WHAT TIME SHE CHANTED.
Hamlet; iv.--7.
It was February, and the night but one before the day fixed for Arthur
Fenton's marriage. He was spending the evening with Mrs. Greyson, and
it chanced that Grant Herman and Fred Rangely were also there. The
sculptor went seldom to the house of his pupil, and when he did visit
her, he satisfied some fine, secret delicacy by taking always a friend
with him. Helen was sufficiently Bohemian or sufficiently unworldly to
care little if people criticised her way of living. She had inherited a
small property which made her comfortable and independent; and she
declined being hampered by a chaperon.
"My art is my chaperon," she wrote to an elderly relative who wished to
come to Boston and matronize her. "A woman who is daring enough to be
an artist is regarded as bold enough to take care of herself, I
suppose. At least nobody troubles me, and I ask nothing more."
On the present occasion Arthur Fenton asked leave to light his cigar,
and although Herman felt this something of a profanation, it was not
long before he and Rangely added their wreaths to the smoke garlands
which hung upon the air, and had not the hostess become somewhat
accustomed to tobacco in foreign _ateliers,_ it is to be doubted
if she could have complacently endured the fumes which arose.
All subjects of heaven and earth came drifting into the talk, and at
length something evoked from Rangely his opinion of Emerson.
"Emerson was great," he said, "Emerson often recalled Goethe in
Goethe's cooler and more intellectual moods; but Emerson lacked the
loftiness of vice; he was eternally narrow."
"'The loftiness of vice,'" echoed the hostess. "What does that mean? It
sounds vicious enough."
"Emerson," Rangely returned, "knew only half of life. He never had any
conception of the passionate longing for vice _per se;_ the
thrill, the glow which comes to some men at the splendid caress of sin
in her most horrible shape. Do you see what I mean? He couldn't imagine
the ecstasy that may lie in mere foulness."
"No," replied Helen, "I'm afraid I don't quite see. Though I am sure I
ought to be shocked. Do you mean that he should have been vicious?"
"Certainly not; but it was his limitation not to be tempted; not to be
able to project himself into a personality which riots in wickedness
far more intensely than a saint follows righteousness."
"If you mean that he could not have been wicked if he tried, that, I
own, was in a sense a limitation."
"Yes; and a fatal one. No man can be wholly great who understands only
one half of human impulses."
"But what do you mean by wickedness?" demanded Herman, a little
combatively.
"Oh," laughed Rangely, "I'm not to be entrapped into giving
metaphysical and theological definitions. I mean what we are expected
to call wickedness, conventionally speaking. I've an old cad of a
parson in my new play and I am trying to decide if it will do to have
him advocate a grand scheme for reforming the world by reversing
definitions and calling those things men choose to do virtues, and
dubbing whatever man detests, vices."
"That is rather more clever than orthodox," Helen laughed. "How is your
play getting on, Mr. Rangely?"
"Oh, fairish, thank you. The trouble is that the drama went out of
fashion long ago. First they replaced it by dresses and scenery, but
now every thing has given way to souvenir programmes; so I've got to
write up to a souvenir or I sha'n't make any thing out of the play."
"I hoped you were above such mercenary considerations."
"I am trying to make myself so," he retorted. "I think about three
successful plays would be tonic enough to bring my conscience up to
proper art levels."
Herman had taken little part in this colloquy, smoking in silence, and
regarding his companions. Fenton had thus far been even more quiet,
scarcely contributing a word to the conversation; and the sculptor's
thoughts turned upon the handsome young fellow, sitting in one of his
favorite twisted attitudes in a German chair, his beardless face paler
than usual, though a red spot glowed in either cheek, and his dilated
pupils betrayed his excitement. He was smoking steadily, but with
little apparent knowledge of either his cigar or his surroundings.
"Upon my word," mused Herman. "A cheerful looking man for a bridegroom
he is. If he were going to the scaffold he could hardly seem more
melancholy. What in the world is the matter with him? I wonder if he
has been dragged into a marriage he doesn't like. How Mrs. Greyson
watches him."
Helen was indeed watching Fenton closely, although to a less keen
observer than Herman her surveillance would hardly have been apparent.
She, too, was thinking of Fenton's downcast air, and knowing him more
intimately than did the sculptor, she reasoned less doubtfully,
although perhaps not more accurately than the latter concerning what
was passing in the mind of her silent friend.
"He surely loves Miss Caldwell," she thought, "but he is so foolish. He
is thinking now that he will never meet these comrades again as an
unhampered man. He feels just now all he is giving up. I should like
him better to remember what he is gaining. Are all men inherently
selfish, I wonder. It is well for Miss Caldwell's peace of mind that
she cannot see him now. Perhaps when he is with her he sees only the
other side; I am sure I hope so."
She turned away with a sigh, and saw Herman looking at her. Their eyes
met in one of those brief glances of intelligence which serve as fine
fibers to knit people together.
The conversation soon turned upon the opinion a certain critic had
expressed concerning a picture then on exhibition.
"Bah!" cried Fenton suddenly; "what does he know about art?--he is
bow-legged!"
"Hallo!" exclaimed Rangely, "have you waked up? I thought we were safe
from you for the whole evening."
"It is never safe to count on his silence," Herman said. "He has
probably been meditating some stinging epigram against woman. We shall
have something wild directly."
"No; I've nothing to say against women now," Arthur returned, rising,
"for I want Mrs. Greyson to sing. I wish you'd stop poisoning the air
with those confounded cigarettes, Fred. The use of cigarettes degrades
smoking to the level of the small vices, and I object to it on
principle."
He opened the piano as he spoke, and without demur Helen allowed him to
lead her to the instrument.
"If you do not mind," she said a little diffidently, turning to her
guests after she had seated herself, "I should like to have the gas
lowered a trifle. It may seem a little sentimental, but I do not like
to be looked at too keenly when I sing."
The flames of the gas jets were dimmed, and Helen struck a few soft
chords. Herman listened intently. He had heard Fenton praise Mrs.
Greyson's singing, but he was entirely unprepared for what was to come,
and he never forgot the thrill of that experience.
An unpretending, flowing prelude; then suddenly the tones of the
singer.
Helen's voice was a rich, fibrous mezzo-soprano; and the music she
sang, half chant, half melody, was evidently an improvisation. The
words were the exquisite song which opens Shelley's _Hellas:_
I strew these opiate flowers
On thy restless pillow,--
They were plucked from Orient bowers,
By the Indian billow.
Be thy sleep
Calm and deep,
Like theirs who fell; not ours who weep.
Away, unlovely dreams!
Away, false shapes of sleep!
Be his, as Heaven seems,
Clear and bright and deep!
Soft as love and calm as death,
Sweet as summer night without a breath.
Sleep! sleep! My song is laden
With the soul of slumber;
It was sung by a Samian maiden
Whose lover was of the number
Who now keep
That calm sleep
Whence none may wake; where none shall weep.
I touch thy temples pale!
I breathe my soul on thee!
And could my prayers avail,
All my joy should be
Dead, and I would live to weep,
So thou might'st win one hour of quiet sleep!
It is difficult to convey the effect of this song upon its hearers. The
strangeness, the unconventionality of the recitative, the wonderful,
sad beauty of the poem, the dim light through which Helen's vibrating,
passionate voice thrilled, all helped to impress the hearers. There was
a personal quality about the chant which made it seem like a direct
appeal from the singer to the heart of each listener. It came to each
as a spontaneous outflowing of the singer's innermost self; a
confidence made in mystic wise, sacred and inviolable, and setting him
honored by receiving it forever from the common multitude of men. It
was an appeal to some unspoken and unspeakable bond of fealty, which
made the pulses throb and great emotions stir in the breast. Before
hearing one would be stubbornly incredulous of the possibility of his
being so deeply affected; afterward he would remember how he had been
moved with wonder and longing.
Especially was Grant Herman much moved. Thoughts came into his mind of
the old minstrels chanting to their harps; he seemed to hear Sappho
singing again in the gardens of Mytilene; this was the woman he loved,
and he felt himself as never before surrounded palpably by her
presence. The improvisation was a part of herself as no other music
could have been; and in some subtle, sensuous way, the lover seemed for
the moment to be one with his beloved. His eyes filled with tears in a
sort of ecstasy, and he shrank back into the shadow lest some of his
friends should detect the glad, salt drops which no eyes but hers had a
right to see.