And so the years passed away; one, two, three, Von Barwig did not keep
count now. One year was just like another, equally profitless, equally
monotonous; the struggle for existence just as keen, the interest in
this or that pupil just as superficial, the interest in obtaining
pupils perhaps the greatest of all. But the drudgery of teaching the
young mind to distinguish between crotchet and quaver, and mark time,
mark time, wore Von Barwig out.
"Good God," he would think, "will it ever come that time shall cease to
be, and I shall cease to mark it?" The old man often smiled as he
contrasted the Leipsic days with the present. Then he had but to raise
his arm and from a hundred instruments and five hundred voices would
vibrate sounds of beauty, of colour, of joy, in harmony and rhythm.
Now when he beat time some dirty-fingered little pupil would tinkle out
sounds that nearly drove him mad with their monotony. Von Barwig had
been compelled to sell his good piano and rent one on the installment
plan; a cheap tin-pan affair, with a sounding board that sent forth the
most metallic sort of music. This went on until Von Barwig hated the
very sound of a musical instrument. He must have suffered terribly,
but he made no mention of it. At the close of his day's work he would
shut his piano wearily, put away his violin and go to Galazatti's,
where he would meet his friends, Fico and Pinac. He did not complain,
but they did. Fico was playing the mandolin on a Coney Island boat;
Pinac was doing nothing, but sat in Galazatti's all day. When they
complained to Von Barwig of their ill luck, their inability to obtain
good engagements because they could not get into the Musical Union, Von
Barwig did not spare them. He told them plainly that they had talent
but that they were lazy; they would neither study nor practise, and yet
they expected to enjoy the fruits of labour without its drudgery. Both
Fico and Pinac felt that he was right, and from that day forward they
did practise and study, with the result that a year or so later they
were admitted into the Union; but times were hard and good regular
engagements were rare.
One day while Von Barwig was labouring hard to beat time and other
musical values into the head of a square-browed, freckle-faced youth of
nineteen, whom nature had ordained for the carpenter's bench and not
for the piano, a knock came at the door, and on invitation to enter, in
came a little fellow not more than nine years of age, black-haired,
dark-eyed, of olive complexion, his features plainly bearing the stamp
of his Hebraic origin. As he stood at the door trying to speak, Von
Barwig could not help commenting on his finely chiselled features and
the intelligence and fire in his eyes.
"What can I do for you, little man?" inquired Von Barwig. His soft
voice and kindly look of interest gave the boy courage; for he was
obviously afraid to speak.
"Come to me," said Von Barwig tenderly, and after he had closed the
door, he placed his arm around the boy's neck. The old man's trained
eye discerned in a moment the sensitive play of the lad's mouth, the
quivering of the nostril that denotes what we call temperament.
"I want to study--I want to learn--and they won't let me," blurted out
the boy, bursting into tears.
"Who won't let you?" gently inquired Von Barwig.
"My people," sobbed the child.
"Hully Gee, you're in luck!" interrupted the shock-headed youth. "I
wish my people wouldn't let me."
"You go home, Underman! You have no soul; this child has."
"You bet I will!" and with a dart at his hat, the big boy seized it and
ran out of the door in a moment.
"So you want to study music and they won't let you?"
"Yes, sir. I--they'll let me play at night, but in the daytime, I--I
must work."
In a short half hour Von Barwig made the discovery that the child was a
musical genius. He had taken no lessons and yet his manipulation of
the keys was marvellous, but all by ear. Chords, arpeggios, diminished
sevenths, modulation, expression, all were mixed up in formless melody.
The boy knew nothing, but felt everything. In Von Barwig's experience
it had generally been the other way.
"Who sent you to me?" asked Von Barwig after he had heard the child
play.
"The sign says that you teach music, and I--I--then I saw your name
outside." The little fellow seemed to think that he had committed some
crime in coming in unasked. Von Barwig put him at his ease, then
called in Pinac and Fico, and they listened to the child's playing in
open-mouthed astonishment. Bit by bit Von Barwig elicited his history
from him. His name, it appeared, was Josef Branski, and he was the
oldest of seven children. His father and mother had come from Warsaw,
in Poland, and worked in a sweat shop below Grand Street near the
river. Josef himself worked there, too, and helped to support his
family, who all lived in three small rooms. His parents would miss him
and be angry, he said, and this partly accounted for the little
fellow's anxiety. Von Barwig shook his head; he already had many
pupils who couldn't pay, as well as several who didn't pay, but here
was one who had to steal the time in which to learn his beloved art.
It would be a crime not to teach the boy, he thought, so he determined
to take him as his pupil.
Some six months later an excited Pole bounded into Von Barwig's room
and in a mixture of Polish, German and Hebrew threatened Von Barwig
with the law if he continued to take his son away from him. He was, as
nearly as Von Barwig could make out, little Josef Branski's father.
Von Barwig vainly endeavoured to explain to the man that the boy could
make his parents rich if they allowed him to study and develop himself
as an artist, but they must give him time to practise, instead of
compelling him to sew at a machine twelve or fourteen hours a day. The
older Branski either could not or would not understand. He declared
that he did not want his son to be a worthless musician (for he
evidently associated Von Barwig with the gipsy, an inferior type of
musician) and could not be made to understand that the boy had talent,
even genius. He needed the boy's help and wanted no further
interference from Von Barwig. Von Barwig saw that it was useless and
gave up trying to dissuade him from his purpose in condemning the boy
to the merciless grind of a sweat shop machine. So it was that little
Josef came at night only for his lessons. This went on for some time,
but Von Barwig shook his head sadly as he saw that the boy was tired
out with his day's work and could not take in the instruction. Finally
he told Josef that he had better not come again, as the strain of night
study following the grind of machine work during the day was plainly
telling on his health. But the boy pleaded hard:
"Take away my music and you take away my life," he said. "Some day
father and mother will see and then they'll let me study with you."
Von Barwig looked at the boy sadly.
"They love me and they want to see me famous, but they don't
understand. They work so hard, they have so little to eat, and there
are so many of them. Mother can't work, you know, she has to nurse the
baby. I must do all I can; I'm the eldest, it's my duty!"
The boy's eyes filled with tears as he thought of the hardships his
parents went through. "Father worked till twelve o'clock last night;
he's working now," and the little chap looked at the cuckoo clock,
which was just striking ten.
"How long will it be before I can play to the gentlemen you're going to
take me to?" he asked wistfully.
"I think you'd better have a little rest before you play to them,
Josef. You've been working very hard; up at five, to bed at midnight!"
Von Barwig noticed that Josef's face was peaked and white, but his
great black eyes looked appealingly at his master.
"But I must play to them; they'll give me money and I can give the
money to father. Then he'll believe me, and he'll believe you," said
the boy in a tearful voice. His urgent, appealing manner had its
effect on Von Barwig.
"I'll take you to-morrow morning," he said. "Will your father let you
go?"
"I'll beg him, I'll beg him, oh, so hard, on my bended knees. He won't
refuse, he can't refuse! If he does, I--I'll just make an excuse and
leave the machine as if I were going for oil, or cotton or something.
I'll come! Don't disappoint me, will you?"
And so it was arranged that the boy should call for Von Barwig on the
morrow and that they should go to Steinway Hall, where Josef should
play before some musical gentlemen that Von Barwig had come to know.
The morning arrived, but little Josef did not appear. After waiting
three hours, Von Barwig made up his mind that the father would not let
the boy go, so he sadly gave up the idea for that day, and waited till
evening for Josef to come as usual for his lesson. When the child did
not come, Von Barwig experienced again that sensation of fear, for the
first time in several years; and with it came the train of sickening
thought, the old dread of impending evil. Von Barwig soon threw this
off, and waited for events with as much calmness and patience as he
could muster up.
A week passed, and Miss Husted could not understand why Von Barwig
spoke in such a low tone when he replied to her cheery good-evening.
Mrs. Mangenborn put it down to hard times. Jenny knew something was
wrong, for he said very little to her as she swept out his room. She
knew something had happened, but experience had taught her that
sympathy doesn't ask questions. As for Pinac and Fico, they were too
full of their own affairs to notice anything unless it was brought
directly to their attention, and as Von Barwig made it a rule never to
burden other people with his troubles they were in blissful ignorance
of his mental perturbation. So it went on till the tenth day, when Von
Barwig made up his mind to go and call on his little pupil and find out
what was the matter.
After much hunting and questioning, Von Barwig found the family he was
looking for on the fourth floor of a crowded tenement house in
Rivington Street. He heard the whirr of sewing machines and as he
opened the door he saw the father of his pupil, and several others, all
sewing rapidly as if for dear life. The six machines made such a noise
he could barely hear the sound of his own voice. As soon as Branski
saw Von Barwig, he jumped up from his machine and railed at him in
terms of bitter reproach. It was well perhaps that Von Barwig could
not understand and that the noise of the machines and the crying of
babies prevented his hearing what was said. The father pointed into
the next room and motioned him to go in there. Pushing aside a little
chintz curtain, for there was no door, Von Barwig saw the object of his
search lying on a cot in the corner of a small inner room with no
window, only an air shaft for light and air, moaning in the grasp of
mortal illness.
The mother sat by the bedside of the sick boy rocking herself slowly,
and at the same time holding a babe to her heart. The little one was
trying in vain to get sustenance enough to satisfy its pangs of hunger
and crying because it couldn't. Another child of two years of age was
playing on the floor, banging two pieces of wood together and shouting
gleefully when it succeeded in making a noise. The woman looked at her
sick son helplessly and then at Von Barwig.
"Doctor?" she asked feebly.
Von Barwig shook his head slowly. He saw that his little pupil was too
weak to recognise him and gazed at him too moved to speak. His lips
quivered, and kneeling down by the lad's bedside he wept scalding hot
tears of agony, for he felt rather than knew that the boy was dying.
It appeared from the mother's story that when Josef had reached home
that night he had been in too excited a state to sleep. All night he
moaned and tossed--the next morning he was delirious. The prospect of
deliverance from his life of drudgery had been too much for him and had
resulted in brain fever. The doctor said he had a bad cold, then
finally announced that tubercular complications had set in, and as
nearly as Von Barwig could find out the boy was now rapidly wasting
away with the dreaded white disease. Von Barwig looked around him
helplessly; the light was bad, the air rank poison and the noise and
commotion distracting.
"What hope could there be for his recovery?" thought Von Barwig, and he
then and there resolved on a plan of action. Before he left the house
he had given the father all the money he had and secured a room with
plenty of light and air and a nurse for the boy. His efforts were
crowned with success. In a few weeks little Josef was gently nursed
back to life, and at the first signs of returning health Von Barwig saw
to it that he was sent South. "His only chance," the doctor had said.
It was Von Barwig who gave him that chance, but in order to do so he
parted with his last remaining bit of valuable jewelry.
* * * * * *
It was some time before Von Barwig recovered from the effects of
witnessing the sufferings of his pupil. When Jenny asked him about
Josef Branski he smiled sadly and shook his head.
"The doctor says it may be years before he can touch an instrument
again. Poor Josef--his little frame completely went to pieces under
the burning fire of his genius; if any one was ever born out of harmony
with his surroundings, he was. He might have become a great artist,"
added Von Barwig thoughtfully and then he sighed. It was a great
struggle for him to send the money to keep the little chap alive down
South, but he made the sacrifice without a murmur. If only the boy
recovered, it would be sufficient reward for all his work. But it was
not to be, for a few weeks later they brought him the news that his
little pupil had died peacefully, without pain. Von Barwig said
nothing--his mouth tightened a little and he smiled, a sad, far-away
smile. Miss Husted tried to cheer him up. She had learned from Jenny
the details of the affair and her heart went out to the old man in
womanly sympathy. She had liked the boy, too, and when he came for his
lesson had given him many a slice of cake, for she thought he always
looked pinched and hungry, underfed, as she called it.
"Do come and have a bit of dinner with us, professor," she said. With
her dinner was a universal panacea, but Von Barwig declined with many
thanks. He had grown to like Miss Husted and realised that she was
far, far above the average woman of her class. Moreover, he felt that
she liked him, and sympathy begets sympathy.
"Professor, you are always doing things for folks, but you never allow
folks to do anything for you," said Miss Husted, slightly piqued by his
refusal of her invitation.
"Ah, then I accept!" said Von Barwig, seeing that she was hurt, "just
to show you that you are more powerful than my own resolutions. But I
warn you I shall be sad company; I don't feel quite myself tonight. It
is better, far better, that little Josef should have--left us, for I do
not think he would have ever been strong enough to play again, but--"
and Von Barwig sighed, "it is sad enough. A little light prematurely
snuffed out is always sad. Ah, well! I won't make you miserable.
Life is full of sorrow for us all; don't let me selfishly add to yours."
At dinner he was the life of the party. He pinched Jenny's cheek; he
joked with Miss Husted; he smiled at Thurza, and he even ventured a few
remarks to Mrs. Mangenborn, whom he cordially disliked. Every one
present thought that Von Barwig was as happy as could be.
That night, after he had closed the door of his room he sighed deeply
and looked out of his window into the street at the blinking
lamplights. Once more that mournful far-away expression came into his
face and he asked himself: "Why? Why is it my fate to lose everything
I love? Have I not yet drunk the dregs of my cup of sorrow?"
* * * * * *
"Good-night, professor," came Miss Husted's cheery voice from the
hallway, interrupting his reverie.
"Good-night, Mr. Von Barwig," said Jenny, as she passed his room on her
way to bed. He opened the door and kissed her tenderly.
"Good-night, good-night, my friends," said Von Barwig. The sound of
their voices comforted him not a little and then he thought, "I mustn't
be ungrateful; there are many, many kind hearts in this world." And he
slept peacefully all that night.