At half-past four o’clock in the afternoon, Halfdan found himself
standing in a large, dimly lighted drawing-room, whose brilliant
upholstery, luxurious carpets, and fantastically twisted furniture
dazzled and bewildered his senses. All was so strange, so strange;
nowhere a familiar object to give rest to the wearied eye. Wherever he
looked he saw his shabbily attired figure repeated in the long crystal
mirrors, and he became uncomfortably conscious of his threadbare coat,
his uncouth boots, and the general incongruity of his appearance. With
every moment his uneasiness grew; and he was vaguely considering the
propriety of a precipitate flight, when the rustle of a dress at the
farther end of the room startled him, and a small, plump lady, of a
daintily exquisite form, swept up toward him, gave a slight inclination
of her head, and sank down into an easy-chair:
“You are Mr. ----, the Norwegian, who wishes to give music lessons?”
she said, holding a pair of gold-framed eyeglasses up to her eyes, and
running over the note which she held in her hand. It read as follows:
DEAR MARTHA,--The bearer of this note is a young Norwegian, I forgot to
ascertain his name, a friend of Olson’s. He wishes to teach music.
If you can help the poor devil and give him something to do, you will
oblige, Yours, H. V. K.
Mrs. Van Kirk was evidently, by at least twelve years, her husband’s
junior, and apparently not very far advanced in the forties. Her blonde
hair, which was freshly crimped, fell lightly over her smooth, narrow
forehead; her nose, mouth and chin had a neat distinctness of outline;
her complexion was either naturally or artificially perfect, and
her eyes, which were of the purest blue, had, owing to their
near-sightedness, a certain pinched and scrutinizing look. This look,
which was without the slightest touch of severity, indicating merely
a lively degree of interest, was further emphasized by three small
perpendicular wrinkles, which deepened and again relaxed according to
the varying intensity of observation she bestowed upon the object which
for the time engaged her attention.
“Your name, if you please?” said Mrs. Van Kirk, having for awhile
measured her visitor with a glance of mild scrutiny.
“Halfdan Bjerk.”
“Half-dan B----, how do you spell that?”
“B-j-e-r-k.”
“B-jerk. Well, but I mean, what is your name in English?”
Halfdan looked blank, and blushed to his ears.
“I wish to know,” continued the lady energetically, evidently anxious
to help him out, “what your name would mean in plain English. Bjerk, it
certainly must mean something.”
“Bjerk is a tree--a birch-tree.”
“Very well, Birch,--that is a very respectable name. And your first
name? What did you say that was?
“H-a-l-f-d-a-n.”
“Half Dan. Why not a whole Dan and be done with it? Dan Birch, or rather
Daniel Birch. Indeed, that sounds quite Christian.”
“As you please, madam,” faltered the victim, looking very unhappy.
“You will pardon my straightforwardness, won’t you? B-jerk. I could
never pronounce that, you know.”
“Whatever may be agreeable to you, madam, will be sure to please me.”
“That is very well said. And you will find that it always pays to try to
please me. And you wish to teach music? If you have no objection I will
call my oldest daughter. She is an excellent judge of music, and if
your playing meets with her approval, I will engage you, as my husband
suggests, not to teach Edith, you understand, but my youngest child,
Clara.”
Halfdan bowed assent, and Mrs. Van Kirk rustled out into the hall where
she rang a bell, and re-entered. A servant in dress-coat appeared, and
again vanished as noiselessly as he had come. To our Norseman there was
some thing weird and uncanny about these silent entrances and exits;
he could hardly suppress a shudder. He had been accustomed to hear the
clatter of people’s heels upon the bare floors, as they approached, and
the audible crescendo of their footsteps gave one warning, and prevented
one from being taken by surprise. While absorbed in these reflections,
his senses must have been dormant; for just then Miss Edith Van Kirk
entered, unheralded by anything but a hovering perfume, the effect of
which was to lull him still deeper into his wondering abstraction.
“Mr. Birch,” said Mrs. Van Kirk, “this is my daughter Miss Edith,” and
as Halfdan sprang to his feet and bowed with visible embarrassment, she
continued:
“Edith, this is Mr. Daniel Birch, whom your father has sent here to know
if he would be serviceable as a music teacher for Clara. And now, dear,
you will have to decide about the merits of Mr. Birch. I don’t know
enough about music to be anything of a judge.”
“If Mr. Birch will be kind enough to play,” said Miss Edith with a
languidly musical intonation,” I shall be happy to listen to him.”
Halfdan silently signified his willingness and followed the ladies to a
smaller apartment which was separated from the drawing-room by folding
doors. The apparition of the beautiful young girl who was walking at
his side had suddenly filled him with a strange burning and shuddering
happiness; he could not tear his eyes away from her; she held him as
by a powerful spell. And still, all the while he had a painful
sub-consciousness of his own unfortunate appearance, which was thrown
into cruel relief by her splendor. The tall, lithe magnificence of her
form, the airy elegance of her toilet, which seemed the perfection of
self-concealing art, the elastic deliberateness of her step--all wrought
like a gentle, deliciously soothing opiate upon the Norseman’s fancy and
lifted him into hitherto unknown regions of mingled misery and bliss.
She seemed a combination of the most divine contradictions, one moment
supremely conscious, and in the next adorably child-like and simple, now
full of arts and coquettish innuendoes, then again naïve, unthinking
and almost boyishly blunt and direct; in a word, one of those miraculous
New York girls whom abstractly one may disapprove of, but in the
concrete must abjectly adore. This easy predominance of the masculine
heart over the masculine reason in the presence of an impressive woman,
has been the motif of a thousand tragedies in times past, and will
inspire a thousand more in times to come.
Halfdan sat down at the grand piano and played Chopin’s Nocturne in G
major, flinging out that elaborate filigree of sound with an impetuosity
and superb ABANDON which caused the ladies to exchange astonished
glances behind his back. The transitions from the light and ethereal
texture of melody to the simple, more concrete theme, which he rendered
with delicate shadings of articulation, were sufficiently startling to
impress even a less cultivated ear than that of Edith Van Kirk, who had,
indeed, exhausted whatever musical resources New York has to offer. And
she was most profoundly impressed. As he glided over the last pianissimo
notes toward the two concluding chords (an ending so characteristic
of Chopin) she rose and hurried to his side with a heedless eagerness,
which was more eloquent than emphatic words of praise.
“Won’t you please repeat this passage?” she said, humming the air with
soft modulations; “I have always regarded the monotonous repetition of
this strain” (and she indicated it lightly by a few touches of the keys)
“as rather a blemish of an otherwise perfect composition. But as you
play it, it is anything but monotonous. You put into this single phrase
a more intense meaning and a greater variety of thought than I ever
suspected it was capable of expressing.”
“It is my favorite composition,” answered he, modestly. “I have bestowed
more thought upon it than upon anything I have ever played, unless
perhaps it be the one in G minor, which, with all its difference of mood
and phraseology, expresses an essentially kindred thought.”
“My dear Mr. Birch,” exclaimed Mrs. Van Kirk, whom his skillful
employment of technical terms (in spite of his indifferent accent)
had impressed even more than his rendering of the music,--“you are a
comsummate{sic} artist, and we shall deem it a great privilege if
you will undertake to instruct our child. I have listened to you with
profound satisfaction.”
Halfdan acknowledged the compliment by a bow and a blush, and repeated
the latter part of the nocturne according to Edith’s request.
“And now,” resumed Edith, “may I trouble you to play the G minor, which
has even puzzled me more than the one you have just played.”
“It ought really to have been played first,” replied Halfdan. “It is
far intenser in its coloring and has a more passionate ring, but its
conclusion does not seem to be final. There is no rest in it, and it
seems oddly enough to be a mere transition into the major, which is its
proper supplement and completes the fragmentary thought.”
Mother and daughter once more telegraphed wondering looks at each
other, while Halfdan plunged into the impetuous movements of the minor
nocturne, which he played to the end with ever-increasing fervor and
animation.
“Mr. Birch,” said Edith, as he arose from the piano with a flushed face,
and the agitation of the music still tingling through his nerves. “You
are a far greater musician than you seem to be aware of. I have not
been taking lessons for some time, but you have aroused all my musical
ambition, and if you will accept me too, as a pupil, I shall deem it a
favor.”
“I hardly know if I can teach you anything,” answered he, while his
eyes dwelt with keen delight on her beautiful form. “But in my present
position I can hardly afford to decline so flattering an offer.”
“You mean to say that you would decline it if you were in a position to
do so,” said she, smiling.
“No, only that I should question my convenience more closely.”
“Ah, never mind. I take all the responsibility. I shall cheerfully
consent to being imposed upon by you.”
Mrs. Van Kirk in the mean while had been examining the contents of a
fragrant Russia-leather pocket-book, and she now drew out two crisp
ten-dollar notes, and held them out toward him.
“I prefer to make sure of you by paying you in advance,” said she, with
a cheerfully familiar nod, and a critical glance at his attire, the
meaning of which he did not fail to detect. “Somebody else might make
the same discovery that we have made to-day, and outbid us. And we do
not want to be cheated out of our good fortune in having been the first
to secure so valuable a prize.”
“You need have no fear on that score, madam,” retorted Halfdan, with a
vivid blush, and purposely misinterpreting the polite subterfuge. “You
may rely upon my promise. I shall be here again, as soon as you wish me
to return.”
“Then, if you please, we shall look for you to-morrow morning at ten
o’clock.”
And Mrs. Van Kirk hesitatingly folded up her notes and replaced them in
her pocket-book.
To our idealist there was something extremely odious in this sudden
offer of money. It was the first time any one had offered to pay him,
and it seemed to put him on a level with a common day-laborer. His first
impulse was to resent it as a gratuitous humiliation, but a glance
at Mrs. Van Kirk’s countenance, which was all aglow with officious
benevolence, re-assured him, and his indignation died away.
That same afternoon Olson, having been informed of his friend’s good
fortune, volunteered a loan of a hundred dollars, and accompanied him to
a fashionable tailor, where he underwent a pleasing metamorphosis.