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.