious, dark eyes, and scarlet lips. Delileo's daughter, notwithstanding she scarcely counted seventeen years, had nothing of the angular grace that belongs to Northern maidens: her whole being breathed an enchanting, luxuriant ripeness.
While Gesa stood there, lost in this unexpected vision, Delileo looked up, winked as if dazzled, stretched out his head, the young musician smiled and stepped forward.
"Gesa! Thou!" and in the next moment the "droevige Herr" held his foster son in his arms. The two shed some pleasant tears, then Delileo pushed the young man away from him, the better to see him, then he embraced him again. "And will you stay with us for a little while?" he asked, and his voice trembled.
"As long as you will let me, father," replied Gesa. "I want to work in quiet near you; that is, I know that here is no place for me, but I will lodge in your neighborhood. But"--he looked around at the young girl, "make me acquainted with my sister!"
"Ah! right! Well, Annette, this is Gesa von Zuylen, of whom I have so often told you. Tell him he is welcome, and you, Gesa, give her a kiss, as a brother should!"
The evening meal was over, the long grey May twilight had extinguished all the golden shimmer. Only one slender red ray fell from a street lamp along the alley, and a second glistened in the colored glass of the church window.
Gesa sat comfortably leaning back in the softest armchair the establishment afforded, and explained to the attentive Gaston his numerous plans for composition.
Annette was silent: her large eyes shone in the twilight.
Gesa talked and talked and the "droevige Herr" only interrupted him from time to time to cry "cela sera superbe!"
Rhythmically scanned, mystically blended, the far-off sounds of the city penetrated to the Rue Ravestein like a monotonous slumber song. The dreamy relaxing smell of the poppies grew stronger with the incoming night, and from time to time there was the rustle of a leaf that detached itself and fell dying onto the cold marble of the gueridon.
The poppies lay in the gutter and many other fresh and gracious flowers had withered under the portrait of the Gualtieri. May had become June, and June July. Every evening Gesa explained his projects to his foster-father, played one and another melody on his violin, or sketched the whole of an ensemble movement for him on the old spinet, received Gaston's assurance "cela cera superbe!" improvised a great deal, listened dreamily to the singing and ringing in his soul, and--accomplished nothing. He had lodged himself in a neighboring attic, at a washerwoman's, but spent the whole day in the home of Delileo, now made still more attractive by the gracious presence of Annette.
The "droewige Herr" had found a regular situation, probably for his daughter's sake. He busied himself as secretary of the theatre and also asfeuilletonistof a newspaper. This procured him steady employment. His housekeeping now bore the stamp, not of limited means, but of slovenly comfort, the comfort of the Rue Ravestein.
Gesa felt at home in this disorder. He always found a comfortable sofa on whose arms he could rest his hands while he talked about the future, and in whose cushions he could lean back his head while he searched for the outlines of impending fortune among the smoke-clouds from his cigarette; and he always found a bottle of good Bordeaux on the table when he seated himself at dinner.
He loved the long idling meal times, which lifted from him the necessity of doing anything, and furnished such a plausible excuse for his beloved laziness: he loved to sit and dally with his coffee, while Annette sat opposite and occasionally sipped a little out of his cup. He loved to rummage among the notes of old composers whom no one had ever heard of and to rush through the works of half-forgotten poets. When a verse pleased him, then his eyes glowed, and he would thunder forth the most colossal adjectives, and read the lines two, three, yes twenty times to the little Annette. He might just as well have read to the Flemish servant outside, only she would not, perhaps, have smiled so prettily. Then he would seize note paper and set the verse to music, try his hasty composition on the old spinet, that gave back the stormy melodies of his foaming, effervescing youth in a broken, trembling little voice, like a grandmother on the edge of the grave who sings a love song for the last time. Then Annette must try the verse. She had a splendid contralto voice, and spared no pains to give him pleasure with her singing. But he was never contented. "More expression Annette, more passion!" he would cry. "Do you feel nothing then, absolutely nothing here!" and he tapped her on the heart with his finger. She smiled, colored, and turned her face away.
* * * * *
Gaston Delileo had resolved to look upon Annette and Gesa as sister and brother; that cut short all other thoughts, and was very comfortable. He would not notice how much Annette was occupied with her "brother," to what flattering little attentions she accustomed him, with what an expression her large dark eyes sometimes rested upon him. He only noticed that in the beginning Gesa's bearing was perfectly cool, cordial and brotherly. Toward the end of July the latter began to neglect Rue Ravestein a little, and entangled himself in some sort of relation with a Paris actress who, playing an engagement at the Galerie St. Hubert, found herself bored in Brussels. Annette was consumed by jealousy without Gesa's guessing the cause of her disquiet.
"What ails you, Bichette?" he asked, anxiously, stroking her thin cheek with a caressing hand. "What makes you sad? It is this pestilential city air that does not agree with you. Send her to the seashore for a while, father!" The old man shrugged his shoulders--
"Alas!" he murmured. "I have not the means."
"The means! the means!" cried Gesa, "then permit me to advance them. I have lived so long on your generosity!" Gesa forgot how much his little attentions to Mlle. Irma had cost! When he hurried over to his apartment to get a couple of bank notes, he found in his pocketbook just one solitary twenty-franc piece. At first he rubbed his head and stared, then he burst out laughing, and carried his used up purse across to Delileo, "There, laugh at me and my big promises," he cried. "Here, see, this is my whole wealth! But wait, only wait! My hands and my head are full of gold. If only once the right feeling for work would come--the real fever! Do you happen to know where I have laid the libretto for my opera?"
Toward the end of August, Mlle. Irma left Brussels, Gesa became morose, and the mood was favorable to industry.
One morning he felt "the fever." He spread some music paper before him, smoothed it with his hand, cut a pen, planted his elbows on the one shaky table his attic contained, wrote a line, struck it out, stretched himself, and twisted himself--a feeling of physical unrest tormented him. He resolved to go out for a little, and wandered into the park, where he stood still from time to time as if listening to an inward voice, jostling absently against passers-by, and at last sat down upon a bench, thinking deeply. Suddenly a gust of wind passed, lightly at first, then howling loudly through the tree tops overhead. Gesa started, pressed his hands to his temples, a flood of music streamed through his soul. He hurried back to his attic, and wrote and wrote.
The hour at which he was accustomed to find himself at lunch with Annette,--Delileo seldom came home for this meal,--was long past, the late supper time had come--Gesa still bent over his music paper. Single leaves lay strewn around him on the floor. Some one knocked at the door--he did not hear. Delileo entered. "What are you doing, my boy, that one sees nothing of you to-day. Are you sick?"
Gesa stared at him as if awakened from a strange dream. "No," he answered, simply, "I am working."
He was very pale and his hands trembled. Delileo insisted that he must interrupt his work at least long enough to take some nourishment. Gesa followed him unwillingly. He sat at table, ate nothing, did not speak, but gazed steadily at one spot like a ghost seer. After supper he wandered up and down the sitting-room, humming disconnected melodies to himself, clutched from time to time at the keys of the old spinet, threw out with short lips a single tone in which some sort of grand finale seemed to culminate, lashed about him urging on an imaginary orchestra, stamped suddenly on the floor and cried "Bravo!"
Delileo, who had had plenty to do, in his day, with poets and composers, let him quietly alone; treating him with the forbearance which is accorded to the unhappy, the weak-minded, and geniuses. But Annette could not understand this strange behavior, and at last she broke out in a gay laugh.
Strange to say Gesa took this childishness very ill, and left the chamber with a hastily muttered "good-night."
Until the grey of morning he was working at his opera.
Several days went by, days during which Gesa neither ate nor slept, looked excited and irritable, yet at the same time enjoyed an indescribable painful happiness, a condition of supreme exaltation. In vain Delileo warned him, "Don't overwork, one can strain the creative faculty as well as the voice, be moderate!" Gesa only shook his handsome head and smiled to himself with eyes half shut. Perhaps he had not heard a word his foster-father had been saying.
And then, suddenly, when, shouting an exultant Eureka to himself, he finished the finale of the fifth act,--the third and fourth were not even begun yet,--his inspiration failed. Pegasus threw him, as an overworked and maltreated Pegasus will,--threw him from the Spheres of Light down into the regions of Earthly Misery.
Painful headaches, and fathomless melancholy tormented him, his own performance seemed suddenly repulsive to him: where at first he had only seen the beauties of his work, he now recognized nothing but its deficiencies, compared it with the works of other masters, ground his teeth, and beat his brow. He condemned his own composition unmercifully, as overstrained and absurdly romantic. He could only endure the coldest, dryest musical fare. A Nocturne of Chopin threw him into a nervous excitement. He practiced the "Chaconne" by Bach incessantly. He looked like one who was convalescing from a severe illness. With neglected dress and dragging step he lounged about aimlessly, or brooded by the hour, all in a heap, head on hand, in the darkest corner of the green sitting-room. Once after he had been trying a new composition, in careless fashion on his violin, he put the instrument away with nervous haste, threw himself into the great leather armchair that was regarded as his by all the family, bit restlessly at his nails a moment, and then suddenly broke into convulsive sobbing. Then came Annette shyly to him, stroked his hair pityingly, and whispered, "Poor Gesa, does it hurt so to be a Genius?" He drew her onto his knee, kissed her often and ardently on hair, eyes, mouth, and when half glad, half frightened, she drew away, he allowed her to slip from his arms, but took both her hands and said softly, looking up at her with true-hearted eyes, "Annette, my good little Annette, can you endure me? Will you be my wife? Not now, but when I am become a great artist. Perhaps I may yet, for your sake."
She blushed, and stammered, "What can you want of such a foolish girl as I am?"
"But if she just happens to please me," he jested, much moved.
She bent her young head over his hand and kissed it, then she nestled down on a stool at his feet. When Gaston came home he found them thus, and gave his blessing upon the betrothal.
Gesa's affection for his betrothed grew ever day more tender, and more devoted. Her behavior toward him changed, in that she laid aside something of her bashfulness, and adopted a tone of teasing perversity.
Since it was no longer possible to regard his children as brother and sister, Gaston resolved to beg that Gesa would limit his intercourse with Annette to evening visits, and a daily walk. O those daily walks! Annette liked the frequented streets, and loved to stand before the show windows of the shops where finery was kept, while she asked her lover if he would give her this or that pretty thing if he were a great artist. Her fancies, as yet, were not very expensive, and seldom rose above a dainty ribbon or a coquettish pair of bronze slippers. He smiled at her questions and usually sent her the desired object next morning, accompanied by a pretty, cordial, unpretending little note. A few lessons which he was giving enabled him to indulge in this lover-like extravagance.
Unlike Annette, he had a disinclination for frequented streets, and strolled more willingly with her in the park, at this time quite desolate, and deserted of human kind. Dreaming and forgetful of all the world, he walked beside her under the trees that sighed in the November wind. Here and there the paths were broken by large puddles, and when no one was looking he lifted the maiden lightly over. Annette did not care for a little splashing, and leaned all the more heavily on her lover's arm. Sometimes, when he went along quite too dumb and absent at her side, she gave his arm a little pinch to arouse him, and cried "Wake up, tell me something." Then he would look down at her with wet, happy eyes and murmur, "I love you." He was beyond all bounds in love, and beyond all measure tiresome. But he composed at this time very industriously although more collectedly, and with less exaltation. He had postponed the completion of his opera for the present, and had nearly finished instead a dramatic work, in oratorio form, founded on Dante's Inferno.
"Annette!" cried Gesa, one evening in the end of November, bursting breathless into the green sitting-room. "Annette! Father!"
"What is it, my boy?" asked Delileo.
"De Sterny has written to me. He is coming next week to Brussels."
"Oh!" said Annette, irritated and disappointed, "I certainly thought you had drawn the great lottery prize or had come to astonish us with an engagement at five thousand francs a month."
"Why! Annette!" cried Gesa.
"No wonder that you rejoice," said the tender and sympathetic Delileo, and seeing that Gesa kept his great tragic eyes fixed on Annette's face, with an expression of reproachful surprise, he added soothingly, "You must not take her indifference to heart, she does not know what 'de Sterny' is."
So Gesa spent that evening in explaining to his betrothed bride what de Sterny had been to him for the last ten years, and what the virtuoso's name meant to his grateful heart.
She had understood--the virtuoso's nimbus had become quite visible to her. Gesa need fear no longer that she would not know how to value his great friend sufficiently. How could it be otherwise? His name was to be encountered everywhere. All the newest bon-bons, patent leathers, pocket handkerchiefs were named after him, and the children played at "Concert and Virtuoso," just as in the earliest youth of our century they had played "Consul and Battle of Marengo." Annette was taking singing lessons now. Another little luxury that Gesa had provided for her, and at her singing teacher's house the girls whom she met there talked of nothing but de Sterny. The uncle of one pupil was conductor at the "Monnaie" de Sterny had called upon him, and had forgotten his gloves on going away. The said pupil brought those gloves to the next singing lesson; they were cut in pieces and divided among Signor Martini's feminine pupils. Years afterward, more than one of these gushers wore a bit of leather round her neck, sewed up in a little silk bag!
At this time de Sterny had reached the zenith of his fame. His last tour through Russia had resembled a triumph. In Odessa they had received him with the discharge of cannon, in Moscow a procession had gone to meet him, huzzahing students had unhitched the horses from his coach and the fairest women had showered down flowers from the windows upon his illustrious head, as the cortege passed through the principal streets; in Petersburg a grand duchess had insisted upon his lodging in her palace; sable furs, laurel wreaths, diamond rings, casks of caviare, and a golden samovar, had all been humbly laid at his feet by Russian enthusiasm. All this Gesa related to his beloved. What he failed to tell her was that the greatest ladies had contended for de Sterny's favor, and that a princess cruelly scorned by him had shot herself at one of his concerts while he was playing! But these things she learned from the girls in the singing class. They interested her much more than de Sterny's other triumphs.
Of course Gesa went to meet the virtuoso at the station. But as half Brussels besides were assembled at the "gare du nord," for the same purpose, de Sterny could only dismiss his protégé with a cordial pressure of the hand, and an invitation to visit him next morning at the Hotel de Flandres.
When Gesa entered at the appointed hour, he found de Sterny sitting at his desk, with his head on one hand and a pen in the other: a sheet of music paper, covered with notes, and full of corrections, lay before him. In his nervous, precise, mechanically polite bearing, that uncomfortable something betrayed itself, which a man contracts from constant association with his superiors. One remarked in him that he had accustomed himself, so to speak, to sleep with open eyes, like hares,--and courtiers.
"Well, how are you? I am truly rejoiced to see you," he cried to Gesa, "it makes me downright young to look in your eyes. I was much astonished to hear of your prolonged stay in Brussels. What the devil are you going to do here? I thought you were with Manager Marinski, on the other side of the world long ago."
"My engagement was broken off--that is I have no desire to bind myself," said Gesa, blushing a little.
"So--here--and meantime you are knocking around"--de Sterny treated the young musician in his old cordial, patronizing manner. "Sapristi! You look splendidly, too well for a young artist. Look me in the face. And what are you really doing? Plans? Eh?"
"O, I am very industrious, I give lessons."
"Oh! lessons!You--lessons!Nom d'un chien!I should think it would have been more amusing to dig for gold in America with Marinski. Lessons! And so few pretty women learn the violin! Well, and besides lessons, how do you busy yourself?"
"I compose. You seem also"--
"Certainly, certainly," replied de Sterny, pushing the music paper into his portfolio. "But how can a man compose in such a life as I lead? Bah! I have had enough of squandering my existence in railroad cars and concert halls! Oh for four weeks rest, beefsteak and potatoes, country air, flowers and one friend!"
Some one knocked, the virtuoso's servant entered. "I am not at home!" cried de Sterny.
"But it is Count S----"
"I am not at home. Animal! to any one--do you hear!"
The valet vanished.
"You see how it is," grumbled de Sterny, "before another quarter strikes ten persons will have been announced. It is a stale life, always to play the same fool's tricks, always to be applauded for them...."
"Do you perhaps desire to be hissed by way of variety?" laughed Gesa. At this quite innocent repartee the virtuoso changed color a little, and glanced suspiciously first at Gesa and then at the portfolio where he had hidden his composition. But the young violinist's eyes convinced him that no harm was intended. If de Sterny ever had a believing disciple it was Gesa Van Zuylen.
"It is really a shame," earnestly observed the young musician after a while, "that you allow yourself so little time for composition. I have never heard anything of yours but transcriptions--perhaps you will sometime trust me with your more serious work."
De Sterny's brows met. "Hm!" growled he--"I can't show the things around. They might take wings. It spoils their eclat if one confides them to all sorts of people before they are published." The blood mounted in Gesa's cheek.
"All sorts of people," he repeated.
But de Sterny burst out laughing and cried, "Still so sensitive! I did not mean it in that way. We know you are an exceptional being. Sacre bleu! I am the last who would deny it! As soon as I have completed an important work I will lay it before you. But that"--with a glance at the writing desk, "that is nothing, just nothing--the sketch of some ballet music. Princess L----, you remember her, surely, has asked for it. Already at Vienna she wrote me about it--you understand. I couldn't put it off.C'est assomant. A Countess-ballet!
"And now be so good as to ring, that they may bring in the breakfast. During the meal you shall confide to me what it really is that holds you fast chained in Brussels, for that you remain solely in order to find leisure for composition I don't believe!"
Over the breakfast Gesa confided his great secret to his friend.
De Sterny started up. "So that is it. Well you could not have contrived anything more stupid for yourself!" cried he. "I suspected something, some long drawn out liaison, from which I should have to extricate you. But a betrothal! Oh, yes! What are you thinking of? To marry and become a paterfamilias at your age! It is ruin! It is the grave! The grave of your genius mind, not of your body, that will flourish in the atmosphere of sleek morality. You'll grow fat. You'll celebrate a christening every year. You'll run from one street to another with your trousers turned up and a music book under one arm, giving lessons. And your ambition will culminate in obtaining the post of first violin in some orchestra, or perhaps if it soars very high in becoming conductor of the same. Sapristi! You need the whip of the manager over your back, and not the feather bolster of family life under your head! What is morethisbolster which you are stuffing for yourself will contain few feathers. But that is all one to you. You only need a pretext for laziness, and would go to sleep on a potato sack!"
"You speak like a heretic, like a regular atheist in love," cried Gesa, who had not outgrown his passion for large words. "Who told you I was going to be married the day after to-morrow? I shall not receive her hand until I have secured a position."
"Ah--so! Well--that is some comfort. But who is she? One of your pupils? The blonde daughter of a square-built burgher?"
"She is the daughter of my foster-father."
"O--h! The Gualtieri's daughter. And her you will marry? Marry?"
"You cannot possibly imagine how charming she is," murmured Gesa.
"That the Gualtieri's daughter is charming I can easily imagine," said the virtuoso, and there came suddenly into his eyes an expression of dreamy passion to which they were quite unaccustomed, "but that a man would want to marry the Gualtieri's daughter, I cannot understand. Perhaps you do not know who the Gualtieri was."
Gesa bit his lip.
"She made my foster-father happy."
"So--hm! Made him happy! He was mad as we all were. To have been permitted to black her shoes would have made him happy. I know the history of Delileo's marriage. It is a legend which they still relate in artist circles, only they have got the names wrong. I know the right names because ... Delileo interests me for your sake, and--and--because the Gualtieri ... was my first love!"
Gesa shrank back. "Your first love!" he repeated, breathlessly.
The virtuoso passed his hand over his forehead and smiled bitterly. "Yes! I became acquainted with her in the salon of the d'Agoult. I looked like a girl myself then, was scarcely eighteen years old, and in love! Oh! in love! She laughed at me--I fretted myself with vain desire, she would never notice me. I cannot hear her name now after twenty years without feeling as I did then. Heavens! How beautiful she was! Form, smile, tresses! Dark hair with auburn lights in neck and temples--as if powdered with gold dust. Withal a certain grand carriage...."
The virtuoso ceased and gazed musingly into vacancy. The remembrance of the Gualtieri was a sore spot in his heart. Gesa looked, deeply moved, into the changed countenance of his friend.
"How could such a woman consent to marry Delileo?"
"How? Yes--how? She had lost her voice, her lovers, her health. She was thirty-eight years old. He was of a good family, and still possessed the remains of a handsome fortune, of which he had already squandered the greater part in philanthropic enterprises. He spoiled and pampered her as if she were a princess, and she ... she ran away from him one year and a half after the birth of her child, your bride,--with an obscure Polish adventurer. Delileo discovered her afterward in the greatest misery, dying of consumption, in a garret; he took her home and nursed her till she died. Poor devil! He had united himself to her against the will of his family, and the counsel of his friends, he was at the end of his money--so he buried himself in the Rue Ravestein. His lot is hard; but--at least he lived a year and a half at her side!"
Alphonse de Sterny ceased, and looked down, brooding.
Gesa laid a hand on his arm.
"The memory of this woman lives so powerfully in you still, and yet you marvel that I want her daughter for my wife--her daughter, who inherits all the mother's charm, without her sinfulness?"
De Sterny smiled, no pleasant smile. "How old is she then--sixteen or seventeen, if I reckon rightly is she not?"
Gesa nodded.
"Ah! So! And you will judge already of her temperament?" He drummed a march on the table. Gesa colored. "De Sterny!" he cried after a pause. "Much as I love you I will not bear to hear you speak in that way. Do me a favor and learn to know the little one--then judge yourself. Come sometime in the evening and drink tea with us, unless you are afraid of the Rue Ravestein!"
"When you will, big child! to-morrow, day after!--You always keep early hours there. I can come before I have to go into society!"
A few minutes later Gesa took leave. De Sterny accompanied him to the door of the apartment, and called gaily after him, over the banisters. "The day after to-morrow then, about eight! I am curious to see your Capua!"--
Great excitement reigned in Rue Ravestein No. 10. An odor of freshly baked tea cakes pervaded the stairs and halls. Annette with constantly changing color settled the furniture, now in this place, now in that, trying to hide its deficiencies, her beautiful eyes rested on the green carpet, and she murmured faint-heartedly--"how will it look to him here?" Gesa only smiled, kissed her on the forehead, gave her a confident little pat on the cheek, and said, "He comes to make your acquaintance, my treasure, not to criticize our dwelling."
Even more excited than his daughter was the old Delileo. He had exhumed from a worm-eaten chest an ancient frock with a mighty collar in the ponderous taste of the citizen-king, and attired in this garment, and smelling strongly of camphor, he wandered restlessly from one little chamber to another, dusting off a picture frame with his pocket handkerchief, casting a half-shamed glance into the dull mirror, and pulling with trembling fingers at his imposing silk neck kerchief, which with his beautifully embroidered but rather yellow cambric shirt, had been young under the umbrella-sceptre of Louis Philippe.
Gesa joked at the agitation of his little family, but nevertheless felt it to be perfectly justifiable, in anticipation of the great event.
At eight o'clock every heart beat; five minutes after eight Delileo remarked "perhaps he won't come"; at a quarter past Annette turned a surprised look on her lover, and said, "but he promised you positively, Gesa!" at half past eight a stir was heard on the floor below. "It is an excuse from de Sterny," said Delileo, going to meet disappointment, as was his custom.
"Shall I find Monsieur Delileo here?" a very cultivated voice was heard asking, on the stairs. Gesa rushed out. The old journalist passed a thumb and fore finger over his cheeks--to give himself an unembarrassed air, Annette disappeared.
A few seconds later the door opened, and into the shabby green salon there came an aristocratic-looking blonde man, who was a little embarrassed by the fact that he had not been able to lay aside his fur coat in the hall. This did not last a moment, however. Scarcely had Gesa relieved him of the heavy garment than he held out his hand cordially to the master of the house, whom Gesa formally presented, and said "we are old acquaintances!" and when the "droewige Herr" would have set aside this compliment with a deprecating wave of the hand, de Sterny continued, "You perhaps may not remember the love-sick dreamer whom you met in old times at the Countess d'Agoult's. But I have not forgotten your sympathizing kindness. It did me good. We had then, as I believe, the same trouble--only"--with a glance at the Gualtieri's picture which his quick searching eye had already discovered--"later you were happier than I!"
Then verily tears filled the eyes of the "droewigen Herrn," and he pressed the virtuoso's hand.
"Well?" de Sterny glanced merrily at Gesa, "I was promised something more than a meeting with old friends,--a new acquaintance?"
Gesa looked around. "Oh, the little goose, she has hidden." He hurried into the next room--they heard his tender reassuring "vollons fillette, don't be a child!"
On Gesa's arm, timid, abashed, pale from excitement, deep feverish red on her lips, she came toward the virtuoso, and laid her little ice-cold fingers in his offered hand.
As if bewitched he stared at the young girl, then collecting himself, he kissed her soft child-hand, chivalrously and said, "You must pardon me this, Fräulein, I am a very old friend of your betrothed, and was once an obscure, but intense admirer of your mother." Then turning to Delileo, he added "the resemblance is perfectly startling--it is a resurrection!"
No one could be more amiable than de Sterny was in the Rue Ravestein, and moreover his amiability cost him not the slightest effort. Like other grand gentlemen he took pleasure in making small excursions into spheres where it would have been frightful for him if he had been obliged to live.
Toward old Delileo he adopted a tone of modest deference, toward Gesa, as always heretofore, one of half boon-companion, half paternal banter. He drank two cups of tea, boasted of his hunger, and praised the dainty tea cakes.
Delileo poured out reminiscences which dated as far back as his frock, and were just as much in accordance with modern taste. Silent and pale the Gualtieri's daughter sat before the guest. She did not raise her eyes to him once, yet no detail of his appearance escaped her. As he expected that evening to return from the Rue Ravestein into the world, he wore evening dress which became him well. His white cravat, his open waistcoat and carefully arranged hair, were for her a revelation.
He addressed her repeatedly, but she only answered in monosyllables.
"Is not mademoiselle musical?" he asked, turning from these laborious attempts at conversation to Delileo.
"Yes, she sings a little!"
"Has her voice any resemblance to--to"--de Sterny stopped short.
"Say, will you sing something for us, Bijou?" whispered Gesa to the girl, "we will not urge you, but if...."
"You would give me such great pleasure!" said de Sterny.
Making no answer, with a heavy movement, as if walking in sleep, the young girl rose, went to the spinet, and laid a sheet of music on the desk. It was the fine old romance of Martini--"plaisir d'Amour." The virtuoso instantly offered to accompany her. She nodded shyly. Softly and sadly through the shabby green chamber sounded the immortal love song, a song which the united efforts of all the female pupils in the Conservatories of Europe have not succeeded in killing.
Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un instant,Chagrin d 'amour dure tonte la vie!--
Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un instant,Chagrin d 'amour dure tonte la vie!--
She held her hands, as she had been taught, lightly laid in one another, but the delicate head, contrary to regulation, was inclined toward the right shoulder--as if it had suddenly grown heavy. Her voice sounded hollow and mournful; it trembled as if with suppressed sobs.
"She is afraid of you," said Gesa, who had come up to her side, "I don't know in the least what ails her. Usually she does not want courage.Pauvre petite chat"--and he stroked her hair gently.
The virtuoso's brow fell, as if it hurt him to witness these innocent caresses. He turned to Delileo.
"It is the same voice, absolutely the same voice! A wonderful likeness! Now, mademoiselle, you will grant me just one more trifle, will you not?"
Gesa brought out from a pile of music a written sheet, and laid it on the rack. "Just do this, Annette," he urged, taking up his violin. "The song is for voice and violin," he said--"Please give me an A, de Sterny." De Sterny struck the note.
It was the "Nessun maggior dolore" from his own music to Dante's Inferno, which Gesa had laid on the music desk. A strange composition, in which the human voice swelled from soft half audible revery to bitter despairing utterance of pain, while the violin gave out a melody of penetrating sweetness, like the torturing memory of long vanished joy. Gesa's cheeks were burning as he finished the performance of this his favorite composition. De Sterny let his hands glide from the keyboard, and fixed the violinist with a sharp look, "That is yours?" he asked.
Gesa nodded.
"Then let yourself be embraced on the spot. It is simply superb!"
It was toward eleven o'clock before de Sterny remembered that duty called him back into "the world." Gesa had shown him several more of his own compositions, and in everything the virtuoso had taken the liveliest interest.
Gesa accompanied his friend from the Rue Ravestein into the region of civilization. De Sterny was absent and silent. "Well, what do you say?" urged his disciple, pressingly.
"You will have very great success."
"In what--in my marriage?" laughed Gesa.
"Ah your marriage!" The virtuoso started--"yes, your marriage. Well--she is the most enchanting creature I have met since her mother. What a voice--she could become a Malibran."
"And?"--
They were standing now at the Place Royale. "Dieu merci--there comes a carriage--I despaired of finding one," cried de Sterny. "Adieu,--bring me the whole of your 'Inferno' to-morrow,--auf Wiedersehen!"
With this he sprang into the fiacre which had stopped at a sign from him, and rolled away.
In the Rue Ravestein that evening there was a great deal to talk about. Old Delileo, whose cheeks glowed as if he had been drinking champagne, was very loquacious. Gesa confided to Annette word for word, de Sterny's flattering judgment upon her, but she showed herself nervous and irritable like a child too early waked from sleep. She complained that she had sung badly. She who had always so kindly indulged the garrulity of her poor old father, scarcely listened to him, even made impatient little grimaces, and said his way of walking up and down put her beside herself. When the old man sat down with a hurt air, then she broke into tears and begged his forgiveness.
Gesa drew her onto his knees, dried her tears, and quieted her with playful caresses. "She lives too isolated; the least thing excites her, father?" said he, stroking her cheek. "We must find some amusement for her."
The "droewige Herr," looked down gloomily.
About three o'clock de Sterny mounted the stairs of his hotel. He had been honored and flattered exactly as much as ever, but he felt out of spirits.
"Every street urchin knows my name now, and the crossing sweepers show each other the celebrated de Sterny when I pass. But when I die, what will remain of me! Nothing but a few wretched piano pieces, which they will laugh at after my death."
The songs of the violinist rang in his ears. He shivered. He thought of the beautiful girl, and passed his hand across his forehead.
"Hm!--the danger of a quiet family life does not threaten him from that quarter. She sleeps as yet; but she has inherited all the passionateness of her mother and all the nervousness of her father. How beautiful she is! How beautiful!"