"BACK! WOULD YOU MURDER HER?"
When Edward Morgan went to Europe from Columbia college it was in
obedience to a mandate of John Morgan through the New York lawyers. He
went, began there the life of a bohemian. Introduced by a chance
acquaintance, he fell in first with the art circles of Paris, and,
having a fancy and decided talent for painting, he betook himself
seriously to study. But the same shadow, the same need of an
overpowering motive, pursued him. With hope and ambition he might have
become known to fame. As it was, his mind drifted into subtleties and
the demon change came again. He closed his easel. Rome, Athens,
Constantinople, the occident, all knew him, gave him brief welcome and
quick farewells.
The years were passing; as he had gone from idleness to art, from art to
history, and from history to archaeology by easy steps, so he passed
now, successively to religion, to philosophy, and to its last broad
exponent, theosophy.
The severity of this last creed fitted the crucifixion of his spirit.
Its contemplation showed him vacancies in his education and so he went
to Jena for additional study. This decision was reached mainly through
the suggestion of a chance acquaintance named Abingdon, who had come
into his life during his first summer on the continent. They met so
often that the face of this man had became familiar, and one day, glad
to hear his native tongue, he addressed him and was not repelled.
Abingdon gave to Edward Morgan his confidence; it was not important; a
barrister in an English interior town, he crossed the channel annually
for ramble in the by-ways of Europe. It had been his unbroken habit for
many years.
From this time the two men met often and journeyed much together, the
elder seeming to find a pleasure in the gravity and earnestness of the
young man, and he in turn a relief in the nervous, jerky lawyer, looking
always through small, half-closed eyes and full of keen conceptions. And
when apart, occasionally he would get a characteristic note from
Abingdon and send a letter in reply. He had so much spare time.
This man had once surprised him with the remark:
"If I were twenty years younger I would go to Jena and study vibration.
It is the greatest force of the universe. It is the secret of creation."
The more Edward dwelt upon this remark, in connection with modern
results and invention, the more he was struck with it. Why go to Jena to
study vibration was something that he could not fathom, nor in all
probability could Abingdon. America was really the advanced line of
discovery, but nevertheless he went, and with important results; and
there in the old town, finding the new hobby so intimately connected
with music, to which he was passionately devoted, he took up with
renewed energy his neglected violin. With feverish toil he struggled
along the border land of study and speculation, until he felt that there
was nothing more possible for him--in Jena.
In Jena his solitary friend had been the eminent Virdow and to him he
became an almost inseparable companion.
The confidence and speculations of Virdow, extending far beyond the
limits of a lecture stand, carried Edward into dazzling fields. The
intercourse extended through the best part of several years. On leaving
Jena he was armed with a knowledge of the possibilities of the vast
field he had entered upon, with a knowledge of thorough bass and
harmony, and with a technique that might have made him famous had he
applied his knowledge. He did not apply it!
His final stand had been Paris. Abingdon was there. Abingdon had
discovered a genius and carried Edward to see him. He had been passing
through an obscure quarter when he was attracted by the singular pathos
of a violin played in a garret. To use his expression, "the music
glorified the miserable street." Everybody there knew Benoni, the blind
violinist. And to this man, awed and silent, came Edward, a listener.
No words can express the meaning that lay in the blind man's
improvisations; only music could contain them. And only one man in Paris
could answer! When having heard the heart language, the heart history
and cravings of the player expressed in the solitude of that
half-lighted garret, Edward took the antique instrument and replied, the
answer was overwhelming. The blind man understood; he threw his arms
about the player and embraced him.
"Grand!" he cried. "A master plays, but it is incomplete; the final note
has not come; the harmony died where it should have become immortal!"
And Edward knew it.
From that meeting sprang a warm friendship, the most complete that
Morgan had ever known! It made the old man comfortable, gained him
better quarters and broadened the horizon toward which his sun of life
was setting. It would go down with some of the colors of its morning.
It became Edward's custom to take his old friend to hear the best operas
and concerts, and one night they heard the immortal Cambia sing. It was
a charity concert and her first appearance in many years.
When the idol of the older Paris came to the footlights for the sixth
time to bow her thanks for the ovation given her, she smiled and sang in
German a love song, indescribable in its passion and tenderness. It was
a burst of melody from the heart of some man, great one moment in his
life at least. Edward found himself standing when the tumult ceased.
Benoni had sunk from his chair to his knees and was but half-conscious.
The excitement had partially paralyzed him. The lithe fingers of the
left hand were dead. They would never rest again upon the strings of his
great violin--the Cremona to which in sickness and poverty, although its
sale would have enriched him, he clung with the faith and instinct of
the artist.
There came the day when Edward was ready to depart to America. He went
to say good-bye, and this is what happened: The old man held Edward's
hands long in silence, but his lips moved in prayer; then lifting the
instrument, he placed it in the young man's arms.
"Take it," he said. "I may never meet you again. It is the one thing
that I have been true to all my life. I will not leave it to the base
and heartless." And so Edward, to please him, accepted the trust. He
would return some day; many hours should the violin sing for the old
man. As he stood he drew the bow and played one strain of Cambia's song
and the blind man lifted his face in sudden excitement. As Edward paused
he called the notes until it was complete. "Now again," he said,
singing:
If thou couldst love me
As I do love thee,
Then wouldst thou come to me,
Come to me.
Never forsaking me,
Never, oh, never
Forsaking me.
Oceans may roll between,
Thine home and thee
Love, if thou lovest me
Lovest me,
What care we, you and I?
Through all eternity,
I love thee, darling one,
Love me; love me.
"You have found the secret," said Benoni; "the chords on the lower
octaves made the song."
And so they had parted! The blind man to wait for the final summons; the
young man to plunge into complications beyond his wildest dreams.
"A man," said Virdow once, "is a tribe made up of himself, his family
and his friends." And this was the history in outline of the man to whom
Rita Morgan handed the violin that fateful day when Gerald lay face down
among the pillows of his divan.
Recognizing in the delicate and excitable organism before him the
possibilities of emotion and imagination, Edward prepared to play.
Without hesitation he drew the bow across the strings and began a solemn
prelude to a choral. And as he played he noticed the heaving form below
him grow still. Then Gerald lifted his face and gazed past the player,
with an intensity of vision that deepened until he seemed in the grasp
of some stupendous power or emotion. Edward played the recital; the
story of Calvary, the crucifixion and the mourning women, and the march
of soldiers. Finally there came the tumult of bursting storm and riven
tombs. The climax of action occurred there; it was to die away into a
movement fitted to the resurrection and the peaceful holiness of
Christ's meeting with Mary. But before this latter movement began Gerald
leaped upon the player with the quickness and fury of a tiger and by the
suddenness of the onset nearly bore him to the floor. This mad assault
was accompanied by a shriek of mingled fear and horror.
"Back--would you murder her?" By a great effort Edward freed himself and
the endangered violin, and forced the assailant to the divan. The
octoroon was kneeling by his side weeping.
"Leave him to me," she said. Stunned and inexpressibly shocked Edward
withdrew. The grasp on his throat had been like steel! The marks
remained.
"I have," he wrote that night in a letter to Virdow, "heard you more
than once express the hope that you would some day be able to visit
America. Come now, at once! I have here entered upon a new life and need
your help. Further, I believe I can help you."
After describing the circumstances already related, the letter
continued: "The susceptibility of this mind to music I regard as one of
the most startling experiences I have ever known, and it will afford you
an opportunity for testing your theories under circumstances you can
never hope for again. Let me say to you here that I am now convinced by
some intuitive knowledge that the assault upon me was based upon a
memory stirred by the sound of the violin; that vibration created anew
in the delicate mind some picture that had been forgotten and brought
back again painful emotions that were ungovernable. I cannot think but
that it is to have a bearing upon the concealed facts of my life; the
discovery of which is my greatest object now, as in the past. And I
cannot but believe that your advice and discretion will guide me in the
treatment and care of this poor being, perhaps to the extent of
affecting a radical change, and leave him a happier and a more rational
being.
"Come to me, my friend, at once! I am troubled and perplexed. And do not
be offended that I have inclosed exchange for an amount large enough to
cover expenses. I am now rich beyond the comprehension of your
economical German mind, and surely I may be allowed, in the interests of
science, of my ward and myself to spend from the abundant store. I look
for you early. In the meantime, I will be careful in my experiments.
Come at once! _The mind has an independent memory and you can
demonstrate it._"
Edward knew that there was more on that concluding sentence than in the
rest of the letter and exchange combined, and half-believing it, he
stated it as a prophecy. He was preparing to retire, when it occurred to
him that the strange occupant of the wing-room might need his attention.
Something like affection had sprung up in his heart for the unfortunate
being who, with chains heavier than his own, had missed the diversion of
new scenes, the broadening, the soothing of great landscapes and
boundless oceans. A pity moved him to descend and to knock at the door.
There was no answer. He entered to find the apartment deserted, but the
curtain was drawn from the doorway of the glass-room and he passed in.
Upon the bed in the yellow light of the moon lay the slender figure of
Gerald, one arm thrown around the disordered hair, the other hanging
listless from his side.
He approached and bent above the bed. The face turned upward there
seemed like wax in the oft-broken gloom. The sleeper had not stirred. It
was the vibration of chords in harmony, that had moved him. Would it
have power again? He hesitated a moment, then returned quickly to the
wing-room and secured his instrument. Concealing himself he waited. It
was but a moment.
The wind brought the branches of the nearest oleanders against the frail
walls, and the play of lightning had become continuous. Then began in
earnest the tumult of the vast sound waves as they met in the vapory
caverns of the sky. The sleeper tossed restlessly upon his bed; he was
stirred by a vague but unknown power; yet something was wanting.
At this moment Edward lifted his violin and, catching the storm note,
wove a solemn strain into the diapason of the mighty organ of the sky.
And as he played, as if by one motion, the sleeper stood alone in the
middle of the room. Again Edward saw that frenzied stare fixed upon
vacancy, but there was no furious leap of the agile limbs; by a powerful
effort the struggling mind seemed to throw off a weight and the sleeper
awoke.
The bow was now suspended; the music had ceased. Gerald rushed to his
easel and, standing in a sea of electric flame, outlined with swift
strokes a woman's face and form. She was struggling in the grasp of a
man and her face was the face of the artist who worked. But such
expression! Agony, horror, despair!
The figure of the man was not complete from the waist down; his face was
concealed. Between them, as they contended, was a child's coffin in the
arms of the woman. Overhead were the bare outlines of an arch.
The artist hesitated and added behind the group a tree, whose branches
seemed to lash the ground. And there memory failed; the crayon fell from
his fingers; he stood listless by the canvas. Then with a cry he buried
his face in his hands and wept.
As he stood thus, the visitor, awed but triumphant, glided through the
door and disappeared in the wing-room. He knew that he had touched a
hidden chord; that the picture on the canvas was born under the
flashlight of memory! Was it brain? Oh, for the wisdom of Virdow!
Sympathy moved him to return again to the glass-room. It was empty!