II

The Opera was _Fidelio_, that stately, splendid work, whose melody, if

one may make a pictorial comparison, has something of that rich and

sun-warm colour which, certainly, on the canvasses of Rubens, affects

one as an almost musical quality. It offered brilliant opportunities,

and the incomparable singer had wasted none of them. So that when, at

last, I pushed my way out of the crowded house and joined M. Cristich

at the stage door, where he waited with eyes full of expectancy, the

music still lingered about me, like the faint, past fragrance of

incense, and I had no need to speak my thanks. He rested a light hand

on my arm, and we walked towards his lodging silently; the musician

carrying his instrument in its sombre case, and shivering from time to

time, a tribute to the keen spring night. He stooped as he walked, his

eyes trailing the ground; and a certain listlessness in his manner

struck me a little strangely, as though he came fresh from some solemn

or hieratic experience, of which the reaction had already begun to set

in tediously, leaving him at the last unstrung and jaded, a little

weary, of himself and the too strenuous occasion. It was not until we

had crossed the threshold of a dingy, high house in a byway of

Bloomsbury, and he had ushered me, with apologies, into his shabby

room, near the sky, that the sense of his hospitable duties seemed to

renovate him. He produced tumblers from an obscure recess behind his

bed; set a kettle on the fire, a lodging-house fire, which scarcely

smouldered with flickers of depressing, sulphurous flame, talking of

indifferent subjects, as he watched for it to boil.

Only when we had settled ourselves, in uneasy chairs, opposite each

other, and he had composed me, what he termed 'a grog': himself

preferring the more innocent mixture known as _eau sucrée_, did he

allude to _Fidelio_. I praised heartily the discipline of the

orchestra, the prima donna, whom report made his country-woman, with

her strong, sweet voice and her extraordinary beauty, the magnificence

of the music, the fine impression of the whole.

M. Cristich, his glass in hand, nodded approval. He looked intently

into the fire, which cast mocking shadows over his quaint, incongruous

figure, his antiquated dress coat, which seemed to skimp him, his

frost-bitten countenance, his cropped grey hair. 'Yes,' he said, 'Yes!

So it pleased you, and you thought her beautiful? I am glad.'

He turned round to me abruptly, and laid a thin hand impressively on

my knee.

'You know I invented her, the Romanoff, discovered her, taught her all

she learnt. Yes, Monsieur, I was proud to-night, very proud, to be

there, playing for her, though she did not know. Ah! the beautiful

creature!... and how badly I played! execrably! You could not notice

that, Monsieur, but they did, my confrères, and could not understand.

How should they? How should they dream, that I, Maurice Cristich,

second violin in the orchestra of the opera, had to do with the

Leonora; even I! Her voice thrilled them; ah, but it was I who taught

her her notes! They praised her diamonds; yes, but once I gave her

that she wanted more than diamonds, bread, and lodging and love.

Beautiful they called her; she was beautiful too, when I carried her

in my arms through Vienna. I am an old man now, and good for very

little; and there have been days, God forgive me! when I have been

angry with her; but it was not to-night. To see her there, so

beautiful and so great; and to feel that after all I had a hand in it,

that I invented her. Yes, yes! I had my victory to-night too; though

it was so private; a secret between you and me, Monsieur? Is it not?'

I assured him of my discretion, but he hardly seemed to hear. His sad

eyes had wandered away to the live coals, and he considered them

pensively, as though he found them full of charming memories. I sat

back, respecting his remoteness; but my silence was replete with

surprised conjecture, and indeed the quaint figure of the old

musician, every line of his garments redolent of ill success, had

become to me, of a sudden, strangely romantic. Destiny, so amorous of

surprises, of pathetic or cynical contrasts, had in this instance

excelled herself. My obscure acquaintance, Maurice Cristich! The

renowned Romanoff! Her name and acknowledged genius had been often in

men's mouths of late, a certain luminous, scarcely sacred, glamour

attaching to it, in an hundred idle stories, due perhaps as much to

the wonder of her sorrowful beauty, as to any justification in

knowledge, of her boundless extravagance, her magnificent fantasies,

her various perversity, rumour pointing specially at those priceless

diamonds, the favours not altogether gratuitous it was said of exalted

personages. And with all deductions made, for malice, for the

ingenuity of the curious, the impression of her perversity was left;

she remained enigmatical and notorious, a somewhat scandalous heroine!

And Cristich had known her; he had, as he declared, and his accent was

not that of bragadoccio, invented her. The conjuncture puzzled and

fascinated me. It did not make Cristich less interesting, nor the

prima-donna more perspicuous.

By-and-by the violinist looked up at me; he smiled with a little dazed

air, as though his thoughts had been a far journey.

'Pardon me, Monsieur! I beg you to fill your glass. I seem a poor

host; but to tell you the truth, I was dreaming; I was quite away,

quite away.'

He threw out his hands, with a vague expansive gesture.

'Dear child!' he said to the flames, in French; 'good little one! I do

not forget thee.' And he began to tell me.

'It was when I was at Vienna, ah! a long while ago. I was not rich,

but neither was I very poor; I still had my little patrimony, and I

lived in the ---- Strasse, very economically; it is a quarter which

many artists frequent. I husbanded my resources, that I might be able

to work away at my art without the tedium of making it a means of

livelihood. I refused many offers to play in public, that I might have

more leisure. I should not do that now; but then, I was very

confident; I had great faith in me. And I worked very hard at my

symphony, and I was full of desire to write an opera. It was a tall

dark house, where I lived; there were many other lodgers, but I knew

scarcely any of them. I went about with my head full of music and I

had my violin; I had no time to seek acquaintance. Only my neighbour,

at the other side of my passage, I knew slightly and bowed to him when

we met on the stairs. He was a dark, lean man, of a very distinguished

air; he must have lived very hard, he had death in his face. He was

not an artist, like the rest of us: I suspect he was a great

profligate, and a gambler; but he had the manners of a gentleman. And

when I came to talk to him, he displayed the greatest knowledge of

music that I have ever known. And it was the same with all; he talked

divinely, of everything in the world, but very wildly and bitterly. He

seemed to have been everywhere, and done everything; and at last to be

tired of it all; and of himself the most. From the people of the house

I heard that he was a Pole; noble, and very poor; and, what surprised

me, that he had a daughter with him, a little girl. I used to pity

this child, who must have lived quite alone. For the Count was always

out, and the child never appeared with him; and, for the rest, with

his black spleen and tempers, he must have been but sorry company for

a little girl. I wished much to see her, for you see, Monsieur! I am

fond of children, almost as much as of music; and one day it came

about. I was at home with my violin; I had been playing all the

evening some songs I had made; and once or twice I had seemed to be

interrupted by little, tedious sounds. At last I stopped, and opened

the door; and there, crouching down, I found the most beautiful little

creature I had ever seen in my life. It was the child of my neighbour.

Yes, Monsieur! you divine, you divine! That was the Leonora!'

'And she is not your compatriot,' I asked.

'A Hungarian? ah, no! yet every piece of her pure Slav. But I weary

you, Monsieur; I make a long story.'

I protested my interest; and after a little side glance of dubious

scrutiny, he continued in a constrained monotone, as one who told over

to himself some rosary of sad enchanting memories.

'Ah, yes! she was beautiful; that mysterious, sad Slavonic beauty! a

thing quite special and apart. And, as a child, it was more tragical

and strange; that dusky hair! those profound and luminous eyes!

seeming to mourn over tragedies they have never known. A strange,

wild, silent child! She might have been eight or nine, then; but her

little soul was hungry for music. It was a veritable passion; and when

she became at last my good friend, she told me how often she had lain

for long hours outside my door, listening to my violin. I gave her a

kind of scolding, such as one could to so beautiful a little creature,

for the passage was draughty and cold, and sent her away with some

_bon-bons_. She shook back her long, dark hair: 'You are not angry,

and I am not naughty,' she said: 'and I shall come back. I thank you

for your _bon-bons_; but I like your music better than _bon-bons_, or

fairy tales, or anything in the world.'

'But she never came back to the passage again, Monsieur! The next time

I came across the Count, I sent her an invitation, a little

diffidently, for he had never spoken to me of her, and he was a

strange and difficult man. Now, he simply shrugged his shoulders, with

a smile, in which, for once, there seemed more entertainment than

malice. The child could visit me when she chose; if it amused either

of us, so much the better. And we were content, and she came to me

often; after a while, indeed, she was with me almost always. Child as

she was, she had already the promise of her magnificent voice; and I

taught her to use it, to sing, and to play on the piano and on the

violin, to which she took the most readily. She was like a singing

bird in the room, such pure, clear notes! And she grew very fond of

me; she would fall asleep at last in my arms, and so stay until the

Count would take her with him when he entered, long after midnight. He

came to me naturally for her soon; and they never seemed long those

hours that I watched over her sleep. I never knew him harsh or unkind

to the child; he seemed simply indifferent to her as to everything

else. He had exhausted life and he hated it; and he knew that death

was on him, and he hated that even more. And yet he was careful of her

after a fashion, buying her _bon-bons_ and little costumes, when he

was in the vein, pitching his voice softly when he would stay and talk

to me, as though he relished her sleep. One night he did not come to

fetch her at all, I had wrapped a blanket round the child where she

lay on my bed, and had sat down to watch by her and presently I too

fell asleep. I do not know how long I slept but when I woke there was

a gray light in the room, I was very cold and stiff, but I could hear

close by, the soft, regular breathing of the child. There was a great

uneasiness on me, and after a while I stole out across the passage and

knocked at the Count's door, there was no answer but it gave when I

tried it, and so I went in. The lamp had smouldered out, there was a

sick odour of _pétrol_ everywhere, and the shutters were closed: but

through the chinks the merciless gray dawn streamed in and showed me

the Count sitting very still by the table. His face wore a most

curious smile, and had not his great cavernous eyes been open, I

should have believed him asleep: suddenly it came to me that he was

dead. He was not a good man, monsieur, nor an amiable, but a true

_virtuoso_ and full of information, and I grieved. I have had Masses

said for the repose of his soul.'

He paid a tribute of silence to the dead man's memory, and then he

went on.

'It seemed quite natural that I should take his child. There was no

one to care, no one to object; it happened quite easily. We went, the

little one and I, to another part of the city. We made quite a new

life. Oh! my God! it is a very long time ago.'

Quite suddenly his voice went tremulous; but after a pause, hardly

perceptible, he recovered himself and continued with an accent of

apology.

'I am a foolish old man, and very garrulous. It is not good to think

of that, nor to talk of it; I do not know why I do. But what would you

have? She loved me then, and she had the voice and the disposition of

an angel. I have never been very happy. I think sometimes, monsieur,

that we others, who care much for art, are not permitted that. But

certainly those few, rapid days, when she was a child, were good; and

yet they were the days of my defeat. I found myself out then. I was

never to be a great artist, a _maestro_: a second-rate man, a good

music-teacher for young ladies, a capable performer in an orchestra,

what you will, but a great artist, never! Yet in those days, even when

my opera failed, I had consolation, I could say, I have a child! I

would have kept her with me always but it could not be, from the very

first she would be a singer. I knew always that a day would come when

she would not need me, she was meant to be the world's delight, and I

had no right to keep her, even if I could. I held my beautiful,

strange bird in her cage, until she beat her wings against the bars,

then I opened the door. At the last, I think, that is all we can do

for our children, our best beloved, our very heart-strings, stand free

of them, let them go. The world is very weary, but we must all find

that out for ourselves, perhaps when they are tired they will come

home, perhaps not, perhaps not. It was to the Conservatoire, at Milan,

that I sent her finally, and it was at La Scala that she afterwards

appeared, and at La Scala too, poor child, she met her evil genius,

the man named Romanoff, a baritone in her company, own son of the

devil, whom she married. Ah, if I could have prevented it, if I could

have prevented it!'

He lapsed into a long silence; a great weariness seemed to have come

over him, and in the gray light which filtered in through the dingy

window blinds, his face was pinched and wasted, unutterably old and

forlorn.

'But I did not prevent it,' he said at last, 'for all my good will,

perhaps merely hastened it by unseasonable interference. And so we

went in different ways, with anger I fear, and at least with sore

hearts and misunderstanding.'

He spoke with an accent of finality, and so sadly that in a sudden

rush of pity I was moved to protest.

'But, surely you meet sometimes; surely this woman, who was as your

own child--'

He stopped me with a solemn, appealing gesture.

'You are young, and you do not altogether understand. You must not

judge her; you must not believe, that she forgets, that she does not

care. Only, it is better like this, because it could never be as

before. I could not help her. I want nothing that she can give me, no

not anything; I have my memories! I hear of her, from time to time; I

hear what the world says of her, the imbecile world, and I smile. Do I

not know best? I, who carried her in my arms, when she was that high!'

And in effect the old violinist smiled, it was as though he had

surprised my secret of dissatisfaction, and found it, like the malice

of the world, too ignorant to resent. The edge of his old, passionate

adoration had remained bright and keen through the years; and it

imparted a strange brilliancy to his eyes, which half convinced me, as

presently, with a resumption of his usual air of diffident courtesy,

he ushered me out into the vague, spring dawn. And yet, when I had

parted from him and was making my way somewhat wearily to my own

quarters, my first dubious impression remained. My imagination was

busy with the story I had heard, striving quite vainly to supply

omissions, to fill in meagre outlines. Yes! quite vainly! the figure

of the Romanoff was left, ambiguous and unexplained; hardly acquitted

in my mind of a certain callousness, an ingratitude almost vulgar as

it started out from time to time, in contraposition against that

forlorn old age.