II

At the end of the performance there were five persons in our box--the

beautiful Miranda, and her husband, a celebrated English man of

letters; a German professor of biology; a young Milanese gentleman,

whom we called Edoardo; and myself. Edoardo and the professor had

joined us just before the ballet. I had occupied a seat behind Miranda

and my friend the critic from the commencement. We had indeed dined

together first at their hotel, the Rebecchino; and they now proposed

that we should all adjourn together there on foot for supper. From the

Scala Theatre to the Rebecchino is a walk of some three minutes.

When we were seated at the supper-table and had talked some while upon

indifferent topics, the enthusiasm roused in me by Pauline Lucca burst

out. I broke a moment's silence by exclaiming, 'What a wonder-world

music creates! I have lived this evening in a sphere of intellectual

enjoyment raised to rapture. I never lived so fast before!' 'Do

you really think so?' said Miranda. She had just finished a

_beccafico_, and seemed disposed for conversation. 'Do you really

think so? For my part, music is in a wholly different region from

experience, thought, or feeling. What does it communicate to you?' And

she hummed to herself the _motif_ of Cherubino's 'Non so più

cosa son cosa faccio.'--'What does it teach me?' I broke in upon the

melody. 'Why, to-night, when I heard the music, and saw her there, and

felt the movement of the play, it seemed to me that a new existence

was revealed. For the first time I understood what love might be in

one most richly gifted for emotion.' Miranda bent her eyes on the

table-cloth and played with her wineglass. 'I don't follow you at all.

I enjoyed myself to-night. The opera, indeed, might have been better

rendered. The ballet, I admit, was splendid. But when I remember the

music--even the best of it--even Pauline Lucca's part'--here she

looked up, and shot me a quick glance across the table--'I have mere

music in my ears. Nothing more. Mere music!' The professor of

biology, who was gifted with, a sense of music and had studied it

scientifically, had now crunched his last leaf of salad. Wiping his

lips with his napkin, he joined our _tête-à-tête_. 'Gracious

madam, I agree with you. He who seeks from music more than music

gives, is on the quest--how shall I put it?--of the Holy Grail.' 'And

what,' I struck in, 'is this minimum or maximum that music gives?'

'Dear young friend,' replied the professor, 'music gives melodies,

harmonies, the many beautiful forms to which sound shall be fashioned.

Just as in the case of shells and fossils, lovely in themselves,

interesting for their history and classification, so is it with

music. You must not seek an intellectual meaning. No; there is no

_Inhalt_ in music' And he hummed contentedly the air of 'Voi

che sapete.' While he was humming, Miranda whispered to me across the

table, 'Separate the Lucca from the music.' 'But,' I answered rather

hotly, for I was nettled by Miranda's argument _ad hominem_, 'But

it is not possible in an opera to divide the music from the words, the

scenery, the play, the actor. Mozart, when he wrote the score to Da

Ponte's libretto, was excited to production by the situations. He did

not conceive his melodies out of connection with a certain cast of

characters, a given ethical environment.' 'I do not know, my dear

young friend,' responded the professor, 'whether you have read

Mozart's Life and letters. It is clearly shown in them how he composed

airs at times and seasons when he had no words to deal with. These he

afterwards used as occasion served. Whence I conclude that music was

for him a free and lovely play of tone. The words of our excellent

Da Ponte were a scaffolding to introduce his musical creations to the

public. But without that carpenter's work, the melodies of Cherubino

are _Selbst-ständig_, sufficient in themselves to vindicate their

place in art. Do I interpret your meaning, gracious lady?' This he

said bending to Miranda. 'Yes,' she replied. But she still played with

her wineglass, and did not look as though she were quite satisfied.

I meanwhile continued: 'Of course I have read Mozart's Life, and know

how he went to work. But Mozart was a man of feeling, of experience,

of ardent passions. How can you prove to me that the melodies he gave

to Cherubino had not been evolved from situations similar to those

in which Cherubino finds himself? How can you prove he did not feel

a natural appropriateness in the _motifs_ he selected from his

memory for Cherubino? How can you be certain that the part itself did

not stimulate his musical faculty to fresh and still more appropriate

creativeness? And if we must fall back on documents, do you remember

what he said himself about the love-music in _Die Entführung?_ I

think he tells us that he meant it to express his own feeling for the

woman who had just become his wife.' Miranda looked up as though she

were almost half-persuaded. Yet she hummed again 'Non so più,' then

said to herself, 'Yes, it is wiser to believe with the professor that

these are sequences of sounds, and nothing more.' Then she sighed. In

the pause which followed, her husband, the famous critic, filled his

glass, stretched his legs out, and began: 'You have embarked, I see,

upon the ocean of æsthetics. For my part, to-night I was thinking

how much better fitted for the stage Beaumarchais' play was than this

musical mongrel--this operatic adaptation. The wit, observe, is lost.

And Cherubino--that sparkling little _enfant terrible_--becomes a

sentimental fellow--a something I don't know what--between a girl and

a boy--a medley of romance and impudence--anyhow a being quite unlike

the sharply outlined playwright's page. I confess I am not a musician;

the drama is my business, and I judge things by their fitness for

the stage. My wife agrees with me to differ. She likes music, I like

plays. To-night she was better pleased than I was; for she got good

music tolerably well rendered, while I got nothing but a mangled

comedy.'

We bore the critic's monologue with patience. But once again the

spirit, seeking after something which neither Miranda, nor her

husband, nor the professor could be got to recognise, moved within me.

I cried out at a venture, 'People who go to an opera must forget

music pure and simple, must forget the drama pure and simple. You

must welcome a third species of art, in which the play, the music, the

singers with their voices, the orchestra with its instruments--Pauline

Lucca, if you like, with her fascination' (and here I shot a

side-glance at Miranda), 'are so blent as to create a world beyond the

scope of poetry or music or acting taken by themselves. I give Mozart

credit for having had insight into this new world, for having brought

it near to us. And I hold that every fresh representation of his work

is a fresh revelation of its possibilities.'

To this the critic answered, 'You now seem to me to be confounding the

limits of the several arts.' 'What!' I continued, 'is the drama but

emotion presented in its most external forms as action? And what is

music but emotion, in its most genuine essence, expressed by sound?

Where then can a more complete artistic harmony be found than in the

opera?'

'The opera,' replied our host, 'is a hybrid. You will probably learn

to dislike artistic hybrids, if you have the taste and sense I give

you credit for. My own opinion has been already expressed. In the

_Nozze_, Beaumarchais' _Mariage de Figaro_ is simply spoiled. My

friend the professor declares Mozart's music to be sufficient by

itself, and the libretto to be a sort of machinery for its display.

Miranda, I think, agrees with him. You plead eloquently for the

hybrid. You have a right to your own view. These things are matters,

in the final resort, of individual taste rather than of demonstrable

principles. But I repeat that you are very young.' The critic drained

his Lambrusco, and smiled at me.

'Yes, he is young,' added Miranda. 'He must learn to distinguish

between music, his own imagination, and a pretty woman. At present he

mixes them all up together. It is a sort of transcendental omelette.

But I think the pretty woman has more to do with it than metaphysics!'

All this while Edoardo had bestowed devout attention on his supper.

But it appeared that the drift of our discourse had not been lost by

him. 'Well,' he said, 'you finely fibred people dissect and analyse.

I am content with the _spettacolo_. That pleases. What does a man

want more? The _Nozze_ is a comedy of life and manners. The music

is adorable. To-night the women were not bad to look at--the Lucca

was divine; the scenes--ingenious. I thought but little. I came away

delighted. You could have a better play, Caro Signore!' (with a bow

to our host). 'That is granted. You might have better music, Cara

Signora!' (with a bow to Miranda). 'That too is granted. But when the

play and the music come together--how shall I say?--the music helps

the play, and the play helps the music; and we--well we, I suppose,

must help both!'

Edoardo's little speech was so ingenuous, and, what is more, so true

to his Italian temperament, that it made us all laugh and leave the

argument just where we found it. The bottles of Lambrusco supplied us

each with one more glass; and while we were drinking them, Miranda,

woman-like, taking the last word, but contradicting herself, softly

hummed 'Non so più cosa son,' and 'Ah!' she said, 'I shall dream of

love to-night!'

We rose and said good-night. But when I had reached my bedroom in the

Hôtel de la Ville, I sat down, obstinate and unconvinced, and penned

this rhapsody, which I have lately found among papers of nearly twenty

years ago. I give it as it stands.