She had understood--the virtuoso's nimbus had become quite visible to
her. Gesa need fear no longer that she would not know how to value his
great friend sufficiently. How could it be otherwise? His name was to
be encountered everywhere. All the newest bon-bons, patent leathers,
pocket handkerchiefs were named after him, and the children played at
"Concert and Virtuoso," just as in the earliest youth of our century
they had played "Consul and Battle of Marengo." Annette was taking
singing lessons now. Another little luxury that Gesa had provided for
her, and at her singing teacher's house the girls whom she met there
talked of nothing but de Sterny. The uncle of one pupil was conductor
at the "Monnaie" de Sterny had called upon him, and had forgotten his
gloves on going away. The said pupil brought those gloves to the next
singing lesson; they were cut in pieces and divided among Signor
Martini's feminine pupils. Years afterward, more than one of these
gushers wore a bit of leather round her neck, sewed up in a little silk
bag!
At this time de Sterny had reached the zenith of his fame. His last
tour through Russia had resembled a triumph. In Odessa they had
received him with the discharge of cannon, in Moscow a procession had
gone to meet him, huzzahing students had unhitched the horses from his
coach and the fairest women had showered down flowers from the windows
upon his illustrious head, as the cortege passed through the principal
streets; in Petersburg a grand duchess had insisted upon his lodging in
her palace; sable furs, laurel wreaths, diamond rings, casks of
caviare, and a golden samovar, had all been humbly laid at his feet by
Russian enthusiasm. All this Gesa related to his beloved. What he
failed to tell her was that the greatest ladies had contended for de
Sterny's favor, and that a princess cruelly scorned by him had shot
herself at one of his concerts while he was playing! But these things
she learned from the girls in the singing class. They interested her
much more than de Sterny's other triumphs.
Of course Gesa went to meet the virtuoso at the station. But as half
Brussels besides were assembled at the "gare du nord," for the same
purpose, de Sterny could only dismiss his protege with a cordial
pressure of the hand, and an invitation to visit him next morning at
the Hotel de Flandres.
When Gesa entered at the appointed hour, he found de Sterny sitting at
his desk, with his head on one hand and a pen in the other: a sheet of
music paper, covered with notes, and full of corrections, lay before
him. In his nervous, precise, mechanically polite bearing, that
uncomfortable something betrayed itself, which a man contracts from
constant association with his superiors. One remarked in him that he
had accustomed himself, so to speak, to sleep with open eyes, like
hares,--and courtiers.
"Well, how are you? I am truly rejoiced to see you," he cried to Gesa,
"it makes me downright young to look in your eyes. I was much
astonished to hear of your prolonged stay in Brussels. What the devil
are you going to do here? I thought you were with Manager Marinski, on
the other side of the world long ago."
"My engagement was broken off--that is I have no desire to bind
myself," said Gesa, blushing a little.
"So--here--and meantime you are knocking around"--de Sterny treated the
young musician in his old cordial, patronizing manner. "Sapristi! You
look splendidly, too well for a young artist. Look me in the face. And
what are you really doing? Plans? Eh?"
"O, I am very industrious, I give lessons."
"Oh! lessons! _You_--lessons! _Nom d'un chien!_ I should think it would
have been more amusing to dig for gold in America with Marinski.
Lessons! And so few pretty women learn the violin! Well, and besides
lessons, how do you busy yourself?"
"I compose. You seem also"--
"Certainly, certainly," replied de Sterny, pushing the music paper into
his portfolio. "But how can a man compose in such a life as I lead?
Bah! I have had enough of squandering my existence in railroad cars and
concert halls! Oh for four weeks rest, beefsteak and potatoes, country
air, flowers and one friend!"
Some one knocked, the virtuoso's servant entered. "I am not at home!"
cried de Sterny.
"But it is Count S----"
"I am not at home. Animal! to any one--do you hear!"
The valet vanished.
"You see how it is," grumbled de Sterny, "before another quarter
strikes ten persons will have been announced. It is a stale life,
always to play the same fool's tricks, always to be applauded for
them...."
"Do you perhaps desire to be hissed by way of variety?" laughed Gesa.
At this quite innocent repartee the virtuoso changed color a little,
and glanced suspiciously first at Gesa and then at the portfolio where
he had hidden his composition. But the young violinist's eyes convinced
him that no harm was intended. If de Sterny ever had a believing
disciple it was Gesa Van Zuylen.
"It is really a shame," earnestly observed the young musician after a
while, "that you allow yourself so little time for composition. I have
never heard anything of yours but transcriptions--perhaps you will
sometime trust me with your more serious work."
De Sterny's brows met. "Hm!" growled he--"I can't show the things
around. They might take wings. It spoils their eclat if one confides
them to all sorts of people before they are published." The blood
mounted in Gesa's cheek.
"All sorts of people," he repeated.
But de Sterny burst out laughing and cried, "Still so sensitive! I did
not mean it in that way. We know you are an exceptional being. Sacre
bleu! I am the last who would deny it! As soon as I have completed an
important work I will lay it before you. But that"--with a glance at
the writing desk, "that is nothing, just nothing--the sketch of some
ballet music. Princess L----, you remember her, surely, has asked for
it. Already at Vienna she wrote me about it--you understand. I couldn't
put it off. _C'est assomant_. A Countess-ballet!
"And now be so good as to ring, that they may bring in the breakfast.
During the meal you shall confide to me what it really is that holds
you fast chained in Brussels, for that you remain solely in order to
find leisure for composition I don't believe!"
Over the breakfast Gesa confided his great secret to his friend.
De Sterny started up. "So that is it. Well you could not have contrived
anything more stupid for yourself!" cried he. "I suspected something,
some long drawn out liaison, from which I should have to extricate you.
But a betrothal! Oh, yes! What are you thinking of? To marry and become
a paterfamilias at your age! It is ruin! It is the grave! The grave of
your genius mind, not of your body, that will flourish in the
atmosphere of sleek morality. You'll grow fat. You'll celebrate a
christening every year. You'll run from one street to another with your
trousers turned up and a music book under one arm, giving lessons. And
your ambition will culminate in obtaining the post of first violin in
some orchestra, or perhaps if it soars very high in becoming conductor
of the same. Sapristi! You need the whip of the manager over your back,
and not the feather bolster of family life under your head! What is
more _this_ bolster which you are stuffing for yourself will contain
few feathers. But that is all one to you. You only need a pretext for
laziness, and would go to sleep on a potato sack!"
"You speak like a heretic, like a regular atheist in love," cried Gesa,
who had not outgrown his passion for large words. "Who told you I was
going to be married the day after to-morrow? I shall not receive her
hand until I have secured a position."
"Ah--so! Well--that is some comfort. But who is she? One of your
pupils? The blonde daughter of a square-built burgher?"
"She is the daughter of my foster-father."
"O--h! The Gualtieri's daughter. And her you will marry? Marry?"
"You cannot possibly imagine how charming she is," murmured Gesa.
"That the Gualtieri's daughter is charming I can easily imagine," said
the virtuoso, and there came suddenly into his eyes an expression of
dreamy passion to which they were quite unaccustomed, "but that a man
would want to marry the Gualtieri's daughter, I cannot understand.
Perhaps you do not know who the Gualtieri was."
Gesa bit his lip.
"She made my foster-father happy."
"So--hm! Made him happy! He was mad as we all were. To have been
permitted to black her shoes would have made him happy. I know the
history of Delileo's marriage. It is a legend which they still relate
in artist circles, only they have got the names wrong. I know the right
names because ... Delileo interests me for your sake, and--and--because
the Gualtieri ... was my first love!"
Gesa shrank back. "Your first love!" he repeated, breathlessly.
The virtuoso passed his hand over his forehead and smiled bitterly.
"Yes! I became acquainted with her in the salon of the d'Agoult. I
looked like a girl myself then, was scarcely eighteen years old, and in
love! Oh! in love! She laughed at me--I fretted myself with vain
desire, she would never notice me. I cannot hear her name now after
twenty years without feeling as I did then. Heavens! How beautiful she
was! Form, smile, tresses! Dark hair with auburn lights in neck and
temples--as if powdered with gold dust. Withal a certain grand
carriage...."
The virtuoso ceased and gazed musingly into vacancy. The remembrance of
the Gualtieri was a sore spot in his heart. Gesa looked, deeply moved,
into the changed countenance of his friend.
"How could such a woman consent to marry Delileo?"
"How? Yes--how? She had lost her voice, her lovers, her health. She was
thirty-eight years old. He was of a good family, and still possessed
the remains of a handsome fortune, of which he had already squandered
the greater part in philanthropic enterprises. He spoiled and pampered
her as if she were a princess, and she ... she ran away from him one
year and a half after the birth of her child, your bride,--with an
obscure Polish adventurer. Delileo discovered her afterward in the
greatest misery, dying of consumption, in a garret; he took her home
and nursed her till she died. Poor devil! He had united himself to her
against the will of his family, and the counsel of his friends, he was
at the end of his money--so he buried himself in the Rue Ravestein. His
lot is hard; but--at least he lived a year and a half at her side!"
Alphonse de Sterny ceased, and looked down, brooding.
Gesa laid a hand on his arm.
"The memory of this woman lives so powerfully in you still, and yet you
marvel that I want her daughter for my wife--her daughter, who inherits
all the mother's charm, without her sinfulness?"
De Sterny smiled, no pleasant smile. "How old is she then--sixteen or
seventeen, if I reckon rightly is she not?"
Gesa nodded.
"Ah! So! And you will judge already of her temperament?" He drummed a
march on the table. Gesa colored. "De Sterny!" he cried after a pause.
"Much as I love you I will not bear to hear you speak in that way. Do
me a favor and learn to know the little one--then judge yourself. Come
sometime in the evening and drink tea with us, unless you are afraid of
the Rue Ravestein!"
"When you will, big child! to-morrow, day after!--You always keep early
hours there. I can come before I have to go into society!"
A few minutes later Gesa took leave. De Sterny accompanied him to the
door of the apartment, and called gaily after him, over the banisters.
"The day after to-morrow then, about eight! I am curious to see your
Capua!"--