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Charles Auchester, Volume 2 (of 2)

by Elizabeth Sara Sheppard · English · Gutenberg #40259 · 541,035 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Charles Auchester, Volume 2 (of 2)

Author: Elizabeth Sara Sheppard


        
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                Most recently updated: October 23, 2024

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CHARLES AUCHESTER, VOLUME 2 (OF 2) ***

Transcriber's Note:

  Inconsistent hyphenation and spelling in the original document have
  been preserved.  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

  Italic text is denoted by _underscores_.

  The following possible typographical errors were left uncorrected:
  Page 173:  "musical electicism" should possibly be "musical
    eclecticism"
  Page 228: "eflish mood" should possibly be "elfish mood"
  Page 295: "Dunisnane" should possibly be "Dunsinane"




  CHARLES AUCHESTER

  VOLUME II.

  [Illustration: MENDELSSOHN
    FROM A SKETCH MADE IN HIS YOUTH.]




  CHARLES AUCHESTER

  BY
  ELIZABETH SHEPPARD

  _WITH AN INTRODUCTION AND NOTES_
  By GEORGE P. UPTON

  AUTHOR OF "THE STANDARD OPERAS," "STANDARD ORATORIOS," "STANDARD
  CANTATAS," "STANDARD SYMPHONIES," "WOMAN IN MUSIC," ETC.

  In Two Volumes

  VOLUME II.
  A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY
  CHICAGO
  1891




  COPYRIGHT,
  BY A. C. MCCLURG AND CO.
  A. D. 1891.




CHARLES AUCHESTER.




CHAPTER I.


Well, as if but yesterday, do I remember the morning I set out from
Lorbeerstadt for Cecilia. I had no friends yet with whom to
reconnoitre novel ground; I was quite solitary in my intentions, and
rather troubled with a vague melancholy, the sun being under cloud,
and I not having wished Aronach good-day. He was out in the town
fulfilling the duties of his scholastic pre-eminence, and I had vainly
sought him for an audience. He had surrendered me my violin when he
gave me the paper in his writing, and I also carried my certificate in
my hand. Of all my personal effects I took these only,--my bed and
bedding, my clothes and books having preceded me; or, at least, having
taken another form of flight. Iskar was to come also that time, but
did not intend to present himself until the evening. Aronach had also
forewarned me to take a coach, but I rather chose to walk, having
divine reminiscences upon that earthly road.

With Starwood I had a grievous parting, not unallayed by hope on my
part, and I left him wiping his eyes,--an attention which deeply
affected me, though I did not cry myself.

I shall never forget the singularly material aspect of things when I
arrived. Conventionalism is not so rampant in Germany as in England,
and courtesy is taught another creed. I think it would be impossible
to be anywhere more free, and yet this sudden liberty (like a sudden
light) did but at first serve to dazzle and distress me. Only half the
students had returned, and they, all knowing each other, or seeming to
do so, were standing in self-interested fraternities, broken by groups
and greeters, in one immense hall, or what appeared to me immense, and
therefore desolate. I came in through the open gates to the open
court; through the open court into the open entry and from that region
was drawn to the door of that very hall by the hollow multitudinous
echo that crept upon the stony solitude. It was as real to me a
solitude to enter that noble space; and I was more abashed than ever,
when, on looking round, I perceived none but males in all the company.
There was not even a picture of the patron saintess; but there _was_ a
picture, a dark empannelled portrait, high over the long
dining-tables. I concluded from the style that it was a representation
of one Gratianos, the Bachist, of whom I had once heard speak.

The gentlemen in the hall were none of them full grown, and none
wonderfully handsome at first sight. But the manner of their
entertainment was truly edifying to me, who had not long been "out" in
any sense. They every one either had been smoking, were smoking, or
were about to smoke,--that is, most of them had pipes in their mouths,
or those who had them not in their mouths had just plucked them
therefrom, and were holding them in their hands, or those who had not
yet begun were preparing the apparatus.

In a corner of the hall, which looked dismally devoid of furniture to
an English eye, there was a great exhibition of benches. There were
some upright, others kicking their feet in the air, but all packed so
as to take little space, and these were over and above the benches
that ran all round the hall. In this corner a cluster of individuals
had collected after a fashion that took my fancy in an instant, for
they had established themselves without reference to the primary use
and endowment of benches at all. Some sat on the legs thereof,
upturned, with their own feet at the reversed bottoms, and more than a
few were lying inside those reversed bottoms, with distended veins and
excited complexions, suggesting the notion that they were in the
enjoyment of plethoric slumber. To make a still further variation, one
bench was set on end and supported by the leaning figures of two
contemporaneous medalists; and on the summit of this bench, which also
rested against the wall, a third medalist was sitting, like an ape
upon the ledge of Gibraltar,--unlike an ape in this respect, that he
was talking with great solemnity, and also that he wore gloves, which
had once on a time been white. The rest were bareheaded, but all were
fitted out with mustachios, either real or fictitious, for I had my
doubts of the soft, dark tassels of the Stylites, as his own pate was
covered with hemp,--it cannot have been hair. Despite its
grotesqueness, this group, as I have said, attracted me, for there was
something in every one of the faces that set me at my ease, because
they appeared in earnest at their fun.

I came up to them as I made out their composition, and they one and
all regarded me with calm, not malicious, indifference. They were very
boyish for young men, and very manly for young boys, certainly; and
remained, as to their respective ages, a mystery. The gentleman on the
pedestal did not even pause until he came to a proper climax,--for he
was delivering an oration,--and I arrived in time to hear the
sentence so significant: "So that all who in verity apply themselves
to science will find themselves as much at a loss without a body as
without a soul, for the animal property nourisheth and illustrateth
the spiritual, and the spiritual would be of no service without the
animal, any more than should the flame that eateth the wood burn in an
empty stove, or than the soup we have eaten for dinner should be soup
without the water that dissolved the component nutritives."

Here he came to a full stop, and gazed upon me through sharp-shaped
orbs. Meantime I had drawn out my certificate and handed it up to him.
He took it between those streaky gloves, and having fixed a horn-set
glass into his one eye, shut up the other and perused the paper. I
don't know why I gave it to him in particular, except that he was very
high up, and had been speaking. But I had not done wrong, for he
finished by bowing to me with exceeding patronage.

"One of us, I presume?"

"Credentials!" groaned one who was, as I had supposed, asleep. But my
patron handed me very politely my envelope, and gravely returned to
the treatment of his theme,--whatever that might have been. Nobody
appeared to listen except his twain supporters, and they only seemed
attentive because they were thoroughly fumigated, and had their senses
under a spell. The rest began to yawn, to sneer, and to lift their
eyes, or rather the lids of them. I need scarcely say I felt very
absurd, and at last, on the utterance of an exceedingly ridiculous
peroration from the orator, I yielded at once to the impulse of
timidity, and began to laugh. The effect was of sympathetic magnetism.
Everybody whose lips were disengaged began to laugh too; and finally,
those very somnolent machines, that the benches propped, began to
stir, to open misty glances, and to grin like purgatorial saints. This
laugh grew a murmur, the murmur a roar, and finally the supporters
themselves, fairly shaking, became exhausted, staggered, and let the
pedestal glide slowly forwards. The theorist must certainly have
anticipated such a crisis, for he spread his arms and took a flying
jump from that summit, descending elegantly and conveniently as a cat
from a wall upon the boarded floor.

"Schurke!"[1] said he to me, and held me up a threatening hand; but,
seized with a gleeful intention, I caught at it, and with one pull
dragged off his glove. The member thus exposed was evidently petted by
its head, for it was dainty and sleek, and also garnished with a
blazing ring; and he solemnly held it up to contemplate it, concluding
such performance by giving one fixed stare to each nail in particular.
Then he flew at me in a paroxysm of feigned fierceness; but I had
already flung the glove to the other end of the hall. The whole set
broke into a fresh laugh, and one said, "Thou mightest have sent it up
to the beard there, if thou hadst only thought of it."

"Never too late, Mareschal!" cried another, as he made a stride to
fetch the glove, which, however, lay three or four strides off. He
gathered it up at last, crumpled it in his hand, and threw it high
against the wall. It just missed the picture though, and fell at the
feet of two perambulators arm-in-arm, one of whom stood upon the glove
till the other pushed him off, and gave the forlorn kidling a
tremendous kick that sent it farther than ever from the extempore
target. There was now a gathering and rush of a dozen towards it.
They tore it one from the other again; and, once more flinging it
high,--this time successfully,--it hit that panelled portrait just
upon the nose. A shout, half revengeful, half triumphant, echoed
through the hall; but the game was not at its height.

"Gloves out, everybody!" cried several; and from all the pockets
present, as it seemed, issued a miscellaneous supply. Very innocently,
I gave up a pair of old wool ones that I happened to have with me; and
soon, very soon, a regular systematized pelting commenced of that
reverend representation in its recess.

I am very sure I thought it all fun at first; and as there is nothing
I like so well as fun after music, I lent myself quite freely to the
sport. About fifty pairs of gloves were knotted and crumpled, pair by
pair, into balls, and whoever scrambled fastest secured the most. As
the unsuccessful shots fell back, they were caught by uplifted hands
and banged upwards with tenfold ardor, and no one was so ardent and
risibly dignified as the worthy of the pedestal. He behaved as if some
valuable stake were upon his every throw; and further, I observed that
after the game once began, nobody, except myself, laughed. It was, at
least, for half an hour that the banging, accompanied by a tremulous
hissing, continued. I myself laughed so much that I could not throw,
but I stood to watch the others. So high was the picture placed that
very few were the missiles to reach it; and such as touched the
time-seared canvas elicited an excitement I could neither realize nor
respond to. All at once it struck me as very singular they should pelt
that particular spot on the wall, and I instantly conjectured them to
be inimical to the subject of the delineation. I was just making up my
mind to inquire, when the great door hoarsely creaked, and a voice
was heard, quite in another key from the murmurous shout, to penetrate
my ear at that distance, so that I immediately responded,--"Has Carl
Auchester arrived?"

There was no reply, nor any suspension of the performance on hand,
except on my part. But for me I turned, gladly, yet timorously, and
joined the speaker in a moment. He greeted me with what appeared to me
an overawing polish, though, in fact, it was but the result of
temperament not easily aroused. He was very slim and fair, and though
not tall, gave me the impression of one very much more my senior than
he really was. He held his arm as a kind of barrier between me and the
door until I was safely out of the hall; then said to me, in a tone of
chill but still remonstrance,--

"Why did you go in there? That was not a good beginning."

"Sir," I replied, not stammered, for I felt my cause was good, "how
was I to know I ought not to go in there? It seemed quite the proper
place, with all those Cecilians about; and, besides, no one told me
where else to go. But if I did wrong, I won't go in there again, and I
certainly have not been harmed yet."

"You must go there at times; it is there you will have to eat. But a
few who are really students hold aloof from the rest, who idle
whenever they are not strictly employed, as you have had reason to
notice. I was induced to come and look for you, of whom I should
otherwise have no knowledge, in obedience to the Chevalier Seraphael's
request that I should do so."

"Did he really remember me in that manner? How good, how angelic!" I
cried. And yet I did not quite find my new companion charming; his
irresistible quiescence piqued me too much, though he was anything
but haughty.

"Yes, he is good, and was certainly very good to bear in mind one so
young as you are; I hope you will reward his kindness. He gives us
great hopes of you."

"Are you a professor, sir?" I asked, half afraid of my own impulse.

"I am _your_ professor," he announced, with that same distance. "I am
first violin."

I did not know whether I was pleased or sorry at that instant, for I
could detect no magnetic power that he possessed, and rather shrank
from contact with him at present. He led me up many stairs,--a side
staircase, quite new, built steeper and narrower than the principal
flight. He led me along thwart passages, and I beheld many doors and
windows too; for light and air both reigned in these regions, which
were fresh, and smelled of health. He led me into a chamber so
lengthened that it was almost a gallery, for it was very high besides.
Here he paused to exhibit a suite of prophets' chambers, one after the
other completely to the end; for in every division was a little bed, a
bench, and washing-table, with a closet closed by hasps of wood. The
uniform arrangement struck me as monotonous, but academical. My guide,
for the first time, smiled, but very slightly, and explained,--

"This is my division,--_les petits violons_, you know, Auchester; you
may see the numbers on every alcove. And here you practise, except
when met in class or at lecture. Your number is 13, and you are very
nearly in the middle. See, you have a curtain to draw before your bed,
and in this closet there is a box for books, as well as a niche for
your instrument, and abundant room for clothes, unless you bring more
than you can possibly want. The portmanteau and chest, which were
brought this morning, you may keep here, if you please, as well."

I did not thank him, for I was pre-occupied with an infernal
suggestion to my brain, which I revealed in my utter terror.

"Oh, sir, do we all practise together, then? What a horrible noise!
and how impossible to do anything so! I can't, I know!"

Another half-smile curled the slender brown moustache.

"It was indeed so in the times I can still remember. But see how much
more than you can own you are indebted to this Chevalier Seraphael!"

He walked to the wall opposite the alcove, and laying hold of a brass
ring I had not noticed, drew out a long slide of wood, very thick and
strong, which shut one in from side to side.

"There is such a one to every bed," continued he; "and if you draw
them on either hand, you will hear nothing, at least nothing to
disturb you. Come away now; I have not much time to spare, and must
leave you elsewhere."

He led me from the chambers, and down the stairs again, and here and
there, so that I heard an organ playing in one region, and voices that
blended again to another idea; and then all was stillness, except the
rustle of his gown. But before I could make up my mind to approve or
criticise the arrangements which struck me on every hand, I found
myself in another room,--this vaulted, and inspiring as nothing I had
met with in that place. How exquisite was the radiant gloom that here
pervaded within, as within a temple; for the sunshine pierced through
little windows of brown and amber, and came down in wavering dusky
brightness on parchment hues and vellum, morocco, and ruddy gold. Here
a thick matting returned no footfall; and although the space was
small, and very crowded too, yet it had an air of vastness, from the
elevated concave of the roof. Benches were before each bookcase, that
presented its treasury of dread tomes and gigantic scores; also
reading-desks; and besides such furniture, there were the quaintest
little stalls between each set of shelves,--shrine-like niches one
could just sit in, or even at pleasure lie along; for seats were in
them of darkest polished wood. Some were already occupied, and their
occupants were profoundly quiet,--perhaps studying, perhaps asleep.

"Here," observed my guide, "you are only allowed to come and remain in
silence. If one word be spoken in the library, expulsion of the
speaker follows. The book-keeper sits out there," pointing to an
erection like a watch-box, "and hears, and is to observe all. You may
use any book in this place, but never carry it away; and if required
for quotation as well as for reference, you may here make your
extracts, but never elsewhere. There are ink-bottles in every desk.
And if you take my advice, you will remain here until the supper-bell;
for while here, you will at least be out of mischief. We are not
to-day in full routine; but that makes it the more dangerous to be at
large."

"Will you set me some task, then, sir? I do want something to be at."

He seemed only to sneer at such a desire. "Nonsense! there is enough
for to-day in mastering all those names;" and he took down a catalogue
and handed it to me.

I ran into one of those dear, dark recesses, and there he left me.

When he had gone, I did not open my book for a time. I was in a highly
wrought mood, which was induced by that sombre-tinted, struggling
sunshine, whose beams played high in the ceiling, like fireflies in a
cedar shade, so fretted and so far. It was delicious as a dream to be
safe and solitary in that dim palace of futurity, whose vistas
stretched before me into everlasting lengths of light. I read not for
a long, long hour; and when I did open my book (itself no mean volume
as to size), I was bewildered and bedimmed by a swarm of names, both
of works and authors, I had never heard of,--Huygens, Martini, Euler,
Pfeiffer, and Marpurg alone meeting me as distant acquaintances, and
Cherubini as a dear old friend.

This was, in fact, a _catalogue raisonné_, and I was not in a very
rational mood. I therefore shut the book, and began to pace the
library. It is extraordinary how intense is the power of application
in the case of those who are apprenticed to a master they can worship
as well as serve. I thought so then. Nothing could divert the
attention of those supine students in the recesses, nor of the scribes
at the desks. I went quite close to many of them, and could have
looked into their eyes, but that they were, for the most part, closed;
and I should have accused them of being asleep but that their lips
were moving, and I knew they were learning by heart. Great
black-letter was the characteristic of one huge volume I stayed to
examine as it lay upon a desk, and he who sat before it had a face
sweeter than any present, sensible as interesting; and I did not fear
him, though his eyes were wide open and alert. He was making copious
extracts, and as I peeped between the pages he held by his thumb and
a slight forefinger, he observed me and gave me a smile, at the same
time turning back the title-page for my inspection. That was encircled
by a wreath of cherubs' faces for flowers, and musical instruments for
leaves, old and droll as the title, "Caspar Bartholin, his Treatise on
the Wind Music of the Ancients."

I smiled then, and nodded, to express my thanks; but a moment
afterwards he wrote for me, on a sheet in his blotting-case, which he
carried with him,--

"We may write, though we may not speak. Are you just arrived?"

He handed me the pen to answer, and I wrote: "Only an hour or two ago;
and I got into a scrape directly. I am Carl Auchester, from England;
but I am not English. What is your name?"

He smiled warmly as he read, and thus our correspondence proceeded:
"Franz Delemann. What was your scrape? I wonder you had one, now I
know your name."

"Why?" I replied. "There is no reason why I should keep clear any more
than another; but I went into the great hall, where so many of them
were about, and they made a great noise, for they were pelting the
picture that is on the wall; and while I was helping them, just for
fun, the gentleman who brought me in here fetched me out, and said it
was a bad beginning."

"That was his way of putting it," resumed my new associate. "He is
very matter-of-fact, that Anastase, but I know what he meant. We are a
very small party, and the rest persecute us. They would have been glad
to get you over to their side, because it would have been such a
triumph for them,--coming first, as you did come."

Oh! how I did scribble in response. "I have not an idea what you mean.
Pray tell me quickly."

"The Chevalier Seraphael took the place here of somebody very unlike
him. I thought the Cerinthias had told you."

"The what?"

"The Fräulein who came in with you the day of the concert, who came to
the pavilion with Seraphael and yourself, was one of the Cerinthias. I
thought, of course, you knew all; for her words are better than any
one's, and you had been together,--so she told me afterwards."

"Is she Cerinthia? What a queer name!"

"They are a queer set, though I don't suppose there ever was such a
set. The brother and the two sisters appear to possess every natural
gift among them. The father was a great singer and celebrated master,
but not a German. He came here to secure their education in a certain
style, and just as he got here, he died. Then the brother, though they
had not a penny among them all, made way by his extraordinary talent;
and as he could play on any instrument, he was admitted to the second
place in the band, and his sister was taken upon the foundation.
Milans-André made a great deal of their being here, though it was
perfectly natural, _I_ think. The youngest had been put out to nurse,
and kept in some province of France until old enough to be admitted
also; but then something happened which changed that notion. For when
Seraphael took the place of Milans-André, he had every arrangement
investigated, that he might improve to the utmost; and it was
discovered--after this fashion--that this Maria Cerinthia had been
allowed to occupy a room which was inferior to all the others. I think
the rain came in, but I am not sure of that,--I only know it was out
of the way and wretched. Seraphael was exceedingly vexed, almost in a
passion, but turned it into amusement, as he does so often before
others when he is serious at heart. He had the room turned into what
it was just fit for,--a closet for fagots.

"Then this proud Cerinthia--the brother, I mean, whose name, by the
way, is Joseph--took offence himself; and declaring no arrangement
should be altered on account of his sister, took her away, and had a
lodging in the village instead. She comes here every day at the same
time, and is what we call an out-Cecilian,--never staying to meals or
to sleep, that is. Seraphael took no notice; and I was rather
surprised to discover that he has been to see them several
times,--because, you see, I thought _he_ was proud in his way to have
his generosity rejected."

"Does he like them so very much, then?"

"He ought."

Now, I wanted to be very angry at the intimation, but my informant had
too expressive a face; so I merely added, "They are then very
wonderful?"

"They are all wonderful, and the little one, who is not quite eight
years old (for she has come to live with them since they lived alone),
is a prodigy, but not beautiful, like the one you saw."

"_She_ is, I suppose, the cleverest in all the house?"

"She must be so; but is so very quiet one does not hear about her,
except at the close of the semester, when she carries off the
medals,--for everything of the best belongs to her. She is a vocalist,
and studies, of course, in the other wing; we never meet the ladies,
you know, except in public."

"Oh! of course not. Now, do tell me what you mean about the two
parties."

"I mean that when Milans-André went away no one knew how much mischief
he had done. His whole system was against Bach, and this is properly a
school for Bach. He could not eradicate the foundation, and he could
not confess his dislike against our master in so many words. The only
thing was to introduce quite a new style, or I am sure it might be
called 'school,' for he has written such an immense deal. It was an
opera of his, performed in this town, that at once did for him as far
as those were concerned whom he had deceived, and that determined us
not to submit ourselves any longer. He was becoming so unpopular that
he was too happy to resign. Still, he left a number for himself behind
him greater than those who had risen against him."

"Tell me about that opera, pray. You write interesting letters, sir."

"I have interesting matter, truly. The opera was called 'Emancipation;
or, the Modern Orpheus.' The overture took in almost all of us, it was
so well put together; but I fancy you would not have approved of it,
somehow. The theatre here is very small, and was quite filled by our
own selves and a few artists,--not one amateur, for it was produced in
rehearsal. The scenery was very good, the story rambling and fiendish;
but we thought it fairy-like. There was a perfect hit in the hero, who
was a monstrous fiddle-player, to represent whom he had Paganini, as
he had not to speak a word. The heroines, who were three in number,
were a sort of musical nuns, young ladies dedicated to the art; but
they, first one, then another, fell in with the fiddler, and finding
him, became enamoured of him. He condescends to listen to the first
while she sings, or rather he comes upon her as she is singing the
coolest of all Bach's solos in the coolest possible style. He waits
till the end with commendable patience, and then, amidst infernal
gesticulations, places before her a cantata of his own, which is
something tremendous when accompanied by the orchestra. The contrasted
style, with the artful florid instrumentation, produces rapture, and
is really an _effect_, though I do not say of what kind. The next
heroine he treats to a grand scena, in which the violin is absolutely
made to speak; and as it was carried through by Paganini, you may
conjecture it was rather bewitching. The last lady he bears off
fairly, and they converse in an outlandish duet between the voice of
the lady and the violin. I can give you no outline of the plan, for
there is no plot that I could find afterwards, but merely the heads of
each part. Next comes a tumble-down church, dusty, dark, repelling to
the idea from the beginning; and you are aware of the Lutheran service
which is being droned through as we are not very likely to hear it, in
fact. By magic the scene dissolves; colored lights break from tapering
windows; arches rise and glitter like rainbows; altar-candles blaze
and tremble; crimson velvet and rustling satin fill the Gothic stalls
on either side; and while you are trying to gather in the picture, the
Stabat Mater bursts out in strains about as much like weeping as all
the mummery is like music.

"The last scene of all is a kind of temple where priests and
priestesses glide in spangled draperies, while the hierarch is hidden
behind a curtain. Busts and statues, that I suppose are intended for
certain masters, but whom it is not very easy to identify, as they are
ill fashioned and ill grouped, are placed in surrounding shrines. At
strains for signs from that curtained chief, the old heads and figures
are prostrated from the pedestals, the ruins are swept aside by some
utilitarian angel, and the finale consists in a great rush of
individuals masked, who crown the newly inaugurated statue of the
elevated Orpheus, and then dance around him to the ballet music, which
is accompanied by the chorus also, who sing his praise.

"It was very exciting while it went on,--as exciting to see as it is
absurd to remember; and there was nothing for it but applause upon the
spot. When the curtain fell, and we were crushing and pressing to get
out, having been hardly able to wake ourselves up, and yet feeling the
want that succeeds enjoyment or excitement that goes no further,--you
know how,--one chord sounded behind the curtain from one instrument
within the orchestra. It arrested us most curiously; it was mystical,
as we call it, though so simple: enough to say that under those
circumstances it seemed a sound from another sphere. It continued and
spread,--it was the People's Song you heard the day you first came to
us. It was once played through without vocal illustration, but we all
knew the words, and began to sing them.

"We were singing still in a strange sort of roar I can't describe to
you, when the music failed, and the curtain was raised on one side.
He--Seraphael, whom we knew not then--stood before us for the first
time. You know how small he is: as he stood there he looked like a
child of royal blood, his head quite turned me, it was so beautiful;
and we all stood with open mouths to see him, hoping to hear him
speak. He spread out those peculiar hands of his, and said, in his
sweet, clear voice: 'That song, oh ladies and gentlemen, which you
have shown you love so well, is very old, and you do not seem to be
aware that it is so, nor of its author. Who wrote it, made it for us,
think you?'

"His beauty and his soft, commanding voice had just the effect you
will imagine,--everybody obeyed him. One and another exclaimed,
'Hasse!' 'Vogler!' 'Hegel!' 'Storace!' 'Weber!' But it was clear the
point had not been contested. Then he folded his arms together and
laid them on his breast, with a very low bow that brought all the hair
into his eyes. Then he shook back the curls and laughed.

"'It is _Bach_, my dear and revered Sebastian Bach,--of all the Bachs
alone _the_ Bach; though indeed to any one Bach, one of us present is
not fit to hold a candle. You do not love Bach,--I do. You do not
reverence him,--he is in my religion. You do not understand him,--I am
very intimate with him. If you knew him, you too would love and
worship and desire of him to know more and more. Ladies and gentlemen,
you are all just. He has no one to take his part, as has your
nondescript modern Orpheus. I shall give a lecture on Bach in this
theatre to-morrow evening. Everybody comes in free. Only come!'

"Who could refuse him? Who could have refused him as he stood there,
and flying behind the curtain, peeped again between the folds of it
and bowed? Besides, there was a strong curiosity at work,--a curiosity
of which many were ashamed. Do I tire you?"

"More likely yourself. Do finish about the lecture."

"The supper-bell will be soon ringing, and will shake the story out of
me, so I must make haste. I can tell it you properly some time. The
next evening there was such a crowd at the door that they kicked it
in, and stood listening outside. The curtain was done away with, and
we never could make out how that organ came there which towered
behind; but there it stood, and a pianoforte in front. The Chevalier
appeared dressed in black, with nothing in his arms but a heap of
programmes, written in his own hand, which he distributed himself, for
he had no assistant. You know that Forkel has written a life of Bach?
Well, I have since read this, and have been puzzled to find how such a
poem as we listened to could have sprung from the prose of those dry
memoirs. The voice was enough, if it had not said what it did say,--so
delicious a voice to hear that no one stirred for fear of losing it.

"I cannot give you the slightest outline; but I have never read any
romance so brilliant, nor any philosophy that I could so take into
myself. The illustrations were fugue upon fugue. Oh, to hear that
organ with its grand interpretations, and the silver voice between!
and study upon study for the harpsichord that from the new pianoforte
seemed to breathe its old excitement--chorale upon chorale--until,
with that song restored to its own proper form, it ended,--I mean, the
lecture. I cannot say, though, about the ending, for I was obliged to
leave before it was over; the clear intellect was too much for me, and
the genius knocked me down. Many others left upon my very heels; but
those who stayed seemed hardly to recall a word that had been said.
All were so impressed, for that night, at least, that I can remember
nothing to compare with it, except the descriptions in your English
divinity books of the revivals in religion of your country. The next
day, however, the scoffers found their tongues again, and only we to
whom the whole affair had appeared on the occasion itself a dream,
awoke to a reality that has never left us. We have not been the same
since, and that is one reason we were so anxious you should be one
with the students of Bach even before you knew what you must
profess."

"Oh! I come from a good school, for Aronach is full of Bach. But do
tell me about the others."

"The Andréites, as they call themselves, are not precisely inimical to
Seraphael,--that would be impossible, he is so companionable, so free
and truly great; but they, one and all, slight Bach, and as some of
them are professors, and we all study under the professor of our voice
or instrument in particular, it is a pity for the fresh comers to fall
into the wrong set."

"But I am safe, at least, for I am certain that Anastase is of the
right school."

"The very best; he is a Seraphaelite. They call us Seraphaelites, and
we like it; but Seraphael does not like it, so we only use the word
now for parole,--Bruderschaft."[2]

"Why, I wonder, does he not like it?"

"Because he is too well bred."

Oh, how I enjoyed that expression! It reminded me of Lenhart Davy and
his sayings. I was just going to intrude another question when my
intention was snapped by the ringing of the bell, which made a most
imposing noise. The sound caused a sudden rush and rustle through the
library; gowned and ungowned figures forsook the nooks and benches,
and they each and all put by their books as deftly, dexterously as
Millicent used to lay her thimble into her work-box when she was a wee
maiden. They did not stare at me at all, which was very satisfactory;
and I found occasion to admire all their faces. I told my companion
so, and he laughed, rubbing his eyes and stretching; then he put his
arm about my neck in strict fraternal fashion, which gratified me
exceedingly, and not the less because he was evidently by several
years my elder. We left the library together, and right rejoiced was
I to hear myself speak again; the first thing that occurred to me to
say, I said: "Oh! I wanted so much to know what is your instrument."

"I don't think I shall tell you," he replied, in a guileless voice,
interesting as his behavior and language.

"Why not? I must know it at last, must I not?"

"Perhaps you will not think so well of me, when you know what I exist
for."

"That would make no difference, for every instrument is as great with
reference to others as some are in themselves."

"Seraphael could not have put it better. I play the trombone. It is a
great sacrifice at present."

"But," I returned, "I have not heard the instrument,--is it not a
splendid sort of trumpet? You mean it is not good for solos?"

"It is quite to itself,--a mere abstraction considered by itself; but
to the orchestra what red is to the rainbow."

"I know who said that. He puts brass last, I see."

"Oh, you are a thief! You know everything already. Yes, he does put
the violet first."

"The violin? Yes, so he called it to me; but I did not know he was
fond of calling it so."

"It is one of his theories. It was, however, one day after he had been
expounding it to a few of us who were fortunate enough to be present,
when he was glancing through the class-rooms, that he put up his
hands, and in his bright way, you know, scattering your reasoning
faculties like a burst of sunshine, said, 'Oh, you must not entertain
a word I have said to you,--it is only to be dreamed.'"

"What did he say? What had he said? Do, pray, out with it, or I cannot
eat, I am sure."

We were just outside the hall doorway now; within were light and a
hundred voices mingled. Into the dusk he gave his own, and I took it
safely home in silence.

"His theory,--oh, it was in this way! Strings first, of course,
violet, indigo, blue,--violin, violoncello, double-bass,--upon these
you repose; the vault is quite perfect. Green, the many-sounded kinds
of wood, spring-hued flutes, deeper, yet softer, clarinetti, bassoons
the darkest tone, not to be surpassed in its shade,--another vault.
The brass, of course, is yellow; and if the horns suggest the paler
dazzle, the trumpets take the golden orange, and the red is left for
the trombones,--vivid, or dun and dusk."[3]

"Oh, my goodness! I don't wonder he said it was a dream!"

"It certainly would be dangerous to think of it in any other light!"

"And you a German!" I cried. "Did you think I meant it?"

"You would mean it," he retorted, "if you knew what lip-distorting
and ear-distracting work it is practising this same trombone."

"But what is your reason, then, for choosing it, when you might choose
_mine_?"

"Do you not know that Seraphael has written as no one else for the
trombone? And he was heard to sigh, and to say, 'I shall never find
any one to play these passages!'"

"Oh, Delemann! and that was the reason you took it up? How I love you
for it!"

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Wretch.

[2] Brotherhood.

[3] The theory of the correspondence of tones and colors is an old
one. Gardner, in his "Music of Nature," traces it in the following
manner, which will be interesting as contrasted with the above:--

WIND INSTRUMENTS.

      Trombone--deep red.
      Trumpet--scarlet.
      Clarinet--orange.
      Oboe--yellow.
      Bassoon--deep yellow.
      Flute--sky blue.
      Diapason--deeper blue.
      Double diapason--purple.
      Horn--violet.

STRINGED INSTRUMENTS.

      Violin--pink.
      Viola--rose.
      Violoncello--red.
      Double-bass--crimson.

Laura Bridgman, the blind and deaf mute, it will be remembered,
likened the tone of the trumpet to scarlet.




CHAPTER II.


All lives have their prose translation as well as their ideal meaning;
how seldom _this_ escapes in language worthy, while _that_ tells best
in words. I was a good deal exhausted for several days after I entered
the school, and saw very little except my own stuntedness and
deficiency in the mirror of contemplation. For Anastase took me to
himself awfully the first morning, all alone; examined me, tortured
me, made me blush and hesitate and groan; bade me be humble and
industrious; told me I was not so forward as I might be; drenched me
with medicinal advices that lowered my mental system; and, finally,
left me in possession of a minikin edition of what I had conceived
myself the day before, but which he deprived me of at present, if not
annihilated forever.

It was doubtless a very good thing to go back to the beginning, if he
intended to re-create me; but it happened that such transmutation
could not take place twice, and it had already occurred once. Still, I
was absolved from obvious discomfiture to the regenerator by my silent
adaptations to his behavior.

That which would assuredly become a penance to the physique in dark or
wintry weather, remained still a charming matutinal romance; namely,
that we all rose at four o'clock, except any one who might be
delicate, and that we practised a couple of hours before we got
anything to eat,--I mean formally, for, in fact, we almost all
smuggled into our compartments wherewithal to keep off the natural,
which might not amalgamate with the spiritual, constraining appetite.
Those early mornings were ineffaceably effective for me; I advanced
more according to my desires than I had ever advanced before, and I
laid up a significant store of cool, sequestered memories. I could,
however, scarcely realize my own existence under these circumstances,
until the questioner within me was subdued to "contemplation" by my
first "adventure."

I had been a week in durance, if not vile, very void, for I had seen
nothing of the Cerinthias nor of their interesting young advocate,
except at table,--though certainly on these latter occasions we
surfeited ourselves with talk that whetted my curiosity to a double
edge. On the first Sunday, however, I laid hold of him coming out of
church, when we had fulfilled our darling duties in the choir,--for
the choir of our little perfect temple, oak-shaded and sunlit, was
composed entirely of Cecilians, and I have not time in this place to
dilate upon its force and fulness. Delemann responded joyously to my
welcome; and when I asked him what was to be our task on Sunday, he
answered that the rest of the day was our own, and that if I pleased
we would go together and call upon that Maria and her little sister,
of whom I knew all that could be gained out of personal intercourse.

"Just what I wished," said I; "how exactly you guessed it!"

"Oh, but I wanted to go myself!" answered Franz, laughing, "for I have
an errand thither;" and together we quitted the church garden, with
its sheltering lime shadow, for the sultry pavement.

It cannot have been five minutes that we walked, before we came in
front of one of those narrowest and tallest of the droll abodes I was
pretty well used to now, since I had lived with Aronach. We went
upstairs, too, in like style to that of the old apprentice home, and
even as there, did not rest until nearly at the top. Delemann knocked
at a door, and, as if perfectly accustomed to do so, walked in without
delay. The room we entered was slightly furnished, but singularly in
keeping with each other were the few ornaments, unsurpassably
effective. Also a light clearness threw up and out each decoration
from the delicate hue of the walls and the mild fresco of their
borders, unlike anything I had yet seen, and startling, in spite of
the simplicity of the actual accommodations, from their excelling
taste. Upon brackets stood busts, three or four, and a single vase of
such form that it could only have been purchased in Italy. At the
window were a couch and reading-desk, also a table ready prepared with
some kind of noonday meal; and at the opposite end of the apartment
rose from the polished floor the stove itself, entirely concealed
under lime-branches and oak-leaves. The room, too, was not untenanted,
for upon the couch, though making no use whatever of the desk, lay a
gentleman, who was reading, nevertheless, a French newspaper. He was
very fine,--grand-looking, I thought; his dress appeared courtly, so
courtly was his greeting. "You have not come for me, I know," he
observed to Delemann, having seated us; "but the girls, having dined,
are gone to rest: we don't find it easy to dispense with our siesta.
You will surely eat first, for you must be hungry, and I am but just
come in." He was, in fact, waiting for the soup, which swiftly
followed us; and so we sat down together. Franz then produced a little
basket, which I had noticed him to carry very carefully as we came
along; but he did not open it, he placed it by his side upon the
table. It was covered, and the cover was tied down with green ribbon.
I was instantly smitten curious; but a great stay to my curiosity was
the deportment of our host. I had seen a good many musicians by this
time, and found them every one the alone civilized and polished of the
human race; but there were evidences of supremacy in a few that I
detected not even in the superior many. Some had enthralled me more
than this young Cerinthia for I now know he was young, though at that
time he appeared extremely my elder, and I could have believed him
even aged; but there was about him an unassuming nobility that bespoke
the highest of all educations,--that according to the preparations and
purposes of nature. He seemed to live rationally, and I believe he
did, though he was not to the immediate perception large-hearted. He
ate, himself, with the frugality of Ausonia, but pressed us with
cordial attention; and for me, I enjoyed my dinner immensely, though I
had not come there to eat. Franz did not talk to him about his
sisters, as I should have perhaps wished, and I dared not mention
them, for there was that in Cerinthia's hazy, lustrous eyes that made
me afraid to be as audacious as my disposition permitted. Presently,
while we were drinking to each other, I heard little steps in the
passage; and as I expected an apparition, I was not surprised when
there entered upon those light feet a little girl, who, the first
moment reminded me of Laura, but not the next, for her face was unlike
as my own. She was very young, indeed, but had a countenance unusually
formed, though the head was infantine,--like enough to our entertainer
to belong to him, like as to delicacy of extremities and emerald
darkness of eye. She wore a short white frock and two beautiful plaits
of thick bright hair kept and dressed like that of a princess. She
took no notice of me, but courtesyed to Delemann with an alien air
most strange to me, and then ran past him to her brother, whom she
freely caressed, at the same time, as it were, to hide her face. "Look
up! my shy Josephine," said he, "and make another courtesy to that
young gentleman, who is a great friend and connoisseur of the
Chevalier Seraphael." Josephine looked back at me from beneath her
heavy eyelashes, but still did not approach. Then I said, "How is your
sister, Miss Josephine? I am only a little friend of the
Chevalier,--she is the great one."

"I know," replied she, in a sage child's voice, then looking up at her
brother, "Maria is tired, and will not come in here, Joseph."

"She is lying down, then?"

"No, she is brushing her hair." We all laughed at this.

"But run to tell her that Franz Delemann is here, and Carl Auchester
with him; or if you cannot remember this name, Delemann's alone will
do."

"But she knows, for we heard them come in, and she said she should
stay in her room; but that if Mr. Delemann had a letter for her I
might carry it there."

"I don't know whether there is a letter in here, Josephine, but this
basket came for her."

"How pretty!" said Josephine; and she stretched her tiny hand, a smile
just shining over her face that reminded me of her beautiful sister. I
saw she was anxious to possess herself of it, but I could not resist
my own desire to be the bearer.

"Let me take it to her!" I exclaimed impulsively. Cerinthia looked up,
and Franz, too, surprised enough; but I did not care, I rose. "She can
send me back again, if she is angry," I pleaded; and Cerinthia fairly
laughed.

"Oh, you may go! She will not send you back, though I should certainly
be sent back if _I_ took such a liberty."

"Neither would she admit me," said Delemann.

"Why, you came last Sunday," put in little Josephine and then she
looked at me, with one little finger to her lip.

"Come too!"

So we went, she springing before me to a door which she left ajar as
she entered, while I discreetly remained outside.

"May he come, Maria?" I heard her say; and then I heard that other
voice.

"Who, dear little Josephine,--which of them?"

"The little boy."

"The little boy!" she gave a kind of bright cry, and herself came to
the door. She opened it, and standing yet there, said, with the
loveliest manner, "You will not quarrel with this little thing! But
forgive her, and pray come in. It was kind to come all the way up
those stairs, which are steep as the road to fame."

"Is that steep?" I asked, for her style instantly excited me to a
rallying mood.

"Some say so," she replied,--"those who seek it. But come and rest."
And she led me by her flower-soft finger-tips to a sofa, also in the
light, as in the room I had quitted, and bathed in airs that floated
above the gardens, and downwards from the heavens into that window
also open. A curtain was drawn across the alcove at the end, and
between us and its folds of green, standing out most gracefully, was a
beautiful harp; there were also more books than I had seen in a
sitting-room since I left my Davy, and I concluded they had been
retrieved from her lost father's library. But upon the whole room
there was an atmosphere thrown neither from the gleaming harp nor
illustrating volumes; and as my eyes rested upon her, after roving
everywhere else, I could only wonder I had ever looked away. Her very
dress was such as would have become no other, and was that which she
herself invested with its charm. She wore a dark-blue muslin, darker
than the summer heaven, but of the self-same hue; this robe was worn
loosely, was laced in front over a white bodice. Upon those folds was
flung a shawl of some dense rose-color and an oriental texture, and
again over that shady brilliance fell the long hair, velvet-soft, and
darker than the pine-trees in the twilight. The same unearthly hue
slept in the azure-emerald of her divinely moulded eyes, mild and
liquid as orbed stars, and just as superhuman. The hair, thus
loosened, swept over her shoulder into her lap. There was not upon its
stream the merest ripple,--it was straight as long; and had it not
been so fine, must have wearied with its weight a head so small as
hers.

"What magnificent hair you have!" said I.

"It seems I was determined to make of it a spectacle. If I had known
you were coming, I should have put it out of the way; but whenever I
am lazy or tired, I like to play with it. The Chevalier calls it my
rosary."

I was at home directly.

"The Chevalier! Oh! have you seen him since that day?"

"Four, five, six times."

"And I have not seen him once."

"You shall see him eight, nine, ten times. Never mind! He comes to see
me, you know, out of that kindness whose prettiest name is charity."

"Where is he now?" I inquired, impatient of that remark of hers.

"Now? I do not know. He has been away a fortnight, conducting
everywhere. Have you not heard?"

"No,--what?"

"Of the Mer de Glace overture and accompaniments?"

"I have not heard a word."

She took hold of her hair and stroked it impatiently; still, there was
such sweetness in her accent as made me doubt she was angry.

"I told Florimond to tell you. He always forgets those things!"

I looked up inquiringly; there was that in her eye which might be the
light of an unfallen tear.

"But I don't know who you mean."

"I am glad not. How silly I am! Oh, _madre mia_! this hot weather
softens the brain, I do believe,--I should never have done it in the
winter. And all this time I have been wondering what is that basket
upon which Josephine seems to have set her whole soul."

"It is for you," said Josephine.

"Oh," I exclaimed, "how careless I am! Yes, but I do not know who it
comes from. Franz brought it."

"Young Delemann? Oh, thank him, please! I know very well. Here, then,
_piccola, carina_! you shall have to open it. Where are the ivory
scissors?"

"Oh, how exquisite!" I cried; for I knew she meant those tiny fingers.

"Exquisite, is it? It is again from the Chevalier."

"Did he say so? I thought it like him; but you are so like him."

"I well, I believe you are right,--there is a kind of likeness."

She raised her eyes, so full of lustre, that I even longed for the
lids to fall. The brilliant smile, like the most ardent sunlight, had
spread over her whole face. I forgot her strange words in her
unimaginable expression, until she spoke again. All this while the
little one was untwisting the green bands which were passed over and
under the basket. At length the cover was lifted: there were seven or
eight immense peaches. I had thought there must be fruit within, from
the exhaling scent, but still I was surprised. There was no letter.
This disappointed me; but there were fresh leaves at the very bottom.
My chief companion took out these, and laid each peach upon a leaf:
her fingers shone against the downy blush. She presented me with one
after another. "Pray eat them, or as many as you can; I do not eat
fruit to-day, for it is too hot weather, and _she_ must not eat so
many." I instantly began to eat, and made efforts to do even more than
I ought. Josephine carried off her share on a doll's plate. Then her
sister rose and took in a birdcage from outside the window, where it
had hung, but I had not seen it. There was within it a small bird, and
dull enough it looked until she opened the door, when it fluttered to
the bars, hopped out, stood upon a peach, and then, espying me, flew
straight into her bosom. It lay there hidden for some minutes, and she
covered and quite concealed it with her lovely little hand. I said,--

"Is it afraid of me? Shall I go?"

"Oh dear no!" she replied; "it does like you, and is only shy. Do you
never wish to be hidden when you see those you like?"

"I never have yet, but I daresay I shall, now I come to think about
it."

"You certainly will. This silly little creature is not yet quite sure
of us; that is it."

"Where did it come from?"

"It came from under the rye-stacks. He--that is always the Chevalier,
you know--was walking through the rye-fields when the moon was up; the
reapers had all gone home. He heard a small cry withering under the
wheat, and stayed to listen. Most men would not have heard such a weak
cry; no man would have stayed to listen, except one, perhaps, besides.
He put aside all the loose ears, and he found under them--for it could
not move--this wretched lark, with its foot broken,--broken by the
sickle."

There was no quiver of voice or lip as she spoke. I mention this
merely because I am not fond of the mere sentiment almost all women
infuse into the sufferings of inferior creatures, while those with
loftier claims and pains are overlooked. She went on,--

"How do you think he took it up? He spread his handkerchief over the
stubble, and shelled a grain or two, which he placed within reach of
the lark upon the white table-cloth. The lark tried very hard, and
hopped with its best foot to reach the grains, then he drew the four
corners together, and brought it here to me. I thought it would die,
but it has not died; and now it knows me, and has no mind to go away."

"Does it know him?"

"Not only so, but for him alone will it sing. I let it fly one day
when its foot was well; but the next morning I found it outside the
window pecking at its cage-wires, and it said, 'Take me back again, if
you please.'"

"That is like the Chevalier too. But you _are_ like him; I suppose it
is being so much with him."

"And yet I never saw him till the first day I saw you, and you had
seen him long before. I think it must be dead, it is so still."

Hereupon she uncovered the lark's head; it peeped up, and slowly, with
sly scrutiny, hopped back to the peach and began to feed, driving in
its little bill. I wanted to know something now, and my curiosity in
those days had not so much as received a wholesome check, much less a
quietus; and therefore presumptuously demanded,--

"Who was the somebody, Fräulein Cerinthia, that might stop to listen
to a bird's cry besides the Chevalier. You stopped."

"And that is why you wished to know. I had better have said it in the
right place. Did anybody ever tell you you are audacious? It was
Florimond Anastase."

"My master!" and I clapped my hands.

"Mine, sir, if you please."

"But he teaches me the violin."

"And he does not teach me the violin, but is yet my master."

"How, why?"

"I belong to him, or shall."

"Do you mean that you are married to Anastase?"

"Not yet, or I should not be here."

"But you will be?"

"Yes,--that is, if nothing should happen to prevent our being
married."

"You like to be so, I suppose?"

She gazed up and smiled. Her eyes grew liquid as standing dew. "I will
not say you are again audacious, because you are so very innocent. I
do wish it."

"I said _like_, Fräulein Cerinthia."

"You can make a distinction too. Suppose I said, No."

"I should not believe you while you look so."

"And if I said, Yes, I daresay you would not believe me either. Dear
little Carl,--for I must call you little, you are so much less than
I,--do you really think I would marry, loving music as I do, unless I
really loved that which I was to marry more than music?"

So thrilling were her tones in these simple words, of such intensity
her deep glance, with its fringe all quivering now, that I was
alienated at once from her,--the child from the woman; yet could like
a child have wept too, when she bent her head and sobbed. "Could
anything be more beautiful?" I thought; and now, in pausing, my very
memory sobs, heavy laden with pathetic passion. For it was not exactly
sorrow, albeit a very woful bliss. She covered her eyes and gave way a
moment; then sweeping off the tears with one hand, she broke into a
smile. The shower ceased amidst the sunlight, but still the sunlight
served to fling a more peculiar meaning upon the rain-drops,--an iris
lustre beamed around her eyes. I can but recall that ineffable
expression, the April playing over the oriental mould.

"I might have known you would have spoken so, Fräulein Cerinthia," I
responded, at last roused to preternatural comprehension by her words;
"but so few people think in that way about those things."

"You are right, and agree with me, or at least you will one day. But
for that, all would be music here; we should have it all _our own
way_."

"You and the Chevalier. Do you know I had forgotten all about your
music till this very minute?"

"I am very happy to hear that, because it shows we are to be friends."

"We have the best authority to be so," I replied; "and it only seems
too good to be true. I am really, though, mad to hear you sing.
Delemann says there never was in Europe a voice like yours, and that
its only fault is it is so heavenly that it makes one discontented."

"That is one of the divinest mistakes ever made, Carlino."

"The Chevalier calls me Carlomein. I like you to say 'Carlino,' it is
so coaxing."

"You have served me with another of your high authorities, Maestrino.
The Chevalier says I have scarcely a voice at all; it is the way I
sing he likes."

"I did not think it possible. And yet, now I come to consider, I don't
think you look so much like a singer as another sort of musician."

She smiled a little, and looked into her lap, but did not reply. It
struck me that she was too intuitively modest to talk about herself.
But I could not help endeavoring to extort some comment, and I went
on.

"I think you look too much like a composer to be a singer also."

"Perhaps," she whispered.

I took courage. "Don't you mean to be a composer, Fräulein Cerinthia?"

"Carlino, yes. The Chevalier says that to act well is to compose."

"But then," I proceeded hastily, "my sister--at least Mr. Davy--at
least--you don't know who I mean, but it does not matter,--a gentleman
who is very musical told me and my sister that the original purpose of
the drama is defeated in England, and that instead of bringing the
good out of the beautiful, it produces the artificial out of the
false,--those were his very words; he was speaking of the _music_ of
operas, though, I do remember, and perhaps I made some mistake."

"I should think not."

"In England it is very strange, is it not, that good people, really
good people, think the opera a dreadful place to be seen in, and the
theatres worse? My sister used to say it was so very unnatural, and it
seems so."

"I have heard it is so in England,--and really, after all, I don't so
much wonder; and perhaps it is better for those good people you spoke
of to keep away. It is not so necessary for them to go as for us. And
this is it, as I have heard, and you will know how, when I have said
it to you. Music is the soul of the drama, for the highest drama is
the opera,--the highest possible is the soul, of course; and so the
music should be above the other forms, and they the ministers. But
most people put the music at the bottom, and think of it last in this
drama. If the music be high, all rise to it; and the higher it is, the
higher will all rise. So, the dramatic personification passes
naturally into that spiritual height, as the forms of those we love,
and their fleeting actions fraught with grace, dissolve into our
strong perception of the soul we in them love and long for. The lights
and shades of scenery cease to have any meaning in themselves, but
again are drawn upwards into the concentrated performing souls, and so
again pass upwards into the compass of that tonal paradise. But let
the music be degraded or weak, and down it will pull performers,
performance, and intention, crush the ideal, as persons without music
crush _our_ ideal,--have you not felt? All dramatic music is not thus
weak and bad, but much that they use most is vague as well as void. I
am repeating to you, Carlino, the very words of the Chevalier: do not
think they were my own."

"I did, then, think them very like his words, but I see your thoughts
too, for you would say the same. Is there no music to which you would
act, then?"

"Oh, yes! I would act to any music, not because I am vain, but because
I think I could help it upwards a little. Then there is a great deal
for us: we cannot quarrel over Mozart and Cimarosa, neither Gluck nor
Spohr; and there is one, but I need hardly name him, who wrote
'Fidelio.' And the Chevalier says if there needed a proof that the
highest acting is worthy of the highest music, the highest music of
the highest form or outward guise of love in its utmost loveliness,
that opera stands as such. And, further, that all the worst operas,
and ill-repute of them in the world, will not weigh against the
majesty and purity of Beethoven's own character in the opposing
scale."

"Oh! thank you for having such a memory."

"I have a memory in my memory for those things."

"Yes, I know. Does the Chevalier know you are to marry Anastase?"

"No."

I was surprised at this, though she said it so very simply; she looked
serene as that noonday sky, and very soon she went on to say:
"Florimond, my friend, is very young, though I look up to him as no
one else could believe. I am but fifteen, you know, and have yet been
nearly three years betrothed."

"Gracious! you were only a little girl."

"Not much less than now. I don't think you would ever have called me a
little girl, and Florimond says I shall never be a woman. I wished to
tell the Chevalier, thinking he would be so good as to congratulate
me, and hoping for such a blessing; but I have never found myself able
to bring it out of my lips. I always felt it withdraw, as if I had no
reason, and certainly I had no right, to confide my personal affairs
to him. Our intercourse is so different."

"Yes, I should think so. I wonder what you generally talk about."

"Never yet of anything but music."

"That is strange, because the Chevalier does not usually talk so,--but
of little things, common things he makes so bright; and Franz tells
me, and so did another of our boys, that he only talks of such small
affairs generally, and avoids music."

"So I hear from my brother. He talks to Josephine about her doll. He
did tell me once that with me alone he 'communed music.'"

"Again his words!"

She assented by her flying smile.

"He never plays to you, then?"

"Never to myself; but then, you see, I should never ask him."

"And he would not do it unless he were asked. I understand that. You
feel as I should about asking _you_."

"Me to sing?" she inquired in a tone beguiling, lingering, an echo of
_his_ voice ever sleepless in my brain, or that if sleeping, ever
awoke to music. I nodded.

"No," said she again, with quickness, "I will not wait to be asked."

As she spoke she arose, and those dark streams of hair fell off her
like some shadow from her spirit; she shone upon me in rising,--so
seemed her smile. "Oh!" I cried eagerly, and I caught, by some
impulse, the hem of her garment, "you are going to be so good!"

"If you let me be so," she replied, and drew away those folds, passing
to her harp. Her hand, suddenly thrown upon the wires, whose
resistance to embrace so sweet made all their music, caught the ear
of little Josephine, who had been playing very innocently, for a
prodigy, in the corner; and now she came slowly forwards, her doll in
her arms, and stood about a yard from the harp, again putting up one
finger to her lip, and giving me a glance across the intervening
space. She looked, as she so peered, both singular and interesting in
the blended curiosity and shyness that appertain to certain
childhoods; but it seemed to me at that moment as if she were a
strayed earthling into some picture of a scene in that unknown which
men call heaven. For the harp and the form which appeared now to have
grown to it--so inseparable are the elements of harmony, so
intuitively they blend in meeting--were not a sight to suggest
anything this side of death. All beauty is the gauge of immortality;
and as I wondered at her utter loveliness, I became calm as
immortality only permits and sanctions when on it our thoughts repose,
for it our affections languish. Her arms still rested behind and
before the strings as she tuned them; still her hair swept that cloud
upon the softness of her cheek, toned the melancholy arch of her brow:
but the deep rose-hues of her now drooping mantle, and the Italian
azure of her robe, did not retrieve the fancy to any earthly
apparition. They seemed but transparent and veil-like media through
which the whiteness of light found way in colors that sheathed an
unendurable naked lustre. I thought not in such words, but such
thoughts were indeed mine; and while I was yet gazing,--dreaming, I
should say, for I ever dream on beauty,--she played some long, low
chords, attenuated golden thwarting threads of sound, and began
forthwith to sing. She sang in German, and her song was a prayer for
rest,--a Sunday song, as little Josephine said afterwards to me. But
it might have been a lay of revenge, of war, or of woe, for all I
heard that the words conveyed, as I could not exist except in the
voice itself, or the spirit of which the voice was formed. I felt then
that it is not in voice, it is not in cunning instrument, that the
thing called music hides; it is the uncreate intelligence of tone that
genius breathes into the created elements of sound. This girl's or
angel's voice was not so sweet as intelligible, not so boundless as
intense. It went straight into the brain, it stirred the soul without
disturbing; the ear was unconscious as it entered that dim gallery,
and rushed through it to the inward sympathetic spirit. The quality of
the voice, too, as much pertained to that peculiar organization as
certain scents pertain to particular flowers. It was as in the open
air, not in the hothouse, that this foreign flower expanded, and
breathed to the sun and wind its secrets. It was what dilettanti call
a contralto voice, but such a contralto, too, that either Nature or
culture permitted the loftiest flights; the soprano touches were vivid
and vibrating as the topmost tones of my violin. While the fragrance
yet fanned my soul, the flower shut up. She ceased singing and came to
me.

"Do you like that little song? It is the Chevalier's."

"A Sunday song," observed Josephine, as I mentioned.

"A Sunday song!" I cried, and started. "I have not heard a word!"

"Oh!" she said, not regretfully, but with excitement, "you must then
hear it again; and Josephine shall sing it, that you may not think of
my voice instead of the song."

I had not time to remonstrate, nor had I the right. The child began
quite composedly, still holding her doll. She had a wonderful voice.
But what have I to do with voices? I mean style. Josephine's voice was
crude as a green whortleberry; its sadness was sour, its strength
harsh; though a voice shrill and small as the cricket's chirp, with
scarcely more music. But she sang divinely; she sang like a cherub
before the Great White Throne.

The manner was her sister's; the fragrance another, a peculiar
wood-like odor, as from moss and evanescent wild-flowers, if I may so
compare, as then it struck me. I listened to the words this while, to
the melody,--the rush of melodies; for in that composer's slightest
effect each part is a separate soul, the counterpoint a subtle, fiery
chain imprisoning the soul in bliss. Ineffable as was that
air,--ineffable as is every air of his,--I longed to be convinced it
had been put together by a _man_. I could not, and I cannot to this
hour, associate anything material with strains of his. When Josephine
concluded, I was about to beg for more; but the other left her harp,
and kissing her little care, brought her with herself to the couch
where she had quitted me. How strange was the sweetness, how sweet the
change in her manner now!

"How pale you look!" said she; "I shall give you some wine. I can feel
for you, if you are delicate in health, for I am so myself; and it is
so sad sometimes."

"No wine, please; I have had wine, and am never the better for it. I
believe I was born pale, and shall never look anything else."

"I like you pale, if it is not that you are delicate."

"I think I am pretty strong; I can work hard, and do."

"Do not!" she said, putting her loveliest hand on my hair, and
turning my face to hers, "do not, _lieber_, work hard,--not too hard."

"And why not? for I am sure you do."

"That is the very reason I would have you not do so. I _must_ work
hard."

"But if you are delicate, Fräulein Cerinthia?"

"God will take care of me; I try to serve him. None have to answer for
themselves as musicians." She suddenly ceased, passed one hand over
her face. She did not stir, but I heard her sigh; she arose, and
looked from the window; she sat down again, as if undecided.

"Can I do anything for you?" I asked.

"No, I want nothing; I am only thinking that it is very troublesome
the person who sent those fruits could not come instead of them. I
ought to have kept it from you, child as you are."

"Child, indeed! why, what are you yourself?"

"Young, very young," she replied, with some passion in her voice; "but
so much older than you are in every sense. I never remember when I did
not feel I had lived a long time."

I was struck by these words, for they often returned upon me
afterwards, and I rose to go, feeling something disturbed at having
wearied her; for she had not the same fresh bloom and unfatigued
brightness as when I entered. She did not detain me, though she said,
"Call me Maria, please; I should like it best,--we are both so young,
you know! We might have been brother and sister." And in this graceful
mood my memory carried her away.




CHAPTER III.


I need not say I looked upon Anastase with very different eyes next
time I crossed his path. He had never so much interested me; he had
never attracted me before,--he attracted me violently now, but not for
his own sake. I watched every movement and gesture,--every intimation
of his being, separable from his musical nature and dissociated from
his playing. He seemed to think me very inattentive on the Monday
morning, though, in fact, I had never been so attentive to him before;
but I did not get on very well with my work. At last he fairly stopped
me, and touched my chin with his bow.

"What are you thinking about this morning, sir?" he inquired, in that
easy voice of his, with that cool air.

I never told a lie in my life, white or black. "Of you, sir," I
replied. With his large eyes on mine, I felt rather scorched, but
still I kept faith with myself. "Of the Fräulein Cerinthia."

"I thought as much. The next Sunday you will remain at home."

"Yes, sir; but that won't prevent my thinking about you and her."

"Exactly; you shall therefore have sufficient time to think about us.
As you have not control enough to fasten your mind on your own
affairs, we must indulge your weakness by giving it plenty of room."

Then he pointed to my page with his bow, and we went on quietly. I
need not say we were alone. After my lesson, just before he proceeded
to the next violin, he spoke again.

"You do not know, perhaps, what test you are about to endure. We shall
have a concert next month, and you will play a first violin with me."

"Sir!" I gasped, "I cannot--I never will!"

"Perhaps you will change your note when you are aware who appointed
you. It is no affair of mine."

"If you mean, sir, that it is the Chevalier who appointed me, I don't
believe it, unless you gave your sanction."

He turned upon me with a short smile,--just the end of one,--and
raised his delicate eyebrows. "Be that as it may, to-night we rehearse
first, in the lesser hall; there will be nobody present but the band.
The Chevalier will hold his own rehearsal the week after next, for
there is a work of his on this occasion,--therefore we shall prepare,
and, I trust, successfully; so that the polishing only will remain for
him."

"Bravo, sir!"

"I hope it will be bravo; but it is no bravo at present," said he, in
dismissing me.

I had never heard Anastase play yet, and was very curious,--I mean, I
had never heard him play consecutively; his exhibitions to us being
confined to short passages we could not surmount,--bar upon bar,
phrase upon phrase, here a little, and there a very little. But now he
must needs bring himself before me, to play out his own inner nature.

I found Delemann in his own place presently,--a round box, like a
diminutive observatory, at the very top of the building, and
communicating only with similar boxes occupied by the brass in
general. I let myself in, for it would have been absurd to knock
amidst the demonstrations of the alto trombone. He was so ardent over
that metallic wonder of his that I had to pluck his sleeve. Even then
he would not leave off, at the risk of splitting that short upper lip
of his by his involuntary smile, until he had finished what lay before
him. It was one great sheet, and I espied at the top the words: "Mer
de Glace,--Ouverture; Seraphael." Madder than ever for a conclusion, I
stopped my ears till he laid down that shining monster and took
occasion to say, "That is what we are to have to-night."

"I know. But how abominable is Anastase not to let me have my part to
practise!"

"Very likely it is not ready. The brass came this morning, and the
strings were to follow. Mine was quite damp when I had it."

We went into rehearsal together, Franz and I. What a different
rehearsal from my first in England! Here we were all instruments.
Franz was obliged to leave me on entering, and soon I beheld him afar
off, at the top of the wooden platform, on whose raised steps we
stood, taking his place by the tenor trombone,--a gentleman of adult
appearance who had a large mouth. I have my own doubts, private and
peculiar, about the superior utility of large mouths, because Franz,
of the two, played best; but that is no matter here.

Our _saal_ was a simple room enough, guiltless of ornament; our
orchestra deal, clear of paint or varnish; our desks the same, but
light as ladies' hand-screens,--this was well, as Anastase, who was
not without his crochet, made us continually change places with each
other, and we had to carry them about. There were wooden benches all
down the _saal_, but nobody sat in them; there was not the glimmer of
a countenance, nor the shine of two eyes. The door-bolts were drawn
inside; there was a great and prevalent awe. The lamps hung over us,
but not lighted; the sun was a long way from bed yet, and so were we.
Anastase kept us at "L'Amour Fugitif" and "Euryanthe,"--I mean, their
respective overtures,--a good while, and was very quiet all the time,
until our emancipation in the "Mer de Glace." His _face_ did not
change even then; but there was a fixity and straightening of the arm,
as if an iron nerve had passed down it suddenly, and he mustered us
still more closely to him and to each other. My stand was next his
own; and, looking here and there, I perceived Iskar among the second
violins, and was stirred up,--for I had not met with him except at
table since I came there.

It is not in my power to describe my own sensations on my first
introduction to Seraphael's orchestral definite creation. Enough to
say that I felt all music besides, albeit precious, albeit
inestimable, to have been but affecting the best and highest portion
of myself, but as exciting to loftier aspirations my constant soul;
but that _his_ creation did indeed not only first affect me beyond all
analysis of feeling, but cause upon me, and through me, a change to
pass,--did first recreate, expurge of all earthly; and then inspire,
surcharged with heavenly hope and holiest ecstasy. That qualitative
heavenly, and this superlative holiest, are alone those which disabuse
of the dread to call what we love best and worship truest by name. No
other words are expressive of that music which alone realizes the
desire of faith,--faith supernal alike with the universal faith of
love.

As first awoke the strange, smooth wind-notes of the opening _adagio_,
the fetterless chains of ice seemed to close around my heart. The
movement had no blandness in its solemnity, and so still and
shiftless was the grouping of the harmonies that a frigidity actual,
as well as ideal, passed over my pores and hushed my pulses. After a
hundred such tense, yet clinging chords, the sustaining calm was
illustrated, not broken, by a serpentine phrase of one lone oboe,
_pianissimo_ over the _piano_ surface, which it crisped not, but on
and above which it breathed like the track of a sunbeam aslant from a
parted cloud. The slightest possible retardation at its close brought
us to the refrain of the simple _adagio_, interrupted again by a rush
of violoncello notes, rapid and low, like some sudden under-current
striving to burst through the frozen sweetness. Then spread wide the
subject as plains upon plains of _water-land_, though the time was
gradually increased. Amplifications of the same harmonies introduced a
fresh accession of violoncelli, and oboi contrasted artfully in
syncopation, till at length the strides of the _accelerando_ gave a
glittering precipitation to the entrance of the second and longest
movement.

Then Anastase turned upon me, and with the first bar we fell into a
tumultuous _presto_. Far beyond all power to analyze as it was just
then, the complete idea embraced me as instantaneously as had the
picturesque chilliness of the first. I have called it tumultuous, but
merely in respect of rhythm; the harmonies were as clear and evolved
as the modulation itself was sharp, keen, unanticipated,
unapproachable. Through every bar reigned that vividly enunciated
ideal, whose expression pertains to the one will alone in any
age,--the ideal that, binding together in suggestive imagery every
form of beauty, symbolizes and represents something beyond them all.

Here over the surge-like, but fast-bound _motivo_--only like those
tossed ice-waves, dead still in their heaped-up crests--were certain
swelling _crescendos_ of a second subject, so unutterably, if vaguely,
sweet that the souls of all deep blue Alp-flowers, the clarity of all
high blue skies, had surely passed into them, and was passing from
them again.

Scarcely is it legitimate to describe what so speaks for itself as
music; yet there are assuredly effects produced by music which may be
treated of to the satisfaction of the initiated.

It was not until the very submerging climax that the playing of
Anastase was recalled to me. Then, amidst long, ringing notes of the
wild horns, and intermittent sighs of the milder wood, swept from the
violins a torrent of coruscant _arpeggi_, and above them all I heard
his tone, keen but solvent, as his bow seemed to divide the very
strings with fire; and I felt as if some spark had fallen upon my
fingers to kindle mine. As soon as it was over, I looked up and
laughed in his face with sheer pleasure; but he made no sign, nor was
there the slightest evidence of the strenuous emotion to which he had
been abandoned,--no flush of cheek nor flash of eye, only the least
possible closer contraction of the slight lips. He did nothing but
find fault, and his authority appeared absolute; for when he
reprimanded Iskar in particular, and called him to account for the
insertion extraordinary of a queer _appogiatura_, which I did not know
he had heard, that evil one came down without a smirk, and minced
forth some apology, instead of setting up his crest, as usual. I was
very thankful at last when the room was cleared, as it was infernally
hot, and I had made up my mind to ask Anastase whether my violin were
really such a good one; for I had not used it before this night.

When no one was left except he and I, I ventured to ask him whether I
could carry anything anywhere for him, to attract his attention.

"Yes," said he, "you may gather up all the parts and lay them together
in that closet," pointing to a wooden box behind the platform; "but do
not put your own away, because you are going to look over it with me."

I did as he directed, and then brought myself back to him. But before
I could begin, he took my fiddle from my arms, and turning it round
and round, demanded, "Where did you get this?" I told him in a few
words its history, or what I imagined to be its history. He looked
rather astonished, but made no comment, and then he began to play to
me. I do not suppose another ever played like him; I may, perhaps,
myself a very little, but I never heard anybody else. The peculiar
strength of his tone I believe never to have been surpassed; the
firmness of his _cantabile_ never equalled; his expression in no case
approached. Santonio's playing dwindled in my mind, for Anastase,
though so young, performed with a pointedness altogether mature; it
was that on which to repose unshifting security for the most ardent
musical interest; yet, with all its solidity, it was not severe even
in the strictest passages. Of all playing I ever heard on my adopted
instrument, and I have heard every first-rate and every medium
performer in Europe, it was the most forceful,--let this term suffice
just here. I said to him when he had finished with me, "How much
fuller your playing is than Santonio's! I thought his wonderful until
I heard yours." But with more gentleness than I had given him credit
for, he responded, laying down my little treasure, "I consider his
playing myself far more wonderful than mine. Mine is not wonderful;
it is a wrong word to use. It is full, because I have studied to make
it the playing of a leader, which must not follow its own vagaries.
Neither does Santonio, who is also a leader, but a finer player than
I,--finer in the sense of delicacy, experience, finish. Now go and eat
your supper, Auchester."

"Sir, I don't want any supper."

"But I do, and I cannot have you here."

I knew he meant he was going to practise,--it was always his supper, I
found; but he had become again unapproachable. I had not gained an
inch nearer ground to him, really, yet. So I retired, and slipped into
the refectory, where Franz was keeping a seat for me.

I was positively afraid to go out the next Sunday, and the next it
rained,--we all stayed in. On the following Wednesday would come our
concert, and by this time I knew that the Chevalier would be
accompanied by certain of his high-born relations. But do not imagine
that we covered for them galleries with cloth and yellow fringe. It
was altogether to me one of my romance days; and, as such, I partook
in the spirit of festivity that stirred abroad. The day before was
even something beyond romance. After dinner we all met in the
garden-house, as we called the pillared alcove, to arrange the
decorations for our hall, which were left entirely to ourselves, at
our united request. About fifty of us were of one mind, and, somehow
or other, I got command of the whole troop,--I am sure I did not mean
to put myself so. I sent out several in different directions to gather
oak-branches and lime-boughs, vine-leaves and evergreens, and then sat
down to weave garlands for the arches among a number more. Having seen
them fairly at work, I went forth myself, and found Maria Cerinthia
at home; she came with me directly, and we made another pilgrimage in
search of roses and myrtles. Josephine went too, and we all three
returned laden from the garden of a sincere patroness down in the
valley beneath the hill, of whom we had asked such alms.

Entering Cecilia, after climbing the slope leisurely, we saw a coach
at the porter's door,--the door where letters and messages were
received, not the grand door of the school, which all day stood open
for the benefit of bustling Cecilians. I thought nothing of this
coach, however, as one often might have seen one there; but while
Maria took back Josephine, I obtained possession of all the flowers
which she had placed in my arms, promising to be with us anon in the
garden-house. Past the professors' rooms I walked; and I have not yet
mentioned the name of Thauch, our nominal superintendent, the
appointed of the Chevalier, who always laughingly declared he had
selected him because he knew nothing about music, to care for us _out_
of music. Thauch sat at the head of the middle table, and we scarcely
saw him otherwise or spoke to him; thus I was astonished, and rather
appalled, to be called upon by him when I reached his room, which was
enclosed, and where he was writing accounts. I was not aware he even
knew my name; but by it he called upon me. "Sir," I said, "what do you
want?" as I did not desire to halt, for fear of crushing up my sweet
fresh roses. He had risen, and was in the doorway, waiting, with true
German deliberation, until I was quite recovered from my
breathlessness; and then he did not answer, but took my shoulders and
pushed me into his parlor, himself leaving the room, and shutting
himself out into the passage.

Shall I ever forget it? For, gasping still, though I had thrown all my
flowers out of my arms, I confronted the bright, old-fashioned,
distinct, yet dream-like faces of two who sat together upon the chairs
behind the door. You will not expect me to say how I felt when I found
they were my own sister Millicent, my own Lenhart Davy, and that they
did not melt away. I suppose I did something,--put out my hands,
perhaps, or turned some strange color which made Davy think I should
faint; for he rose, and coming to me, with his hilarious laugh put his
arms about me and took me to my sister. When once she had kissed me,
and I had felt her soft face and the shape of her lips, and smelled
the scent of an Indian box at home that clung to her silk handkerchief
yet, I cried, and she cried too; but we were both quiet enough about
it,--she I only knew was crying by her cheek pressing wet against
mine. After a few moments so unutterable, I put myself away from her,
and began distinctly to perceive the strangeness of our position.
Millicent, as I examined her, seemed to have grown more a woman than I
remembered; but that may have pertained to her dress, so different
from the style with which I associated her,--the white ribbons and
plain caps under the quaint straw bonnet, and the black-silk spencer.
Now, she wore a mantle of very graceful cut, and the loveliest pink
lining to her delicate fancy hat; this gave to her oval countenance a
blushful clearness that made her look lovely in my eyes. And when I
did speak, what do you think I said? "Oh, Millicent, how odd it is!
Oh, Mr. Davy, how odd you look!"

"Now, Charles," said he, in answer,--and how the English accents
thrilled the tears into my eyes,--"now, Charles, tell me what you mean
by growing so tall and being so self-possessed. You are above my
shoulder, and you have lost all your impudence."

"No, Mr. Davy, I haven't--kiss me!" said I; and I threw my arms about
him, and clung on there till curiosity swelled unconquerable.

"Oh, Mr. Davy, how extraordinary it is of you to come so suddenly,
without telling me! And mother never said the least word about it. Oh,
Millicent, how did you get her to let you come? And, oh," suddenly it
struck me very forcibly, "how very strange you should come with Mr.
Davy! Is anybody ill? No, you would have told me directly, and you
would not be dressed so."

Millicent looked up at Davy with an unwonted expression, a new light
in her eyes, that had ever slept in shade; and he laughed again.

"No, nobody is ill, and she would _not_ be dressed so if I had not
given her that bonnet, for which she scolded me instead of thanking
me,--for it came from Paris."

"Oh!" I exclaimed, and I felt all over bathed in delight. I ran to
Millicent, and whispered into that same bonnet, "Oh, Millicent! are
you married to Mr. Davy?"

She pulled off one of her pale-colored gloves and showed me the left
hand. I saw the ring--oh, how strange I felt,--hot and cold; glad and
sorry; excited, and yet staid! I flew to my first friend and kissed
his hand: "Dear Mr. Davy, I am so glad!"

"I thought you would be, Charles. If I had anticipated any objection
on your part, I should have written to you first!"

"Oh, Mr. Davy!" I cried, laughing, "but why did they not write and
tell me?"

"My dear brother, it was that we wished to spare you all
disappointment."

"You mean I could not have come home. No, I don't think I could, even
for your wedding, Millicent, and yours, Mr. Davy; we have been so busy
lately."

Davy laughed. "Oh, I see what an important person you have become! We
knew it; and it was I who persuaded your mother not to unsettle you. I
did it for the best."

"It was for the best, dearest Charles," said Millicent, looking into
Davy's face as if perfectly at home with it. She had never used to
look into his face at all.

"Oh!" I again exclaimed, suddenly reminded, "what did you wear,
Millicent, to be married in?"

"A white muslin pelisse, Charles, and Miss Benette's beautiful veil."

"Yes; and, Charles," continued Davy, "Millicent gratified us both by
asking Miss Benette to be her bridesmaid."

"And did she come?" I asked, rather eagerly.

"No, Charles; she did not."

"I knew she would not," I thought, though I scarcely knew why.

"But she came, Charles, the night before, and helped them to dress the
table; and so beautiful she made it look that everybody was
astonished,--yet she had only a few garden flowers, and a _very_ few
rare ones."

"But how long have you been married, Mr. Davy? and are you going to
live _here_? What will the class do? Oh, the dear class! Who sits by
Miss Benette now, Mr. Davy?"

He laughed.

"Oh, Charles, if you please, one question at a time! We have been
married one week,--is it not, Millicent?"

She smiled and blushed.

"And I am not going to leave my class,--it is larger now than you
remember it. And I have not left my little house, but I have made one
more room, and we find it quite wide enough to contain us."

"Oh, sir, then you came here for a trip! How delicious! Oh, Millicent,
do you like Germany? Oh, you will see the Chevalier."

"Well, Charles, it is only fair, for we have heard so much about him.
Nothing in your letters but the Chevalier, and the Chevalier, and we
do not even know his name from _you_. Clo says whenever your letters
come, 'I wish he would tell us how he sleeps;' and my mother hopes
that Seraphael is 'a good man,' as you are so fond of him."

"But, Charles," added Davy, with his old earnestness and with a
sparkling eye, "how, then, shall we see him, and where? For I would
walk barefoot through Germany for that end."

"Without any trouble, Mr. Davy, because to-morrow will be our concert,
and he is coming to conduct his new overture,--only his new overture,
mind! He will sit in the hall most part, and you will see him
perfectly."

"My dear, dear Charles," observed Millicent, "it is something strange
to hear you say 'our concert.' How entirely you have fulfilled your
destiny! And shall we hear you play?"

"Yes," I replied, with mock modesty, but in such a state of glowing
pride that it was quite as much as I could do to answer with becoming
indifference. "Yes, I am to play a first violin."

"A first violin, Charles?" said Davy, evidently surprised. "What!
already? Oh, I did not predict wrong! What if I had kept you in my
class? But, Millicent, we must not stay," he added, turning to her;
"we only came to carry Charles away, as we are here on forbidden
ground."

"Not at all, Mr. Davy," I cried, eager to do the honors of Cecilia. "A
great many of them go out to see their friends and have their friends
come to see them; but I had no one until now, you see."

"Yes, but, Charles," replied my sister, "we understand that no
visitors are permitted entrance the day before a concert, and thought
it a wise regulation too. They made an exception in our case because
we came so far, and also because we came to take you away."

"Where are we going, then? Going away?"

"Only to the inn, where we have a bed for you engaged, that we may see
something of you out of study. You must go with us now, for we have
obtained permission."

"Whatever shall I do?"

"What now, Charles?"

"Well, Mr. Davy, you may laugh, but we are to decorate our
concert-hall, and they are waiting for me, I daresay. All those
flowers, too, that you made me throw down, were for garlands. If I
might only go and tell them how it is--"

"See, Charles, there is some one wanting to speak to _you_. I heard a
knock."

I turned, and let in Franz. He could not help glancing at the pink
lining, while he breathlessly whispered, "Do not mind us. Fräulein
Cerinthia is gone to fetch her brother; and while they are at supper,
we shall dress the hall under her directions, and she says you are to
go with your friends."

"That is my sister, Delemann," said I; and then I introduced them,
quite forgetting that Millicent had changed her name, which amused
them immensely after Franz was gone, having gathered up my roses and
taken them off. Then Davy begged me to come directly, and I hurried to
my room and took him with me. How vain I felt to show him my press, my
screen, my portmanteau full of books, and my private bed, my violin,
asleep in its case; and last, not least, his china cup and saucer, in
the little brown box! While I was combing my hair, he stood and
watched me with delight in his charming countenance, not a cloud upon
it.

"Oh, dear Mr. Davy, how exquisite it is that you should be my brother!
I shall never be able to call you anything but Mr. Davy, though."

"You shall call me whatever you please. I shall always like it."

"And, sir, please to tell me, am I tidy,--fit to walk with a bride and
bridegroom?"

"Not half smart enough! Your sister has brought your part of the
wedding ceremony in her only box,--and, let me tell you, Charles, you
are highly favored; for the muslin dresses and laces will suffer in
consequence!"

"I don't believe that, sir," said I, laughing.

"And why not, sir?"

"Because, sir, my sisters would none of them travel about with muslin
dresses if they had only one box."

"They would travel about, as Mrs. Davy does, in black silk," answered
Davy, pursuing me as I ran; but I escaped him, and rejoined Millicent
first, who was waiting for us with all possible patience.

There are a few times of our life--not the glorious eternal days, that
stand alone, but, thank God! many hours which are nothing for us but
pure and passive enjoyment, in which we exist. How exquisitely happy
was I on this evening, for example! The prospect of the morrow so
intensely bright, the present of such tender sweetness! How divine is
Love in all its modifications! How inseparable is it from repose, from
rapture!

As we went along the village and passed the shops, in the freshening
sunbeams, low-shining from the bare blue heaven, I fetched a present
for my brother and sister in the shape of two concert-tickets, which,
contrary to Tedescan custom, were issued for the advantage of any
interested strangers. I put them into Millicent's hand, saying, "You
know I gave you no wedding-gift."

"Yes, Charles, you gave me this," and she looked up at Davy; "I should
never have known him but for you."

"Which means, my love, that I am also to thank Charles for introducing
me to you;" and Davy took off his hat with mock reverence.

"Oh! that won't do, Mr. Davy; for you said you had seen a beautiful
Jewess at our window before you knew who lived in our house; and of
course you would have got in there somehow, at last."

"_Never!_" said Davy, in a manner that convinced me he never would.

"Then I _am_ very glad," said I,--"glad that I ran away one morning.
The Chevalier says that nothing happens accidentally to such as I."

They laughed till they saw how serious I had grown again, and then
smiled at each other. Arrived at our inn, we rested. Will it be
believed that Davy had brought some of his own tea, besides several
other small comforts? This much amused me. After our tea--a real home
tea, which quite choked my unaccustomed faculties at first--Davy put
his wife on the sofa, and with a bright authority there was no
resisting, bade her be still while he fetched my part of the ceremony.
This consisted of half a dozen pairs of beautiful white kid
gloves,--treasures these indeed to a fiddler!--a white silk waistcoat,
a small case of Spanish chocolate, and a large cake, iced and
almonded.

"That was made at home, Charles," said Millicent, "and is exactly like
that we sent to our friends."

In those days it was not old fashion, gentle reader, to send out
bride-cake to one's friends. I need only mention a white favor or two,
and a frosted silver flower, because I reserved the same for Josephine
Cerinthia.




CHAPTER IV.


In my box-bed at that flower-baptized inn, I certainly did not sleep
so well as in my own nest at school. Here it was in a box, as ever in
that country of creation; and in the middle of the night I sat up to
wonder whether my sister and new-found brother thought the _locale_ as
stifling as I did. I was up before the sun, and dressed together with
his arrangement of his beams. We had--in spite of the difficulty to
get served in rational fashion--a right merry breakfast, thanks to the
company and the tea. I had not tasted such, as it appeared to me,
since my infancy.

How Davy did rail against the toilet short-comings,--the meagre,
shallow depths of his basin! And he was not happy until I took him to
my portion (as we called our sleeping-places at Cecilia), and let him
do as he pleased with my own water-magazine. This was an artificial
lake of red ware, which was properly a baking-dish, and which I had
purchased under that name for my private need. If it had not been for
the little river which flowed not half a mile from our school, and
which our Cecilians haunted as a bath through summer, I could not
answer, in my memory's conscience, for their morality if, as I of
course believe, cleanliness be next to godliness.

After breakfast, and after I had taken Davy back, I returned myself
alone to seek Maria and escort her. Davy and Millicent seemed so
utterly indisposed to stir out until it was necessary, and so unfit
for any society but each other's, that I did not hesitate to abscond.
I left them together,--Davy lazier than I had ever seen him, and _she_
more like brilliant evening than unexcited morning. What am I writing?
Is morning ever unexcited to the enthusiast? I think his only repose
is in the magical supervention of the mystery night brings to his
heart.

I was sorry to find that neither Maria, Josephine, nor Joseph was at
home. The way was clear upstairs, but all the doors were locked, as
usual, when they were out; and I went on to Cecilia in a pet. It was
nine when I arrived,--quite restored. Our concert was to be at ten.

What different hours are kept in Germany; what different hearts cull
the honey of the hours! Our dining-hall was full; there was a great
din. Our garden-house was swept and garnished as I remembered it the
day I came with one, but not quite so enticing in its provisions,--that
is to say, there were no strawberries, which had been so interesting
to me on the first occasion. I retreated to the library. No one was
there. I might not go among the girls, whose establishment was apart,
but I knew I should meet them before we had to take our places; and
off I scampered to Franz's observatory. Will it be believed?--he was
still at work, those brass lips embracing his, already dressed, his
white gloves lying on his monster's cradle.

"My dear Delemann," I exclaimed, "for pity's sake, put that down now!"

"My dear Carl, how shall I feel when that moment comes?" pointing to
the up-beat of bar 109, where he first came in upon the field of the
score.

"I don't think you will feel different if you practise half an hour
more, any how."

"Yes, I shall; I want rubbing up. Besides, I have been here since
six."

"Oh, Delemann, you are a good boy! But I don't feel nervous at all."

"You, Carl! No, I should think not. You will have no more
responsibility than the hand of a watch, with that Anastase for the
spring,--works, too, that never want winding up, and that were bought
ready made by our patroness."

"Dear Franz, do come; I am dying to see the hall."

"I don't think it is done. Fräulein Cerinthia went out to get some
white roses for a purpose she held secret. The boughs are all up,
though."

"My dear Franz, you are very matter of fact."

"No, I am not, Carl; the tears ran down my face at rehearsal."

"That was because I made a mouth at you, which you wanted to laugh at,
and dared not."

"Well," said Franz, mock mournfully, "I can do nothing with you here,
so come."

He rolled up his monster and took up his gloves. I had a pair of
Millicent's in my pocket.

"We must not forget to call at the garden-house for a rose to put
here," said Franz, running his slight forefinger into his button-hole.
We accordingly went in there. A good many had preceded us, and rifled
the baskets of roses, pinks, and jasmine, that stood about. While we
were turning over those still left, up came somebody, and whispered
that Anastase was bringing in the Cerinthias. I eagerly gazed,
endeavoring, with my might, to look innocent of so gazing. But I only
beheld, between the pillars, the clear brow and waving robes of my
younger master as he bent so lowly before a maiden raimented in white,
and only as he left her; for he entered not within the alcove. As he
retreated, Maria advanced. She was dressed in white, as I have said;
but so dazzling was her beauty that all eyes were bent upon her. All
the chorus-singers were in white; but who looked the least like her?
With the deep azure of our order folded around her breast, and on that
breast a single full white rose, with that dark hair bound from the
arch of her delicate forehead, she approached and presented us each
also with a single rose, exquisite as her own, from the very little
basket I had carried to her that Sunday, now quite filled with the few
flowers it contained. "They are so fresh," said she, "that they will
not die the whole morning!" And I thought, as I saw her, that nothing
in the whole realm of flowers was so beautiful, or just then so fresh,
as herself!

A very little while now, and our conductor, Zittermayer, the superior
in age of Anastase, but his admirer and sworn ally, came in and
ordered the chorus forwards. They having dispersed, he returned for
ourselves,--the gentry of the band. As soon as I aspired through the
narrow orchestra door, I beheld the same sight in front as from the
other end at the day of my initiation into those sceneries, or very
much the same,--the morning sun, which gleamed amidst the leafy
arches, and in the foreground on many a rosy garland. For over the
seats reserved for the Chevalier and his party, the loveliest flowers,
relieved with myrtle only, hung in rich festoons; and as a keystone to
the curtained entrance below the orchestra, the Cecilia
picture--framed in virgin roses by Maria's hand--showed only less
fair than she. At once did this flower-work form a blooming barrier
between him and the general audience, and illustrate his exclusiveness
by a fair, if fading, symbol.

The hall had begun to fill; and I was getting rather nervous about my
English brother and sister, who could not sit together, however near,
when they entered, and found just the seats I could have chosen for
them. Millicent, at the side of the chamber, was just clear of the
flowery division; for I gesticulated violently at her to take such
place.

I felt so excited then, seeing them down there,--of all persons those
I should have most desired in those very spots,--that I think I should
have burst into tears but for a sudden and fresh diversion. While I
had been watching my sister and brother, a murmur had begun to roll
amidst the gathered throng, and just as the conductor came to the
orchestra steps, at the bottom he arrested himself. The first stroke
of ten had sounded from our little church, and simultaneously with
that stroke the steward, bearing on his wand the blue rosette and
bunch of oak-leaves, threw open the curtain of the archway under us
and ushered into the appropriated space the party for whose arrival we
auspiciously waited. I said Zittermayer arrested himself,--he waited
respectfully until they were seated, and then bowed, but did not
advance to salute them further. They also bowed, and he mounted the
steps.

I was enchanted at the decorum which prevailed at that moment; for, as
it happened, it was a more satisfactory idea of homage than the most
unmitigated applause on the occasion. The perfect stillness also
reigned through Cherubini's overture, not one note of which I heard,
though I played as well as any somnambule, for I need scarcely say I
was looking at that party; and being blessed with a long sight, I saw
as well as it was possible to see all that I required to behold.

First in the line sat a lady, at once so stately and so young looking,
that I could only conjecture she was, as she was, _his_ mother. A
woman was she like, in the outlines of her beauty, to the Medicis and
Colonnas, those queens of historic poesy; unlike in that beauty's
aspect which was beneficent as powerful, though I traced no trait of
semblance between her and her super-terrestrial son. She sat like an
empress, dressed in black, with a superb eye-glass, one star of
diamonds at its rim, in her hand; but still and stately, and unsmiling
as she was, she was ever turned slightly towards him, who, placed by
her side, almost nestled into the sable satin of her raiment. He was
also dressed in black, this day, and held in those exquisite hands a
tiny pair of gloves, which he now swung backwards and forwards in time
to the movement of our orchestra, and then let fall upon the floor;
when that stately mother would stoop and gather them up, and he would
receive them with a flashing smile, to drop them again with
inadvertence, or perhaps to slide into them his slender fingers.
Hardly had I seen and known him before I saw and recognized another
close beside him. If _he_ were small and sylphid, seated by his
majestic mother, how tiny was that delicate satellite of his, who was
nestled as close to his side as he to hers. It was my own, my little
Starwood, so happily attired in a dove-colored dress, half frock, half
coat, trimmed with silver buttons, and holding a huge nosegay in his
morsels of hands. I had scarcely time to notice him after the first
flush of my surprise; but it was impossible to help seeing that my pet
was as happy as he could well be, and that he was quite at home.

Next Starwood was a brilliant little girl with long hair, much less
than he, nursing a great doll exquisitely dressed; and again, nearest
the doll and the doll's mamma, I perceived a lady and a pair of
gentlemen, each of whom, as to size, would have made two Seraphaels.
They were all very attentive, apparently, except the Chevalier; and
though he was still by fits, I knew he was not attending, from the
wandering, wistful gaze, now in the roof, now out at the windows, now
downcast, shadowy, and anon flinging its own brightness over my soul,
like a sunbeam astray from the heavens of Paradise. When at length the
point in the programme, so dearly longed for, was close at hand, he
slid beneath the flowery balustrade, and as noiselessly as in our
English music-hall, he took the stairs, and leaned against the desk
until the moment for taking possession. Then when he entered, still so
inadvertent, the applause broke out, gathering, rolling, prolonging
itself, and dissolving like thunder in the mountains.

I especially enjoyed the fervent shouts of Anastase; his eye as clear
as fire, his strict frame relaxed. Almost before it was over, and as
if to elude further demonstrations, though he bowed with courteous
calmness, Seraphael signed to us to begin. Then, midst the delicious,
yet heart-wringing ice tones, shone out those beaming lineaments; the
same peculiar and almost painful keenness turned upon the sight the
very edge of beauty. Fleeting from cheek to brow, the rosy lightnings,
his very heart's flushes, were as the mantling of a sudden glory.

But of his restless and radiant eyes I could not bear the stressful
brightness, it dimmed my sight; whether dazzled or dissolved, I know
not. And yet,--will it be believed?--affectionate, earnest, and
devoted as was the demeanor of those about me, no countenance
glistened except my own in that atmosphere of bliss. Perhaps I
misjudge; but it appears to me that pure Genius is as unrecognizable
in human form as was pure Divinity. I encroach upon such a subject no
further. To feel, to feel exquisitely, is the lot of very many,--it is
the charm that lends a superstitious joy to fear; but to appreciate
belongs to the few, to the one or two alone here and there,--the
blended passion and understanding that constitute, in its essence,
worship.

I did not wonder half so much at the strong delight of the audience in
the composition. How many there are who _perceive_ art as they
perceive beauty,--perceive the fair in Nature, the pure in
science,--but receive not what these intimate and symbolize; how much
more fail in realizing the Divine ideal, the soul beyond the sight,
the ear!

Here, besides, there were plenty of persons weary with mediocre
impressions, and the effect upon them was as the fresh sea-breeze to
the weakling, or the sight of green fields after trackless deserts. I
never, never can have enough,--is _my_ feeling when that exalted music
overbrims my heart; sensation is trebled; the soul sees double; it is
as if, brooding on the waste of harmony, the spirit met its shadow,
like the swan, and embraced it as itself. I do not know how the
composition went, I was so lost in the author's brightness face to
face; but I never knew anything go ill under his direction. The
sublimity of the last movement, so sudden yet complete in its
conclusion, left the audience in a trance; the spell was not broken
for a minute and a half, and then burst out a tremendous call for a
repeat. But woe to those fools! thought I. It was already too late;
with the mystical modesty of his nature, Seraphael had flown
downstairs, forgetting the time-stick, which he held in his hand
still, and which he carried with him through the archway. As soon as
it was really felt he had departed, a great cry for him was set
up,--all in vain; and a deputation from the orchestra was instructed
to depart and persuade him to return: such things were done in Germany
in those days! Anastase was at the head of this select few, but
returned together with them discomfited; no Seraphael being, as they
asserted, to be found. Anastase announced this fact, in his rare
German, to the impatient audience, not a few of whom were standing
upright on the benches, to the end that they might make more clatter
with their feet than on the firmer floor. As soon as all heard, there
was a great groan, and some stray hisses sounded like the erection of
a rattlesnake or two; but upon second thoughts the people seemed to
think they should be more likely to find him if they dispersed,--though
what they meant to do with him when they came upon him I could not
conjecture, so vulgar did any homage appear as an offering to that
fragrant soul. My dear Millicent and her spouse waited patiently,
though they looked about them with some curiosity, till the crowd grew
thin; and then, as the stately party underneath me made a move and
disappeared through the same curtain that had closed over Seraphael, I
darted downwards past the barrier and climbed the intervening forms to
my sister and brother. Great was my satisfaction to stand there and
chatter with them; but presently Davy suggested our final departure,
and I recollected to have left my fiddle in the orchestra, not even
sheltered by its cradle, but where every dust could insult its face.

"Stay here," I begged them, "and I will run and put it by; I will not
keep you waiting five minutes."

"Fly, my dear boy," cried Davy, "and we will wait until you return,
however long you stay."

I did not _mean_ to stay more than five minutes, nor should I have
delayed, but for my next adventure. When I came to my door, which I
reached in breathless haste, lo! it was fastened within, or at least
would not be pulled open. I was cross, for I was in a hurry, and very
curious too; so I set down my violin, to bang and push against the
door. I had given it a good kick, almost enough to fracture the panel,
when a voice came creeping through that darkness, "Only wait one
little moment, and don't knock me down, please!" I knew that voice,
and stood stoned with delight to the spot, while the bolt slid softly
back in some velvet touch, and the door was opened.

"Oh, sir!" I cried, as I saw the Chevalier, looking at that instant
more like some darling child caught at its pretty mischief than the
commanding soul of myriads, "oh, sir! I beg your pardon. I did not
know you were here."

"I did not suppose so," he answered, laughing brightly. "I came here
because I knew the way, and because I wanted to be out of the way. It
is I who ought to beg _thy_ pardon, Carlomein."

"Oh, sir! to think of your coming into my room,--I shall always like
to think you came. But if I had only known you were here, I would not
have interrupted you."

"And I, had I known thou wouldst come, should not have bolted thy
door. But I was afraid of Anastase, Carlomein."

"Afraid of Anastase, sir,--of _Anastase_?" I could find no other
words.

"Yes, I am of Anastase even a little afraid."

"Oh, sir! don't you like him?" I exclaimed; for I remembered Maria's
secret.

"My child," said the Chevalier, "he is as near an angel as artist can
be,--a ministering spirit; but yet I tell thee, I fear before him. He
is so still, severe, and perfect."

"Perfect! perfect before _you_!"

I could have cried; but a restraining spell was on my soul,--a spell I
could not resist nor appreciate, but in whose after revelation the
reason shone clear of that strange, unwonted expression in Seraphael's
words. Thus, instead, I went on, "Sir, I understand why you came here,
that they might not persecute you,--and I don't wonder, for they are
dreadfully noisy; but, sir, they did not mean to be rude."

"It is I who have been rude, if it were such a thing at all; but it is
not. And now let me ask after what I have not forgotten,--thy health."

"Sir, I am very well, I thank you. And you, sir?"

"I never was so well, thank God! And yet, Carlomein, thy cheek is
thinner."

"Oh! that is only because I grow so tall. My sister, who is just come
from England--" Here I suddenly arrested myself, for my unaddress
stared me in the face. He just laid his little hand on my hair, and
smiled inquiringly, "Oh! tell me about thy sister."

"Sir, she said I looked so very well."

"That's good. But about her,--is she young and pretty?"

"Sir, she is a very darling sister to me, but not pretty at all,--only
very interesting; and she is very young to be married."

"She is married, then?" He smiled still more inquiringly.

"Yes, sir, she is married to Mr. Davy, my musical godfather."

"I remember; and this Mr. Davy, is he here too?" He left off speaking,
and sat upon the side of my bed, tucking up one foot like a little
boy.

"Yes, sir."

"And now, I shall ask thee a favor."

"What is that, sir?"

"That thou wilt let me see her and speak to her; I want to tell her
what a brother she has. Not only so, to invite her--do not be shy,
Carlomein--to my birthday feast."

"Oh, sir!" I exclaimed; and regardless of his presence, I threw myself
into the very length of my bed and covered my face.

"Now, if _thou_ wilt come to my feast, is another question. I have not
reached that yet."

"But please to reach it, sir!" I cried, rendered doubly audacious by
joy.

"But thou wilt have some trouble in coming,--shalt thou be afraid? Not
only to dance and eat sugar-plums."

"It is all the better, sir, if I have something to do; I am never so
well as then."

"But thy sister must come to see thee. She must not meddle, nor the
godpapa either."

"Oh! sir, Mr. Davy could not meddle, and he would rather stay with
Millicent,--but he does sing so beautifully."

He made no answer, but with wayward grace he started up.

"I think they are all gone. Cannot we now go? I am afraid of losing my
_queen_."

"Sir, who is she?"

"Cannot it be imagined by thee?"

"Well, sir, I only know of _one_."

"Thou art right. A queen is only _one_, just like any other lady.
Come, say thou the name; it is a virgin name, and stills the heart
like solitude."

"I don't think that does still."

"Ah! thou hast found that too!"

"Sir, you said you wished to go."

He opened the door, the lock of which he had played with as he stood,
and I ran out first.

The pavilion was crowded. "Oh, dear!" said Seraphael, a little piqued,
"it's exceedingly hot. Canst thou contrive to find thy friends in all
this fuss? I cannot find _mine_."

"Sir, my brother and sister were to wait for me in the concert-hall;
they cannot come here, you know, sir. If I knew your friends, I think
I could find them, even in this crowd."

"No," answered the Chevalier, decisively, as he cast his brilliant
eyes once round the room, "I know they are not here. I do not _feel_
them. Carlomein, I am assured they are in the garden. For one thing,
they could not breathe here."

"Let us go to them to the garden."

He made way instantly, gliding through the assembly, so that they
scarcely turned a head. We were soon on the grass,--so fresh after the
autumn rains. Crossing that green, we entered the lime-walk. The first
person I saw was Anastase. He was walking lonely, and looking down, as
he rarely appeared. So abstracted, indeed, was he that we might have
walked over him if Seraphael had not forced me by a touch to pause,
and waited until he should approach to our hand.

"See," said the Chevalier gleefully, "how solemn he is! No strange
thing, Carlomein, that I should be afraid of him. I wonder what he is
thinking of! He has quite a countenance for a picture."

But Anastase had reached us before I had time to say, as I intended,
"I know of what he is thinking."

He arrested himself suddenly, with a grace that charmed from his cool
demeanor, and swept off his cap involuntarily. Holding it in his hand,
and raising his serious gaze, he seemed waiting for the voice of the
Chevalier. But, to my surprise, he had to wait several moments, during
which they both regarded each other. At last Seraphael fairly laughed.

"Do you know, I had forgotten what I had to say, in contemplating you?
It is what I call a musical phiz, yours."

Anastase smiled slightly, and then shut up his lips; but a sort of
flush tinged his cheeks, I thought.

"Perhaps, Auchester, you can remind the Chevalier Seraphael."

I was so irritated at this observation that I kicked the gravel and
dust, but did not trust myself to speak.

"Oh!" exclaimed Seraphael, quickly, "it was to request of you a
favor,--a favor I should not dare to ask you unless I had heard what I
heard to-day, and seen what I saw."

It might have been my fancy, but it struck me that the tones were
singularly at variance with the words here. A suppressed disdain
breathed underneath his accent.

"Sir," returned Anastase, with scarcely more warmth, "it is impossible
but that I shall be ready to grant any favor in my power. I rejoice to
learn that such a thing is so. I shall be much indebted if you can
explain it to me at once, as I have to carry a message from Spoda to
the Fräulein Cerinthia."

Spoda was Maria's master for the voice.

"Let us turn back, then," exclaimed Seraphael, adroitly. "I will walk
with you wherever you may be going, and tell you on the way."
Seraphael's "I will" was irresistible, even to Anastase.

I suddenly remembered my relations, who would imagine I had gone to a
star on speculation. It was too bad of me to have left them all that
time. My impression that Seraphael had to treat at some length with my
master, induced me to say, "Sir, I have left my brother and sister
ever so long; I must run to them, I think."

"Run, then," said the Chevalier; "thou certainly shouldst, and tell
them what detained thee. But return to me, and bring them with thee."

I conceived this could not be done, and said so.

"I will come to thee, then, in perhaps half an hour. But if thou canst
not wait so long, go home with thy dear friends, and I will write thee
a letter."

I would have given something for a letter, it is true; but I secretly
resolved to wait all day rather than not see him instead, and rather
than _they_ should not see him.

I ran off at full speed; and it was not until I reached the sunny lawn
beyond the leafy shade that I looked back. They were both in the
distance, and beneath the flickering limes showed bright and dark as
sunlight crossed the shadow. I watched them to the end of the avenue,
and then raced on. It was well I did so, or I should have missed Davy
and my sister, who, astonished at my prolonged absence, were just
about to institute a search.

"Oh, Millicent!" I cried, as I breathlessly attained a seat in front
of both their faces, "I am so sorry, but I was obliged to go with the
Chevalier." And then I related how I had found him in my room.

They were much edified; and then I got into one of my agonies to know
what they both thought about him. Davy, with his bright smile at
noonday, said in reply to my impassioned queries, "He certainly is,
Charles, the very handsomest person I have ever seen."

"Mr. Davy! Handsome! I am quite sure you are laughing, or you would
never call him handsome."

"Well, I have just given offence to my wife in the same way. It is
very well for me that Millicent does not especially care for what is
handsome."

"But she likes beauty, Mr. Davy; she likes whatever I like; and I know
just exactly how she feels when she looks at your eyes. What very
beautiful eyes yours are, Mr. Davy! Don't you think so, Millicent?"

Davy laughed so very loud that the echoes called back to him again,
and Millicent said,--

"He knows what I think, Charles."

"But you never told me so much, did you, my love?"

"I like to hear you say 'my love' to Millicent, Mr. Davy."

"And I like to say it, Charles."

"And she likes to hear it. Now, Mr. Davy, about 'handsome.' You should
not call him so,--why do you? You did not at the festival."

"Well, Charles, when I saw this wonderful being at the festival, there
was a melancholy in his expression which was, though touching, almost
painful; and I do not see it any longer, but, on the contrary, an
exquisite sprightliness instead. He was also thinner then, and
paler,--no one can wish to see him so pale; but his colour now looks
like the brightest health. He certainly _is_ handsome, Charles."

"Oh, Mr. Davy, I am sorry you think so! But he does look well. I know
what you mean, and I should think that he must be very happy. But
besides that, Mr. Davy, you cannot tell how often his face changes. I
have seen it change and change till I wondered what was coming next. I
suppose, Mr. Davy, it is his forehead you call handsome?"

"It is the brow of genius, and as such requires no crown. Otherwise, I
should say his air is quite royal. Does he teach here, Charles? Surely
not."

"No, Mr. Davy, but he appoints our professors. I suppose you know he
chose my master, Anastase, though he is so young, to be at the head of
all the violins?"

"No, Charles, it is not easy to find out what is done here, without
the walls."

"No, Mr. Davy, nor within them either. I don't know much about the
Chevalier's private life, but I know he is very rich, and has no
Christian name. He has done an immense deal for Cecilia. No one knows
exactly how much, for he won't let it be told; but it is because he is
so rich, I suppose, that he does not give lessons. But he is to
superintend our grand examination next year."

"You told us so in your last letter, Charles," observed Millicent; and
then I was entreated to relate the whole story of my first
introduction to Cecilia, and of the Volkslied, to which I had only
alluded,--for indeed it was not a thing to write about, though of it I
have sadly written!

I was in the heart of my narration, in the middle of the benches, and,
no doubt, making a great noise, when Davy, who was in front, where he
could see the door, motioned me to silence; I very well knew why, and
obeyed him with the best possible grace.

As soon as I decently could, I turned and ran to meet the Chevalier,
who was advancing almost timidly, holding little Starwood in his hand.
The instant Starwood saw me coming, he left his hold and flew into my
arms; in spite of my whispered remonstrances, he _would_ cling to my
neck so fast that I had to present the Chevalier while his arms were
entwined about me. But no circumstance could interfere with even the
slightest effect _he_ was destined to produce. Standing before Davy,
with his little hands folded and his whole face grave, though his eyes
sparkled, he said, "Will you come to my birthday-feast, kind friends?
For we cannot be strangers with this Carl between us. My birthday is
next week, and as I am growing a man, I wish to make the most of it."

"How old, sir, shall you be on your birthday?" I asked, I fear rather
impertinently, but because I could not help it.

"Ten, Carlomein."

"Oh, sir!" we all laughed, Millicent most of all. He looked at her.

"You are a bride, madam, and can readily understand my feelings when I
say it is rather discomposing to step into a new state. Having been a
child so long, I feel it soon becoming a man; but in your case the
trial is even more obvious."

Millicent now blushed with all her might, as well as laughed, Davy, to
relieve her embarrassment taking up the parable.

"And when, sir, and where, will it be our happiness to attend you?"

"At the Glückhaus, not four miles off. It is a queer place which I
bought, because it suited me better than many a new one, for it is
very old; but I have dressed it in new clothes. I shall hope to make
Charles at home some time or other before we welcome you, that he may
make you, too, feel at home."

"It would be difficult, sir, to feel otherwise in your society," said
Davy, with all his countenance on flame.

"I hope we shall find it so together, and that this is only the
beginning of our friendship."

He held out his hand to Millicent, and then to Davy, with the most
perfect adaptation to an English custom considered uncouth in Germany;
Millicent looking as excited as if she were doing her part of the
nuptial ceremony over again. Meantime, for I knew we must part, I
whispered to Starwood,--"So you are happy enough, Star, I should
suppose?"

"Oh, Charles! too happy. My master was very angry, at first, that the
Chevalier carried me away."

"He carried you away, then? I thought as much. And so Aronach was
angry?"

"Only for a little bit, but it didn't matter; for the Chevalier took
me away in his carriage, and said to master, 'I'll send you a rainbow
when the storm is over.' And oh! Charles, I practise four hours at a
time now, and it never tires me in the least. I shall never play like
_him_, but I mean to be his shadow."

I loved my little friend for this.

"Oh, Charles! I am so glad you are coming to his birthday. Oh,
Charles! I wish I could tell you everything all in a minute, but I
can't."

"Never mind about that, for if you are happy, it is all clear to me.
Only one thing, Star. Tell me what I have got to do on this birthday."

"Charles, it's the silver wedding, don't you know?"

"What, is he going to be married?"

"Who, Carlomein? Starwood won't tell!" said the Chevalier, turning
sharply upon me and bending his eyes till he seemed to peep through
the lashes. "He knows all about it, but he won't tell. Wilt thou, my
shadow? By the by, there is a better word in English,--'chum;' but we
must not talk slang, at least not till we grow up. As for thee,
Carlomein, Anastase will enlighten thee, and thou shalt not be blinded
in that operation, I promise thee. 'Tis nothing very tremendous."

"Charles, I think we detain the Chevalier," observed Davy, ever
anxious; and this time I thought so too.

"That would be impossible, after my detaining _you_; but I think I
must find my mother,--she will certainly think I have taken a walk to
the moon. Come, Stern! Or wilt thou leave me in the lurch for that
Carl of thine?"

"Oh! I beg pardon, sir; please let me come too." And I dearly longed
to "come too," when I saw them leave the hall hand in hand.

"Now, Charles, we will carry you off and give you some dinner."

"I don't want any dinner, Mr. Davy; I must go to Anastase."

"I knew he was going to say so!" said Millicent. "But, Charles, duty
calls first; and if you don't dine we shall have you ill."

"I don't know whether I may go to the inn."

"Oh, yes! Lenhart obtained leave of absence at meals for you as long
as we are here."

"Oh! by the by, Millicent, you said you had only come for one week."

"But, Charles, we may never have such another opportunity."

"Yes," added Davy, "I would willingly _starve_ a month or two for the
sake of this feast."

"Bravo, Mr. Davy. But then, Millicent?"

"Oh, Millicent! she shall starve along with me." We all laughed, and
as we walked out of the courtyard into the bright country, he
continued,--

"You know, Charles, I suppose, what is to be done, musically, at this
birthday?"

"No, Mr. Davy, not in the least; and it is because I did not that I
refused my dinner. After dinner, though, I shall go and call on Maria
Cerinthia, and make her tell me."

"A beautiful name, Charles,--is she a favorite of yours?"

"She is the most wonderful person I ever saw or dreamt of, Millicent;
she does treat me very kindly, but she is above all of us except the
Chevalier."

"Is she such a celebrated singer, then?"

"She is only fifteen; but then she seems older than you are, she is so
lofty, and yet so full of lightness."

"A very good description of the Chevalier himself, Charles."

"Yes, Mr. Davy, and the Chevalier, too, treats her in a very high
manner,--I mean as if he held her to be very high."

"Is she at the school too?"

"She only attends for her lessons; she lives in the town with her
brother, who teaches her himself and her little sister. They are
orphans, and so fond of one another."

I was just about to say, "She is to marry Anastase;" but as I had not
received general permission to open out upon the subject, I forbore.
We dined at our little inn, and then, after depositing Davy by the
side of Millicent, who was reposing,--for he tended her like some
choice cutting from the Garden of Eden,--I set out on my special
errand. On mounting the stairs to Maria's room, I took the precaution
to listen; there were no voices to be heard just then, and I knocked,
was admitted, and entered. In the bright chamber I found my dread
young master certainly in the very best company; for Josephine was
half lost in leaning out of the window, and side by side sat Anastase
and Maria. I did not expect to see him in the least, and felt inclined
to effect a retreat, when she, without turning her eyes, which were
shining full upon his face, stretched out both her lovely hands to me:
and Anastase even said. "Do not go, Auchester, for we had, perhaps,
better consult together."

"Yes, oh, yes, there is room here, Carlino; sit by me."

But having spoken thus, she opened not her lips again, and seemed to
wait upon his silence. I took the seat beside her,--she was between
us; and I felt as one feels when one stands in a flower garden in the
dusk of night, for her spiritual presence as fragrance spelled me, and
the mystery of her passion made its outward form as darkness. Her
white dress was still folded round me, and her hair was still
unruffled; but she was leaning back, and I perceived, for the first
time, that his arm was round her. The slender fingers of his listless
hand rested upon the shoulder near me, and they seemed far too much at
ease to trifle even with the glorious hair, silk-drooping its braids
within his reach. _He_ leaned forwards, and looked from one to the
other of us, his blue eyes all tearless and unperturbed; but there was
a stirring blush upon his cheeks, especially the one at her side, and
so deep it burned that I could but fancy her lips had lately left
their seal upon it,--a rose-leaf kiss. Such a whirl of excitement this
fancy raised around me (I hope I was not preternatural either) that I
could scarcely attend to what was going on.

"The Chevalier Seraphael," said Anastase, in his stilly voice, "has
been writing a two-act piece to perform at his birth-night feast,[4]
which is in honor, not so much of his own nativity, as of his parents
arriving just that day at the twenty-fifth anniversary of their
nuptials. He was born in the fifth year of their marriage, and upon
their marriage-day. We have not too much time to work (but a week), as
I made bold to tell him; but it appears this little work suggested
itself to him suddenly,--in his sleep, as he says. It is a fairy
libretto, and I should imagine of first-rate attraction. This is the
score; and as it is only in manuscript, I need not say all our care is
required to preserve it just as it now is. Your part, Auchester, will
be sufficiently obvious when you look it over with the Fräulein
Cerinthia, as she is good enough to permit you to do so; but you had
better not look at it at all until that time."

"But, sir, she can't undertake to perfect me in the fiddle part, can
she?"

"She could, I have no doubt, were it necessary," said Anastase, not
satirically, but seriously; "but it just happens you are not to play."

"Not to play! Then what on earth am I to do? Sing?"

"Just so,--sing."

"Oh, how exquisite! but I have not sung for ever so long. In a chorus,
I suppose, sir?"

"By no means. You see, Auchester, _I_ don't know your vocal powers,
and may not do you justice; but the Chevalier is pleased to prefer
them to all others for this special part."

"But I never sang to him."

"He has a prepossession, I suppose. At all events, it will be rather a
ticklish position for you, as you are to exhibit yourself and your
voice in counterpart to the person who takes the precedence of all
others in songful and personal gifts."

"Sir,"--I was astonished, for his still voice thrilled with the
slightest tremble, and I knew he meant Maria,--"I am not fit to sing
with her, or to stand by her, I know; but I think perhaps I could
manage better than most other people, for most persons would be
thinking of their own voices, and how to set them off against _hers_;
now I shall only think how to keep my voice down, so that hers may
sound above it, and everybody may listen to it, rather than to mine."

Maria looked continually in her lap, but her lips moved. "Will you not
love him, Florimond?" she whispered, and something more; but I only
heard this.

"I could well, Maria, if I had any love left to bestow; but you know
how it is. I am not surprised at Charles's worship."

It was the first time he had called me Charles, and I liked it very
well,--him better than ever.

"I suppose, sir, I _may_ have a look at the score, though?"

"No, you may not," said Maria, "for I don't mean we should use this
copy. I shall write it all out first."

"But that will be useless," answered Anastase; "he made that copy for
us."

"I beg your pardon; I took care to ask him, and he has only written
out the parts for the instruments. He thinks nothing of throwing about
his writing; but it shall be preserved, for all that."

"And how do you mean to achieve this copy?" demanded Anastase. "When
will it be written?"

"It will be ready to-morrow morning."

"Fräulein Cerinthia!" I cried, aghast, "you are not going to sit up
all night?"

"No, she is not," returned Anastase, coolly; and he left the sofa and
walked to the table in the window where it lay,--a green-bound oblong
volume of no slight thickness. "I take this home with me, Maria; and
you will not see it until to-morrow at recreation time, when I will
arrange for Auchester to join you, and you shall do what you can
together."

"Thanks, sir! but surely you won't sit up all night?"

"No, I shall not, nor will a copy be made. In the first place, it will
not be proper to make a copy. Leave has not been given, and it cannot
be thought of without leave,--did you not know that, Maria? No, I
shall not sit up; I am too well off, and far too selfish, too
considerate perhaps, besides, to wish to be ill."

Maria bore this as if she were thinking of something else,--namely,
Florimond's forehead, on which she had fixed her eyes; and truly, as
he stood in the full light which so few contours pass into without
detriment, it looked like lambent pearl beneath the golden shadow of
his calm brown hair.

My hand was on the back of the sofa; she caught it suddenly in her own
and pressed it, as if stirred to commotion by agony of bliss; and at
the same moment, yet looking on him, she said, "I wonder whether the
Chevalier had so many fine reasons when he chose somebody to
administer the leadership, or whether he did it simply because there
was no better to be had?"

He smiled, still looking at the book, which he had safely imprisoned
between his two arms. "Most likely, in all simplicity. But a leader,
even of an orchestra, under _his_ direction is not a fairy queen."

"Is Herr Anastase to lead the violins, then? How glorious!" I said to
Maria.

"I knew you would say so. What then can go wrong?"

"And now I know what the Chevalier meant when he said, 'I must go find
my queen.' You are to be Titania."

"They say so. You shall hear all to-morrow,--I have not thought about
it, for when Florimond brought me home, I was thinking of something
else."

"He brought you home, then?"

"And told me on the way. But he had to tell me all over again when we
came upstairs."

"But about the rehearsals?"

"We shall rehearse here, in this very room, and also with the
orchestra at a room in the village where the Chevalier will meet us;
for he has his parents staying with him, and they are to know nothing
that is to happen."

"I wish I could begin to study it to-night; I am so dreadfully out of
voice since I had my violin,--I have never sung at all, indeed, except
on Sundays, and then one does not hear one's self sing at all."

"It is of no consequence, for the Chevalier told us your master,
Aronach, told him that your voice was like your violin, but that it
would not do to tell you so, because you might lose it, and your
violin, once gained, you could never lose."

"That is true; but how very kind of him to say so! He need not have
been afraid, though, for all I am so fond of singing. Perhaps he was
afraid of making me vain."

Anastase caught me up quickly. "Carl, do not speak nonsense. No
musicians are vain; no true artists, ever so young: they could no
more be vain than the angels of the Most High!"

"Well said, Florimond!" cried Maria, in a moment. "But it strikes me
that many a false artist, fallen-angel like, indulges in that
propensity; so that it is best to guard against the possibility of
being suspected, by announcing, with free tongues, the pride we have
in our art."

"That is better to be announced by free fingers, or a voice like
thine, than by tongues, however free; for even the false prophet can
prate of truth."

I perceived now the turn they were taking; so I said, "And do miracles
in the name of music too, sir, can't they?--like Marc Iskar, who, I
know, is not a true artist, for all that."

Anastase raised his brows. "True artists avoid personalities: that is
the reason why we should use our hands instead of our tongues. Play a
false artist down by the interpretation of true music; but never
cavil, out of music, about what is false and true."

"Florimond, that is worthy to be your creed! You have mastery; we are
only children."

"And children always chatter,--I remember that; but it is, perhaps,
scarcely fair to blame those who own the power of expression for using
it, when we feel our own tongue cleave to the roof of our mouth."

"So generous, too!" I thought; and the thought fastened on me. I felt
more than ever satisfied that all should remain as it was between
them.

FOOTNOTE:

[4] Mendelssohn wrote the "Son and Stranger" in 1829 for the silver
wedding of his parents.




CHAPTER V.[5]


The day had come, the evening,--an early evening; for entertainments
are early in Germany, or were so in my German days. The band had
preceded us, and we four drove alone,--Maria, shrouded in her
mantilla, which she had never abandoned, little Josephine, Anastase,
and myself. Lumberingly enough under any other circumstances; on this
occasion as if in an aërial car. Dark glitter fell from pine-groves,
the sun called out the green fields, the wild flowers looked
enchanted; but for quite two hours we met no one, and saw nothing that
reminded us of our destination. At length, issuing from a valley
haunted by the oldest trees, and opening upon the freest upland, we
beheld an ancient house all gabled, pine-darkened also from behind,
but with torrents of flowers in front sweeping its windows and
trailing heavily upon the stone of the illustrated gateway. A new-made
lawn, itself more moss than grass, was also islanded with flowers in a
thick mosaic: almost English in taste and keeping was this
garden-land. I had expected something of the kind from the allusion of
the Chevalier; but it was evident much had been done,--more than any
could have done but himself to mask in such loveliness that gray
seclusion. The gateway was already studded with bright-hued lamps
unlighted, hung among the swinging garlands; and as we entered we were
smitten through and through with the festal fragrance. In the
entrance-hall I grew bewildered, and only desired to keep as near to
Anastase and Maria as possible. Here we were left a few minutes, as it
were, alone; and while I was expecting a special retainer to lead us
again thence, as in England, the curtain of a somewhat obscure
gateway, at the end of the space, was thrust aside, and a little hand
beckoned us instantaneously forward. Forward we all flew, and I was
the first to sunder the folded damask and stand clear of the mystery.
As I passed beneath it, and felt who stood so near me, I was subdued,
and not the less when I discovered where I stood. It was in a little
theatre, real and sound, but of design rare as if raised within an
Oriental dream. We entered at the side of the stage; before us, tier
above tier, stretched tiny boxes with a single chair in each, and over
each, festooned, a curtain of softest rose-color met another of
softest blue. The central chandelier, as yet unlighted, hung like a
gigantic dewdrop from a grove of oak-branches, and the workmen were
yet nailing long green wreaths from front to front of the nest-like
boxes. Seraphael had been directing, and he led us onward to the
centre of the house.

"How exquisite!"--"How dream-like!"--"How fairy!" broke from one and
another; but I was quite in a maze at present, and in mortal fear of
forgetting my part. The Chevalier, in complete undress, was pale and
restless; still to us all he seemed to cling, passing amidst us
confidingly, as a fearful and shy-smitten child. I thought I
understood this mood, but was not prepared for its sudden alteration;
for he called to some one behind the curtain, and the curtain
rose,--rose upon the empty theatre, with the scenery complete for the
first act. And then the soul of all that scenery, the light of the
fairy life, flashed back into his eyes; elfin-like in his jubilance,
he clapped those little hands. Our satisfaction charmed him. But I
must not anticipate. Letting the curtain again fall, he preceded us to
the back of the scenery; and I will not, because I cannot in
conscience, reveal what took place in that seclusion for artists great
and small,--sacred itself to art, and upon which no one dwells who is
pressing onward to the demonstration, ever so reduced and
concentrated, of art in its highest form.

At seven o'clock the curtain finally rose. It rose upon that tiny
theatre crowded now with clustering faces, upon the chandelier, all
glittering, like a sphere of water with a soul of fire, the lingering
day-beams shut out and shaded by a leaf-like screen. Out of all
precedent the curtain rose, not even on the overture; for as yet not a
note had sounded, since the orchestra was tuned, before the theatre
filled. It rose upon a hedge of mingled green and silver, densely
tangled leafage, and a burst of moon-colorless flowers, veiling every
player from view, and hiding every instrument of the silent throng,
who, with arm and bow uplifted, awaited the magic summons. But by all
the names of magic, how arose that flower-tower in the midst? For
raised above the screen of sylvan symbol was a turret of roots,
entwisted as one sees in old oaks that interlace their gnarled arms,
facing the audience, and also in sight of the orchestra; and this wild
nest was clad with silver lilies twice the size of life, whose
drooping buds made a coronal of the margin where the turret edged into
the air. And in the turret, azure-robed, glitter-winged,--those wings
sweeping the folded lilies as with the lustrous shadow of their
light,--stood our Ariel, the Ariel of our imaginations, the Ariel of
that haunted music, yet unspelled from the silent strings and pipes!

We behind, among the rocks,--those gently painted rocks that faded
into a heavenly distance,--could only glimpse that delicate form,
hovering amidst up-climbing lilies, those silver-shadowy plumes; that
glorious face was shining into the light of the theatre itself, and we
waited for his voice to reassure us. We need not have feared, even
Maria and I. I was quivering and shuddering; but yet she did not sigh,
her confidence was too unshaken, albeit in such a trying position, so
minutely critical to maintain, did author perhaps never appear. In an
instant, as the first soft blaze had broken on the world in front, did
our Ariel raise his wand, no longer _like_ the stem of a lily, but a
lily-stem itself, all set with silver leaves, and whose crowning
blossom sparkled with silver frostwork. He raised it, but not yet
again let it sweep,--descending downwards, on the contrary, he clasped
it in his roseate lilied fingers; and all amidst the great white buds,
that made him shrink to elfin clearness, he began, in a voice that
might have been the soul of that charmed orchestra, to recite the
little prologue, which may thus be rendered into English:

      "A while ago, a long bright while, I dwelt
      In that old Island with my Prospero.
      He gave, not lent, me Freedom, which I fed
      Sometimes on spicy airs that heavenward roll
      From flowers that wing their spirits to the stars,
      And scented shade that droppeth fruit or balm.
      But soon a change smote through me, and I fell
      Weary of stillness in the wide blue day,
      Weary of breathless beauty, where the rose
      Of sunset flushes with no fragrant sigh,
      For that my soul was native with the spheres
      Where music makes an everlasting morn.
      All music in that ancient isle was mine
      That pulsed the air or floated on the calm,--
      Old music veiled in the bemoaning breeze,
      Or whispering kisses to the yearning sea,
      Where foam upblown sprayed with its liquid stars
      My plumes for all their dim cerulean grain.
      From age to age the lonely tones I stored
      In crystal deeps of unheard memory;
      Froze them with virgin cold fast to the cups
      Of wavering lilies; bade the roses bind
      The orbed harmonies in burning rest;
      Thrilled with that dread elixir, dreaming song,
      The veins of violets; made the green gloom
      Of myrtle-leaves hush the sounds intricate;
      Charged the deep cedars with all mourning chords.
      And having wide and far diffused my wealth,--
      Safe garnered, spelled, unknown of reasoning men,--
      I long to summon it, to disenchant
      My most melodious treasure breathless hid
      In bell and blade, in blossom-blush and buds
      And mystic verdure, the soft shade of rest.
      Methinks in this wild wood, this home of flowers,
      My harmonies are clustered; yea, I feel
      The voiceless silence stir with voiceful awe;
      I feel the fanning of a thousand airs
      That will not be repressed, that crave to wake
      In resurrection of tone infinite
      From the tranced beauty, her divinest death.
      Arise, my spirits! wake, my slumbering spells!
      Dawn on the dreamland of these alien dells!"

As the last words died away, pronounced alike with the rest in accents
so peculiar, yet so pure, so soft, yet so unshaken,--he swept the stem
of lilies around his brow. The frosted flower flashed shudderingly
against the lamplight, and with its motion without a pause opened the
overture, as by those words themselves invoked and magically won from
the abyss of sylvan silence. Three long, longing sighs from the unseen
wind instruments, in withering notes, prepared the brain for the rush
of fairy melody that was as the subtlest essences of thought and
fragrance enfranchised. The elfin progression, _prestissimo_, of the
subject, was scarcely realized as the full suggestion dawned of the
leafy shivering it portrayed. The violins, their splendors
concentrated like the rainbows of the dewdrops, seemed but the veiling
voices for that ideal strain to filter through; and yet, when the
horns spoke out, a blaze of golden notes, one felt the deeper glory of
the strings to be more than ever quenchless as they returned to that
ever-pulsing flow. Accumulating in orchestral richness, as if flower
after flower of music were unsheathing to the sun, no words, no
expression self-agonized to caricature, can describe that fairy
overture. I am only reverting to the feeling, the passion it
suggested; not to its existent art and actual interpretation.

Its dissolution not immediate, but at its fullest stream subsiding,
ebbing, seemed, instead of breaking up and scattering the ideal
impression received, to retain it and expand it in itself through
another transition of ecstasy into a musical state beyond. During the
ethereal modulations, by a sudden illumination of the stage, the
scenery behind uncurtained all along, started into light. Still
beneath the leafy cloud, by mystic management, the hidden band
reposed; but before the audience a sylvan dream had spread. The time
was sunset, and upon those hills I spoke of it seemed to blush and
burn, still leaving the foreground distinct in a sort of pearly
shadow. That foreground was masked in verdure, itself precipitous with
descending sides clothed thick with shrubs that lifted their red bells
clear to the crimson beams behind, and shelving into a bed of enormous
leaves of black-green growth such as one sometimes comes upon in the
very core of the forest. Beneath those leaves we nestled, Maria and I.
I can only speak of what I felt and others saw; not of that which any
of us heard. For simultaneously with the blissful modulation into the
keynote of the primeval strain, we began our part side by side unseen.
It was a duet for Titania and Oberon, the alto being mine, the
mezzo-soprano hers; and it was to be treated with the most distant
softness. The excitement had overpassed its crisis with me, and no
calm could have been more trance-like than that of both our voices, so
far fulfilling his aspiration, which conceived for that effect all the
passionless serenity of a nature devoid of pain,--the prerogative of a
fairy life alone.

      "Ariel, we hear thee!
      Slumbering, dreaming, near thee,
      Bursting from control
      As from death the soul,
      From the bud the flower,
      From the will the power;
      Risen, by the spell
      Thou alone canst quell,
      Hear we, Ariel,
      Ariel, we feel thee!
      Music, to reveal thee,
      Drowns, as dawn the night,
      Us in thy delight.
      We, immortal, own
      Thee supreme alone.
      Strongest, in the spell
      Thou canst raise or quell,
      Feel we, Ariel!"

And Maria shook the leaves above her spreading, and waving aside the
broad-green fans, stood out to the audience as a freshly blossomed
idea from the shadows of a poet's dream. For here had music and poetry
met together, here even as righteousness and peace had embraced,
heaven-sent and spiritual; nor was there aught of earth in that fancy
hour. I was nearest her, and supported her with my arm; her floating
scarf, transparent, spangled, fell upon my own rose-hued mantle, which
blushed through its lucid mist. Her hair, trembling with water-like
gems, clothed her to the very knees; her cheek was white as her
streaming robe, but her eye was as a midnight moon, bright yet
lambent; and while she sang she looked at Anastase, as he stood a
little above the others in the band, and appeared to have eyes for his
violin alone. The next movement was a fairy march _pianissimo_,--a
rustling, gathering accompaniment that muffled a measure delicate as
precise: it was as for the marshalling of troops of fairies, who by
the shifting of the scenery appeared clustering to the stems of the
red foxgloves that bent not beneath that fragile weight. And as the
march waned ravishingly, another verse arose for the duet we sang,--

      "Ariel, behold us!
      In thy strains enfold us,
      Minding but that we
      Ministrant may be.
      On thy freak or sport
      Waits our fairy court:
      Mortals cannot tell
      How to cross thy spell,
      Nor we, Ariel!"

And Ariel lifted the lily wand, and silence awaited his reply. Still,
while he spoke in that recitative so singularly contrasting with the
voice of any song, might be heard weird snatches from the veiled
orchestra, as if music fainted from delight of him,--strange sounds,
indeed, now sigh, now sob, that broke against his unfaltering accents,
yet disturbed them not.

      "Friends, royal darlings of mine ancient age,
      Welcome, right welcome, in the realm of sound
      To majesty and honor! Sooth to say
      Long time I languished for your presences
      That nothing save our Music seeks and finds;
      Though Poesy seeks to find and has not met,
      As we, through might of Music, face to face.
      Your potence is my boon; I bid it work
      With mine own spells, in soul-like, eager flame
      To flash about my spirit and make day,
      Till, as in times of old, we shine as one.
      Far in those undulating vales apart
      A castle lifts its glittering ghostly hue,
      In whose calm walls, that years spare tenderly,
      Dwelleth the rival soul of Faërie
      And Music,--one whose very name is spell
      Immutable,--for that fixed name is Love.
      And Love holds yonder his best festal rite
      This evening, when the moontime draweth nigh.
      Twain souls love there, and meet; but not as cleft
      By late long parting--they have met and loved
      Years upon years, since youth; none ever loved
      So long as they unparted, unappalled,
      Save my Titania and her Oberon!
      For twenty-five their one-like summers count
      Since the dim rapture of the bridal dream.
      Such among mortals jubilant they call
      The Silver Wedding,--rare and purer crown
      Than the wreathed myrtle of the marriage morn.
      All that is rare and pure is of our own;
      Our elements mix gladly into joy:
      But chiefly Love is our own atmosphere,
      And chiefly those who love our pensioners
      Remain,--for where unsullied Love remains,
      Doth Faërie consecrate its festal strains."

The curtain fell on the first act as Ariel finished speaking. Again
rising, the scene indeed had changed. The gray castle immediately
fronted the audience, its buttresses glistening in the perfect
moonlight, the full languid orb itself divided by the dark edge of a
tower. The many windows shone ruby with the gleam inside that seemed
ready to pour through the stonework; and on the ground-floor
especially, the radiance was as if sun-lamps blazed within. And midst
the blaze, scarcely softened by the outer silver shine, rose the
exciting, exhilarating burden of an exquisite dance-measure,
brilliant, almost delirious; albeit distance-clouded, as it issued
from another band behind the stage. The long, straight alleys of
moon-bathed lindens to which the waltz-whirlwind floated, parted on
either hand and left a smooth expanse of lawn, now white, heaving like
a moon-kissed sea; and as soon as the measure had passed into its
glad refrain, two little Loves struck from the lime avenues to the
lawn, directly before the ball-room. I call them Loves; but they were
anything but Cupids, for they were mystical little creatures enough,
and in the prevailing moonlight showed like bright birds of blushing
plumage as they each carried a roseate torch of tinted flame that made
their small bodies look much like flame themselves. They were no
others than Josephine and my own Starwood; but it would have been
impossible to recognize them unprepared. As they stood they paused an
instant, and then flung the torches high into the air against the side
of the castle; and as the rose-flame kissed the moonbeams upon the
walls, it was extinguished, but the whole building burst into an
illumination entirely of silver lamps,--calm, not coruscant;
translucent, streaming; itself like concentrated moonshine, or the
light of the very lilies. And with the light that drank up into itself
the rose-radiance, our Ariel with the silvered hedge, the lilies, the
shine, the shimmer, swelled upon the vision in softest swiftness; and
Ariel, leaning upon his nest, seemed listening to the dance symphonies
afar.

Soon a great shout arose,--no elfin call, but a cry of wonder-stricken
earthlings. And then the hall front opened,--a massy portal that
rolled back; and out of the ball-room, amidst the diminishing
dance-song, poured the dancers upon the lawn in ranks, their
fluttering airy dresses passing into the silver light like clouds. And
as they streamed forth, there broke a delicate peal of laughter in
response to the wondering shout, accompanied by the top-notes of the
violins, vividly _piano_; then Ariel arose, and himself addressed the
multitude. Sharp, sweet notes in unison, intermitted this time with
his words, but ceased when he turned to his fairy troop and incited
them to do homage to the name of love. Nor do I even essay to describe
our feats subsequently, which might in their relation tend to
deteriorate from the conviction that the illustrated music was all in
all, not their companion, but their element and creator.

Except that in the last scene, after exhibiting every kind of charm
that can co-exist with scenic transition, the portraits of the father
and mother in whose honor the fairydom had united, appeared framed in
an archway of lilies with their leaves of silver, painted with such
skill that the imagery almost issued from the canvas; and while
Titania and Oberon supported the lustrous framework on either
hand,--themselves all shivering with the silver radiance,--on either
hand, to form a vista from which the gazers caught the picture, rose
trees of giant harebells, all silver,--white as if veined with
moonshine; and the attendant fairies, springing winged from their
roots, shook them until the tremulous silver shudder was, as it were,
itself a sound,--for as they quivered, or seemed to quiver, did the
final chorus in praise of wedded love rise chime upon chime from the
fairy voices and the rapt Elysian orchestra.

"All that's bright must fade." This passionate proverb is trite and
travestied enough, but neither in its interpretation of necessity
irrelevant or grotesque. I do not envy those who would strangle
melancholy as it is born into the soul; and again to quote, though
from a source far higher and less investigated, "There are woes ill
bartered for the garishness of joy." Such troubles we may not christen
in the name of sorrow, for sorrow concerns our personality; and in
these we agonize for others, not a thought of self intrudes,--we only
feel and know that we can do nothing, and are silent.

At this distance of time, with the mists of boyish inexperience upon
my memory of myself, I can only advert to the issues of that evening
as they appeared. As they are, they can only be read where all things
tell, where nothing that has happened shall be in vain, where mystery
is eternal light. How strangely I recall the smothered sound, the
long-repressed shout of rapture, that soared and pierced through the
fallen and folded curtain,--the eminent oblivion of everything but him
for whom it was uttered, or rather kept back. For the music bewitched
them still, and they could no more realize their position in front,
even among the garlanded tiers, than we behind, stumbling into regions
of lampless chaos.

I felt I must faint if I could not retreat, and as instinctively I had
sought for Maria's hand. I found it, and it saved me; for though I
could not hear her speak, I knew she was leading me away. I had closed
my eyes, and when I opened them we were together again in the little
dressing-room that had been devoted to us alone, and in which we had
robed and waited.

"Oh, Carlino!" said Maria, "I hope no one is coming, for I feel I must
cry."

"Do not, pray!" I cried, for her paleness frightened me; "but let me
help you to undress. I can do that, though I could not dress you, as
the Chevalier seemed to think."

For the Chevalier had slyly entered beforehand and had himself
invested her with the glittering costume. I was still in a dream of
those elfin hands as they had sleeked the plumes and soothed the
spangled undulations of the scarf, and I could not bear her to be
denuded of them, they had become so natural now. I had stripped off my
own roseate mantle and all the rest in a moment, and had my own coat
on before she had moved from the chair into which she had flung
herself, or I had considered what was to be done next. I was running
my fingers through my hair, somewhat distraught in fancy, when some
one knocked at the door. I went to it, and beheld, as I expected, our
Ariel,--_unarielized_ yet, except that he had doffed his wings.

"Is she tired?" he whispered softly; "is she very tired?" And without
even looking at me, he passed in and stood before her.

"Thank you for all your goodness!" said he, in the tenderest of all
his voices, no longer cold, but as if fanned by the same fire that had
scorched his delicate cheek to a hectic like the rose fresh open to
the sun.

"And you, sir, oh you!" Maria exclaimed with enthusiasm, lifting her
eyes from all that cloud of hair, as twin sunbeams from the dark of
night. "Oh, your music! your music! it is of all that is the most
divine, and nothing ever has been or shall be to excel it. It breaks
the heart with beauty; it is for the soul that seeks and comprehends
it, all in all. And will you not, as you even promised, reform the
drama?"

"If it yet remains to me, after all is known; that I cannot yet
discern. Infant germ of all my art's dread children, inspiration
demands thee only!" He checked himself; but as naturally as if no
deep, insufferable sentiment had imbued his words, his caressing calm
returned. "I did not come for a compliment, I came to help you; also
to bring you some pretty ice, made in a mould like a little bird in a
little nest. But I will not give it you now, because you are too
warm." He was smiling now, as he glanced downwards at the crystal
plate he held.

"I am not warm," she answered, very indifferently, still with
grateful intention, "and I should like some ice better than anything,
if you are so kind as to give it me."

"Let me feed you, then," was his sweet reply; and she made no
resistance. And he fed her, spoonful by spoonful, presenting her with
morsels so fairy that I felt he prolonged the opportunity vaguely, and
almost wondered why. Before it was over, another knock came,--very
impatient for so cool a hand, as it was that of Anastase himself.
However, there was no exhilaration of manner on his part; one would
not have thought he had just been playing the violin.

"They are all inquiring for you, sir," he said, very respectfully, to
Seraphael; "your name is calling through and through the theatre."

"I daresay," replied the Chevalier lightly, daringly; but he made no
show of moving, though Maria had finished the ice-bird and last straw
of the nest. Then Anastase approached. "That weight of hair will tire
you; let me fasten it up for you, Maria, and then we need detain no
one, for Carl, I see, is ready." A change came upon the Chevalier; as
if ice had passed upon his cheek, he paled, he turned proud to the
very topmost steep of his shadeless brow, he laughed coldly but
airily. "Oh, if that is it, and you want to get rid of us, Carl and I
will go. Come, Carlomein, for we are both of us in the way; but I will
say it is the first time any one ever dared to interfere between the
queen and her chosen consort."

"It would be impossible," said Anastase, with still politeness, "that
you should be in the way,--that is our case, indeed; but Maria, as
_Maria_, would certainly not detain you."

"Maria, as Maria, would have said you are too good, sir, to notice
the least of your servants,--too good to have come and stayed; but,"
she added, looking at Anastase with her most enchanting sweetness, a
smile like love itself, "_he_ will always have it that I am content he
should do everything for me." I was astonished, for nothing, except
the seasonable excitement, could have drawn forth such demonstration
from her before the Chevalier. He was not looking at her, he looked at
me vividly; I could not bear his eyes simultaneously with Maria's
words, he had so allured my own, though I longed to gaze away.

"Come!" he continued, holding his hand to me, "come, Carlomein." I
took his hand. He grasped me as if those elfin fingers were charged
with lightning. I shook and trembled, even outwardly, but he drew me
on with that convulsive pressure never heeding, and holding his head
so high that the curls fell backwards from the forehead. We passed to
the stage. He led me behind the stage--deserted, dim--to another door
behind that, opened by waving drapery, to the garden-land. He led me
in the air, round the outside of the temporary theatre, to the main
front of the house, to the entrance through the hall, swiftly,
silently, up the stairs into the corridor, and so to a chamber I had
never known nor entered. I saw nothing that was in the room, and
generally I see everything. I believe there were books; I felt there
was an organ, and I heard it a long time afterwards. But I was only
conscious this night that then I was with him,--shut up and closed
together with his awful presence, in the travail of presentiment.

He had placed me on a seat, and he sat by me, still holding my hand;
but his own was now relaxed and soft, the fingers cold, as if
benumbed.

"Carlomein," he said, "I have always loved you, as you know; but I
little thought it would be for this."

"How, sir? Why? I am frightened; for you look so strange and speak so
strangely, and I feel as if I were going to die."

"I wish we both were! But do not be frightened. Ah! that is only
excitement, my darling. You will let me call you so to-night?"

"Let you, dear, dearest sir! You have always been my darling. But I am
too weak and young to be of any use to you; and that is why I wish to
die."

"My child, if thou wert strong and manly, how could I confide in thee?
Yet God forgive me if I show this little one too much too early!"

His eyes wore here an expression so divine, so little earthly that I
turned away, still holding his hand, which I bathed in tears that fell
shiveringly from my dull heart like rain from a sultry sky. It was the
tone that pierced me; for I knew not what he meant, or only had a
dream of perceiving _how much_.

"Sir, you could not tell me too much. You have taught me all I know
already, and I don't intend ever to learn of anybody else."

"My child, it is God who taught thee. It is something thou hast to
teach _me_ now."

"Sir, is it anything about myself?" I chose to say so, but did not
think it.

"No; about some one those eyes of thine do love to watch and wait on,
so that sometimes I am almost jealous of thine eyes! But it cannot be
a hardened jealousy while they are so baby-kind."

"It is Maria, then, sir, of course. But they are not babies,--my eyes,
I mean; for they know all about her, and so do I. I know why sometimes
she seems looking through us instead of at us. It is because she is
seeing other eyes in her soul, and our eyes are only just eyes to her,
and nothing else,--you know what I mean, sir?"

I said all this because I had an instinctive dread of his
self-betrayal beyond what was needed. Alas! I had not even curiosity
left. But I was mistaken in him, so far. He leaned forwards, stroked
my hair, and kissed it.

"Whose eyes, then, Carlomein?"

"My master, Anastase, is that person whose eyes I mean."

"Impossible! But I was wrong to ask thee. Assuredly, thou art an
infant, and couldst even make me smile. That is a fancy only. Not
Anastase, my child! Any one but Anastase."

What anguish curled beneath those coaxing tones!

"Sir, I know nothing about it, except that it is true. But that it is
true I _do_ know, for Maria told me so herself; and they will be
married as soon as she is educated." I trembled as I spoke in sore
dismay; for the truth was borne to me that moment in a flash of
misery, and all I could feel was what I was fool enough to say, "Oh
that I were Maria!" He turned to me in an instant; made a sort of
motion with both his arms, like wings, having released the hand I
held. I looked up now, and saw that a more awful paleness--a virgin
shadow appalling as that of death--had fixed his features. I threw
myself into his arms; he was very still, mute, all gentleness. I
kissed the glistening dress, the spangled sleeves. He moved not,
murmured not. At last my tears would flow. They rushed, they scalded;
I called out of the midst of them, and heard that my own voice, child
as I was, fell hollow through my hot lips.

"Oh, let my heart burst! Do let me break my heart!" I sobbed, and a
shiver seemed to spread from my frame to his. He brought me closer to
his breast, and bowed his soft curls till they were wet with my wild
weeping through and through. It heaved not. No passion swelled the
pulses of that heart; still he shivered as if his breath were passing.
In many, many minutes I heard his voice; it was a voice all tremble,
like a harp-string jarred and breaking. "Carlomein, you will ever be
dearer to me than I can say from this night; for you have seen sorrow
no man should have seen, and no woman could have suffered. You know
what I wished; yet perhaps not yet,--how should you? Carlomein, when
you become a man I hope you will love me as you do now when you know
what I do feel, what I do wish. May you never despise suffering for my
sake! May you never suffer as I do! You _only_ could; I know no one
else, poor child! God take you first, before you suffer _so_. You see
the worst of it is, Carlomein, that we need not have suffered at all,
if I had only known it from the beginning. But it is very strange, is
it not?" He spoke as if inviting me to question him.

"What, dearest sir?"

"That she should not love me. How could she help it?"

Of all his words, few as they were indeed, these touched me most. I
felt, indeed, how could she help it? But I was, child as I was, too
wise to say so.

"You see, sir, she could not help loving Anastase!"

"Nor could I help loving her, nor can I; but the sorrow is, Carlomein,
that neither on earth nor in heaven will she wish to be mine."

"Sir, in heaven it won't matter whether she married Anastase or not;
for if she were perfect here, she could but love you, and _there_ she
will be perfect and will understand you, sir."

"Sweet religion, if true. Sweet philosophy,--false as pleasant."

"But, sir, you will not be unhappy, because it is of no use; and
besides, she will find it out, and you would not like that. And you
will not break your heart, sir, because of music."

"I should never break my heart, Carlchen, under any earthly
circumstances." He smiled upon me indifferently; a pure disdain
chiselled every feature in that attitude. "There is now no more to be
said. I need scarcely say, my child, never speak of this. But I _will_
command you to forget it--as I forget--have already forgotten."

He rose, and passed his hand, with weary grace, over the curls that
had fallen forward; and then he took me by the hand and we went out
together, I knew not whither.

I returned that night with my brother and sister to Cecilia. I never
had taken part in a scene so brilliant as the concluding banquet,
which was in the open air, and under shade lamp-fruited; but I knew
nothing that happened to me, was cold all over, and for a time, at
least, laid aside my very consciousness. Millicent was positively
alarmed by my paleness, which she attributed, neither wrongly, to
excitement; and it was in consequence of her suspicion that we retired
very early.

We met no one,--having bowed to the king and queen of the night's
festival,--nor did I behold the Chevalier, except in the distance, as
he glided from table to table to watch that all should fare well at
them, though he never sat himself. Maria was seated by Anastase. I
noticed them, but did not gaze upon them. Their aspect sickened me.
It was well that Millicent believed me ill, for I was thus not obliged
to speak, and she and Davy had it all to themselves on the road.

That time, when she got me to bed, I became strangely affected in a
fashion of my own, and not sleeping at all, was compelled to remain
there day after day for a week, not having the most shadowy notion of
that which was my affection. It was convenient that Davy knew a great
deal about such suffering on his own account, or I might have been
severely tampered with. He would not send for a doctor, as he
understood what was the matter with me; and presently I got right. In
fact, my nerves, ever in my way, were asserting themselves furiously;
and as I needed no physic, I took none, but trusted Davy and kept
quiet.

I heard upon my resuscitation that Maria, Anastase, and Delemann had
all been to inquire after me, and, oh, strange sweetness! also the
Chevalier. It was some satisfaction when Millicent said he was looking
very well and had talked to her for half an hour. This news tended
most to my restoration of anything; and it was not ten days before I
returned to school, my people having left the village the same morning
only.

I saw as much of Anastase as before, now; but I felt as if till now I
had never known him, nor of how infinite importance a finite creature
may become under certain circumstances. In a day or two I had worked
up to the mark sufficiently to permit myself a breath of leisure; and
towards the afternoon I went after Maria, to accompany her home. This
she permitted; but I knew that Anastase would be with her in the
evening, and refused her invitation to enter, for I felt I could not
bear to see them together just then. I entreated her, therefore, to
take a walk with me instead. She hesitated, on account of her
preparation for the morrow; but when I reminded her that Anastase
desired her to walk abroad daily, she assented. "Florimond would be
pleased."

Up the green sides of the hill we wandered, and again into the valley.
It was a mild day, with no rude wind to break the silken thread of
conversation, and I was mad to talk to her. I could hardly tell how to
begin, though I knew what I wanted to find out well enough; but I need
not have been afraid. She was singularly unsuspicious.

"So, Carl," she began herself, "the Chevalier took you into his
room,--his very room where he writes, was it?"

"I don't know," I said, "whether he writes there. I should think he
would write anywhere. But it was stuffed full of books and had an
organ."

"A large organ?"

Heaven help and pardon me! I had not seen anything in the room
specifically; but I drew upon my imagination,--usually a lively spring
enough.

"Oh! yes, a very large organ, with beautiful carving about
it,--cherubs above, with their wings spread, I believe; and the books
bound exquisitely, and set in cabinets."

"What sort of furniture?"

"I don't know. Oh! I think it was dark red, and very rich looking.
Embroidered cloths, too, upon the tables and sofas,--but really I may
be mistaken, because, you see, I was not looking at them."

"No, I should think not. Carnation is his favorite color, you know; he
told me so."

"He tells you everything, I think, Maria."

"Yes, of course he does,--just as one talks to a little child that
asks for stories."

"That is not the reason,--it cannot be. Besides, he always talks about
himself to you, and one never talks about one's self to children."

"Do not you? But, Carl, he chiefly talks to me about music."

"And for that, is he not himself music? But, Maria, I can, telling you
his favorite color, talking about himself as much as if he told you he
had a headache."

"Well, Carl, he did come to me when he had scratched his finger and
ask me to tie it up."

"And did you? Was that since _the_ evening?"

"It was the day before yesterday. He was going to play somewhere. But,
Carl, we shall not hear him play again."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean not until next year. He is going to travel."

"To travel--going away--where--who with?" I was stupid.

"He told us all so the other day,--just before you returned, Carl. He
went through all the class-rooms to bid farewell. I was in the second
singing-room with Spoda and two or three others. He spoke to Spoda,
'Have you any commands for Italy,--any part of Italy? I am going
unexpectedly, or we would have had a concert first; but now we must
wait until May for our concert.' Spoda behaved very well and exhibited
no surprise, only showered forth his _confetti_ speeches about
parting. Then the Chevalier bowed to us who were there and said, 'My
heart will be half here, and I shall hope to find Cecilia upon the
self-same hill,--not a stone wanting.' And then he sighed; but
otherwise he looked exceedingly happy. And who, do you think, is going
with him?"

"His father, I should imagine."

"No; old Aronach, and your little friend,--who, Carl, I suspect, makes
a sort of chevalier of you, from what I hear."

"Yes; he is very fond of me. But, Maria, what is he going away for? Is
he going to be married?"

She smiled with her own peculiar expression,--wayward, yet warm.

"Oh, dear, no! nothing of the kind, I am sure. I cannot fancy the
Chevalier in love even. It seems most absurd."

"I do not think that; he is too lovable not to be loved."

"And that is just why he never will love--to marry, I mean--until he
has tried everything else and pleased himself in every manner."

"Maria, how do you know? And do you think he will marry one day?"

"Carl, I believe there is not anything he will not do; and yet he will
be happy, very happy,--only not as he expects. I am certain the
Chevalier thinks he should find as much in love as in music,--for
himself, I mean. Now, I believe it would be nothing to him in
comparison."

I could scarcely contain myself, I so sincerely felt that she was
mistaken. But I seriously resolved to humor her, lest I should say too
much, or she should say too little.

"Oh, of course! But I don't think he would _expect_ to find more in
love, because he knows how he is loved."

"Not _how_, Carl, only how much."

"But, Maria, I fancy he wants as much love as music; and that is
plenty."

"But, Carl, he makes the music, and we love him in it, just as we
love God in His works; and I cannot conceive of any love being
acceptable to him when it infringed his right as supreme."

"You mean that he is proud."

"So proud that if love came to him without music, I don't think he
would take any notice of it."

I felt as surely as she did, sure of that singular pride, but also
that it was not a fallen pride, and that she could read it not.

"You mean, Maria, that if you and I were not musical,--supposing such
a thing to be possible,--he would not like us nor treat us as he does
now?"

"I know he would not."

"But then it would be impossible for us to be as we are if we were
changed as to music, and we could not love as we do."

"I don't think that has anything to do with it, and indeed I am sure
not. You see, Carl, you make me speak to you openly. I have never done
so before, and I should not, but that you force me to it,--not that I
dislike to speak of it, for I think of nothing else,--but that it
might be troublesome."

Could it be that she was about, in any sense, to open her heart? Mine
felt as if it had collapsed, and would never expand again; but I was
very rejoiced, for many reasons.

"Oh, Maria! if I could hear you talk all day about your own feelings,
I should know really that you cared to be my friend; but I could not
ask you to do so, nor wish, unless you did."

"Carl, if you were not younger than I am I should hesitate, and still
more if, where I came from, we did not become grown up so fast that
our lives seem too quick, too bright! Oh! I have often thought so,
and shall think so again; but I will not now, because I intend to be
very happy. You know, Carl, you cannot understand, though you may
_feel_, what I feel when I think of Florimond. And it is possible you
think him higher than I do, for you do him justice now."

"I suppose I do,--I am very certain that I adore his playing."

"I do not care for his playing, or scarcely. And yet I am aware that
it is the playing of a master, of a musician, and I am proud to say
so. Still, I would rather be that violin than hear it, and endure the
sweet anguish he pours into it than be as I am, so far more divided
from him than it is."

"Maria!"

"But Florimond does not mind my feeling this, or I should not say
it,--on the contrary, he feels the same; and when first Heaven made
him love me, he felt it even then."

"Was that long ago, Maria?"

"It is beginning to be a long time, for it was in the summer that I
was twelve, before my father died. I was in France that summer, and
very miserable, working hard and seeming to do nothing, for my father,
rest his soul! was very severe with me, and petted Josephine,--for
which I thank and praise him, and love her all the better. We were
twenty miles from Paris, and lodged in a cottage whose roof was all
ruins; but it was a dry year, and no harm came,--besides, we had been
brought up like gypsies, and were sometimes taken for them. In the day
I practised my voice and studied Italian or German; then prepared our
dinner, which we ate under a tree in the garden, Josephine and I,
though she was almost a baby then, and slept half her time. One noon
she was asleep upon the grass, and I was playing with the flowers she
had plucked, with no sabots on, for I was very warm, when I heard a
step and peeped behind that tree. I saw a boy, or, as I thought him, a
very wonderful man, putting aside the boughs to look upon me. You have
told me, Carl, how you felt when you first saw the Chevalier; well, it
was a little as I felt when I saw that face, only instead of looking
on, as you did, I was obliged to look away and hide my eyes with my
hand. He was, to my sight, more beautiful than anything I had ever
seen or dreamed about; and therefore I could not look upon him, for I
know I was not thinking about myself. Still, I felt sure he was coming
to speak to me, and so he did; but not for a long time, for he stepped
round the tree and sat down upon the turf just near me, and played
with the sabots and the wild thyme I had played with, and presently
put out his hand to stroke Josephine's hair as it lay in my lap. I
never thought of being angry, or of wondering at him even, for the
longer I had him near me, the better, though I was rather frightened
lest my father should return; but at last he did speak, and when once
he began, there was not soon an end. We talked of all things. I can
remember nothing, but I do know this,--that we never spoke of music,
except that I told how I passed my time, and how my father taught me.
He went away before Josephine awoke, and nobody knew he had come; but
I returned the next day to the place where I had seen him, and again I
found him there. In that country one could do such things, and it was
the hour my father was absent,--for he had other pupils at the houses
of the inhabitants several miles about, and we lived frugally, in
order that he might give us all advantages when we should be old
enough. I saw Florimond every day for a week, and then for a week he
never came. That week I was taken ill,--I could not help it; I was too
young to hide it. And when he came again, I told him I should have
died if he had stayed away. And then he said that he loved me, but
that he was going a journey, and should not for a long time see me
again, but that I was never, never to forget him; and he gave me a bit
of his hair softer than any curl. I gave him, too, my mother's ring,
that I had always kept warm in my bosom; and I never even lamented
that he was departed, because I knew I should be his forever. We had a
long, long talk,--of feelings and fears and mysteries, of the flowers
of heaven and earth, of glory and bliss, of hope and ecstasy. We
poured out our hearts together, and did not even trouble ourselves to
say we loved. I think he was there three hours; but I sent him away
myself, just in time to be quite ready, and not at all in a tremble,
for my father's supper. Papa came home by sunset, much later than
usual, and I tried hard to wake up, but was as a wanderer in sleep,
until he took from his pocket a parcel and gave it me to open. He was
in great good humor to-night, for he had heard of my brother's success
at the Académie; but it was not my brother who sent the parcel, which
contained two tickets for a grand concert in Paris the next morning,
and a little anonymous billet to beg that we would go, I and my
father.

"My father was much flattered, and still more because there was a
handful of gold to pay the expenses of our journey. This settled the
matter; we did go in the diligence that night. I took my best frock
and gloves, and we slept at a grand hotel for once in our lives, and
supped there, and breakfasted the next morning before setting out for
the concert. When I walked into the streets with my father I envied
the ladies their bonnets,--for I had not even my mantilla, it was too
shabby; and I wore alone a wreath of ivy that I had gathered from
under that very tree at home, and I was thinking too seriously of one
only person to wish to see or to be seen. We went into the very best
places, but I thought as I sat down how I must have changed in a short
time; for a little while before I would have almost sold myself to go
to this same concert, and now I did not care. There was a grand vocal
trio first, and then a fantasia for the harp, and then a tenor solo.
But next in the programme came one of Fesca's solos for the violin;
and when I saw the violinist come up into the front, I fell backwards,
and should have swooned had he not begun to play. His tones sustained
me, drew me upwards; it was Florimond,--my Florimond; mine then as
now."

"I thought it would turn out so," I exclaimed, rudely enough. "But,
Maria, when you said music had nothing to do with love, I think you
were mistaken, or that you misunderstood yourself; for though I can't
express it, I am sure that our being musical makes a great difference
in the way we feel, and that though we don't allude to it, it will go
through everything, and make us what we are."

"Perhaps you are right, and, Carl, I should not like to contradict
you; but I know I should have loved Florimond if he had not been a
musician,--if he had been a shoemaker, for instance."

"Yes, because he still might have been musical; and if the music had
remained within him, it might have influenced his feelings even more
than it does now."

"Carl, but I don't love in that way all those who are musical,
therefore why must it be the music that makes me love _him_? What
will you say to me, now, when I tell you I cannot imagine wishing to
marry the Chevalier?"

"Maria!"

"Carl, I could not; it would abase the power of worship in my soul, it
would cloud my idea of heaven, it would crush all my life within me. I
should be transported into a place where the water was all light and I
could not drink, the air was all fire to wither me. I should flee from
myself in him, and in fleeing, die."

Her strange words, so unlike her youth, consumed my doubts as she
pronounced them. I shuddered inwardly, but strove to keep serene.
"Maria, that may be because you had loved when you saw him, and it
would have been impossible for you to be inconstant."

"Carlino, no. You and I are talking of droll things for a girl and a
boy; but I would rather you knew me well, because, perhaps, it will
help you when you grow up to understand some lady better than you
would if I did not speak so openly. Under no circumstances could I
have loved him so as to wish to belong to him in that sense. For,
Carl, though it might have been inconstant, it would not have been
unfaithful to myself if I had seen and loved him better than
Florimond; it might have been that I had not before found out what I
ought to submit my soul to, nor could I have helped it; such things
have happened to many, I daresay,--to many natures, but not to mine;
if I feel once, it is entirely and for always, and I cannot think how
it is that so few women, even of my own race, are so unfixed about
their feelings and have so many fancies. I sometimes believe there is
a reason for my being different, which, if it is true, will make him
sadder than the saddest,--you can guess what I mean?"

"Yes, Maria, but I know there is nothing in it; it is what my mother
would call a morbid presentiment, and I wish she could talk to you
about it. I should think there might be truth in it, but that it
always proves false. My sister had it once, so had my dear brother,
Mr. Davy. I don't believe people have it when they are really going to
die."

"It is not a morbid presentiment, for 'morbid' means 'diseased,' and I
am sure I am not diseased; but my idea is that people who form so fast
cannot live long. I am only fifteen, and I feel as if I had lived
longer than anybody I know."

"Then," said I, laughing, for I felt it was wrong to permit her much
range here, "I shall die soon, Maria."

"No, Carl. You are not formed; you are like an infant,--your heart
tells itself out, one may count its beats and sing songs to them, as
Florimond says; but your brain keeps you back, though it is itself so
forward."

I was utterly puzzled. "I don't understand, Maria."

"But you will, some time. Your brain is burning, busy, always dreaming
and working. The dreams of the brain are often those which play
through the slumbers of the heart. If your heart even awoke, your
brain would still have the upper hand, and would keep down, keep back
your heart. There is no fear for you, Carl, passionate as you are."

"Well, Maria, I must confess it frightens me a little when you talk
so,--first, because you are so young yourself; and secondly, because
if it is all true, how much you must know,--you must know almost more
than you feel; it is too much for a girl to know, or a boy either, and
I would rather know nothing than so very much."

"Carl, all that I know I get from my heart. I am really excessively
ignorant, and can teach and tell of nothing in the world but love.
That is my life and my faith; and when my heart is bathing in the love
that is my own on earth, all earth seems to sink beneath my feet, and
I tremble as if raised to heaven. I feel as if God were behind my joy,
and as if it must be more than every other knowledge to make me feel
so. And when I sing, it is the same,--the music wraps up the love; I
feel it more and more."

"But, Maria, you are so awfully musical."

"Carl, till I knew Florimond I never really sang. I practised, it is
true, and was very sick of failures; but _then_ my voice grew clear
and strong, and I found what it was meant for,--therefore I cannot be
so musical as you are. And I revere you for it, Carl, and prophesy of
you such performances that you can never excel them, however much you
excel."

"Why, Maria, how we used to talk about music together!"

"I did not know you so well then, Carl; but do you suppose that music,
in one sense, is not all to me? I sometimes think when women try to
rise too high, either in their deeds or their desires, that the spirit
which bade them so rise sinks back again beneath the weakness of their
earthly constitution and never appeals again; or else that the spirit,
being too strong, does away with the mortal altogether,--they die, or
rather they live again."

"Do you ever talk in this strange manner to Anastase, Maria,--I mean,
do you tell him you love him better than music?"

"He knows of himself, not but that I have often told him; but you may
imagine how I love him, Carl, when I tell you he loves music better
than me, and yet I would have it so, chiefly for one reason."

"What is that?"

"That if I am taken from him he will still have something to live for
until we meet again."

It is a strange truth that I was unappalled and scarcely touched by
these pathetic hints of hers; in fact, looking at her then, it was as
impossible to associate with her radiant beauty any idea of death as
for any but the most tasteless moralist to attach it to a new-blown
rose-flower with stainless petals. It was a day also of the most
perfect weather, and the suggestion to my mind was that neither the
day nor she--neither the brilliant vault above, nor those transparent
eyes--could ever "change or pass." I was occupied besides in
reflecting upon the mystery that divided the two souls I felt ought
never to have been separated, even _thought_ of, apart. I did not know
then how far she was right in her mystical assertion that the
premature fulness of the brain maintains the heart's first slumber in
its longest unbroken rest.

FOOTNOTE:

[5] The description of the fairy music contained in this chapter
evidently refers to the opera of "The Tempest," which Mendelssohn
contemplated writing in 1846-47. The composer had agreed to write an
opera on this subject for Mr. Lumley, then manager of Her Majesty's
Theatre in London, the principal _rôle_ to be given to Jenny Lind.
After considerable negotiation, M. Scribe, the eminent French adapter,
furnished a libretto, and Mr. Lumley suggested the following
distribution of parts: Prospero, Signor Lablache; Caliban, Herr
Staudigl; Fernando, Signor Gardoni; Miranda, Mademoiselle Lind; Ariel,
left unassigned. Mendelssohn, however, was dissatisfied with the
libretto, which made serious changes in the character of the story and
marred the artistic effects intended by Shakspeare; but M. Scribe
would not listen to his protests, and thus the matter fell through.
Mendelssohn then turned his attention to the legend of the Loreley as
the subject of an opera, but died shortly afterward, leaving it in a
fragmentary condition, wherefore Mr. Lumley substituted Verdi's "I
Masnadieri" for the long-promised "Tempest." It proved a failure,
however. Thus a three-fold fatality attended the "Tempest" episode in
the friendly relations of Mendelssohn and Jenny Lind. The reader who
may be curious to know the details of these interesting negotiations
will find a very complete record of them in the second volume of the
Life of Jenny Lind by Mr. Rockstro and Canon Holland, recently
published, and there for the first time given to the public from
official sources.




CHAPTER VI.


I left her at her house and returned to Cecilia, feeling very lonely,
and as if I ought to be very miserable, but I could not continue it;
for I was, instead of recalling her words, in a mood to recall those
of Clara in our parting conversation. The same age as Maria, with no
less power in her heavenly maidenhood, she came upon me as if I had
seen them together, and watched the strange calm distance of those
unclouded eyes next the transparent fervors of Maria's soul,--that
soul in its self-betrayal so wildly beautiful, so undone with its own
emotion. Clara I remembered as one not to be approached or reached but
by fathoming her crystal intellect; and even then it appeared to me
that there was more passion in her enshrining stillness than in
anything but the music that claimed and owned her. But Maria had
seemed on fire as she had spoken, and even when she spoke not, she
passed into the very heart by sympathy abounding, summer-like. I
little thought how soon, in that respect, her change would come.

There was one, too, whom I saw not again until that change. Over this
leaf of my history I can only glance, for it would be as a sheet of
light unrelieved by any shade or pencilling; suffice it to say that
day by day, in morning's golden dream, at dream-like afternoon, I
studied and soared. I was--after the Chevalier had left, and the
excitement of his possible presence had ceased--blissfully happy
again, and in much the same state as when I lived with Aronach;
certainly I did not expand, as Maria might have said. The advent of
the Chevalier, which was as a king's visit, being delayed until the
spring, I had left off hoping he might appear any fine morning, and my
initiation--"by trance"--went on apace; I was utterly undisturbed.

At Christmas we had a concert,--a concert worthy of the name

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