Semple opened with some of Brahms’ Hungarian Dances, charmingly
vivacious and contagious, also played in some duets with the Doctor
on Creole and Florida negro themes. Racial and national dance music
seemed not a bad overture to harmonize with the gay spirits already
in vogue, yet lead on to something else. Herr Krantz then favored
the company with some German songs; he appreciated the value of
continuity, yet did not ignore the power of contrast. Herr Krantz
was an artist; his first song in rather quick tempo with a dramatic
climax, his second full of suppressed emotion; each most artistic
in effect. All enjoyed his robust tenor voice, also his admirable
interpretation of the sentiment of what he sang. Mrs. Cultus and the
Doctor led in the applause; Mrs. Cultus because she detected that the
whole thing was as it ought to be, especially the dramatic climax of
the first song, and the tears suggested when the second song died
away. Mrs. Cultus was much given to applauding when songs died away
in tears, she wished the singer to understand that he died with good
effect. The Doctor admired all artistic productions and renditions
of any kind; even a good performance on a jew’s-harp or a xylophone
was appreciated by him from the standpoint of art as art. If it did
not manifest the sacred fire of the soul above all else, it was to be
enjoyed and applauded nevertheless, as truth for its own sake, if not
the highest form of truth through musical expression. He had heard
mocking-birds sing like nightingales, yet they were not the veritable
rossignole; he had long since learned that perfect technique was
not the only way of expression, since the sacred fire burst through
all bounds and made terrible mistakes (technical), yet was truth
enduring, truth soaring towards immortality and enduring as memory
endures.
Paul in the meantime had induced Miss Winchester to follow Herr
Krantz; and since his German artistic rendition had excited her
imagination, her fingers fairly twitched with desire to respond,
ready to the interpretation of what she felt. She knew she could play
well because in the mood, delicious sensation.
Miss Winchester’s talent for melodic expression was decidedly of the
romantic school. Her idol was Schumann, and at times Tschaikowsky,
but never when in their morbid humor, then she shut up their
compositions and left them to be morbid alone, not with her. Fact is,
Miss Winchester’s versatility and intellectual vivacious activity
were so pronounced that she could render many original or rare wild
fanciful “_morceaux_,” provided they were vivacious and embodied with
personal experience, or what one might call the racial or national
rhythm of those people who did sing and dance naturally. She and
her brother were both extremely gifted in this respect, and to hear
them play together was not unlike attempting to enjoy two glasses of
champagne at the same time.
Miss Winchester was soon leading the whole company through some
Mexican danzas with a spontaneous abandon perfectly delightful; then
some half-Spanish or old-time Creole reminiscences, very dansante in
their time and place, and yet with a peculiar strain of languor which
pictured the sunny southern clime in one of its most characteristic
moods. Also one of her brother’s waltzes which quite lifted the
hearer off his feet, very difficult to interpret as she did; simply
because not being a singing waltz, neither of the kind that draws
the feet downwards towards the floor in tempo strict and strong, but
quite the contrary lifts the dancer up, carries him beyond, without
fatigue, borne upon the wings of time into the realm of graceful
motion.
Mrs. Cultus could not quite make out whether this strange rhapsodical
style of waltzing was quite up to the standard of the occasion.
It certainly was rather effective, but not as she ever remembered
hearing it in the german. “’Twas impossible to count two or three to
such a thing as that and keep up with it;” therefore suspicious. So
the politic Mrs. Cultus hid behind her jewelled lorgnette, looking
alternately at the performer and the audience before making up her
mind.
The susceptible Doctor was quite fascinated, translated, as he
entered into the spirit of the thing. He thought of scenes in
Delibes’ ballets, of Sylvia and Coppelia, also of the wonderful grace
of Beaugrand upon Walpurgis night when she first appears enveloped by
a cloud descending upon the stage, the cloud disappearing, the dancer
wafted forward to whirl amid a maze of fascinating melody.
Adele and Paul also could not resist the temptation to “try it in
the hall,” but soon gave that up; Adele expecting to sing herself,
therefore careful of her voice, and Paul because the fascination
was quite sufficient without the dancing just then. They were again
caught sitting on the stairs under the benign countenance of “Fanny,”
the old family clock, who ticked on solemnly as if accustomed
to witness waltzing and flirtations, in past times as well as
to-night,--this when the Doctor put in an appearance to ask Adele to
sing.
Adele was an enchanting personification of youthful enjoyment when
Paul led her into the room, her dark eyes lustrous and full of fire,
yet but little conscious of self when she at once dropped Paul’s arm
to rush up to Miss Winchester and thank her for the treat she had
given them. “I never heard you play better in my life, my dear! Oh,
how I wish I could do it!” and then, feeling her own position, became
more subdued in manner as she approached the piano. Henri Semple had
kindly offered to accompany her--they had often sung together as she
called it, so felt in unity at once. Only a word was necessary to
Henri, “Please go straight on, if I should trip I’ll catch up again.”
Henri smiled and began the introduction.
Adele first sang a rather pretentious florid aria. Her mother had
insisted upon this, evidently thinking that all should be informed
at once that her daughter had been educated under the best masters,
as she herself had been under Fraulein Ritter. Adele complied with
her mother’s request, even if she herself had different notions as
to the result. Mrs. Cultus had “dropped her music” soon after the
bills had been paid for her education, and never picked it up again
except in nursery rhymes for Adele. Those nursery songs had won
their way to Adele’s heart, she sometimes sang them yet, but their
greatest triumph had been to excite within her a desire to really
sing herself. She now proposed to hold on and not drop what she had
striven for, to make her voice the means towards expression of higher
things, feelings which words could not always express. As to the
florid aria to commence with, “Oh, yes! it would do to try the voice
and bring out the notes, but the real thing must not be expected
until later.”
Her innermost thoughts were quite in this vein when enthusiastic
applause greeted her singing. She had sung well. Herr Krantz
complimented her, evidently sincere, so she took his appreciation
sincerely, but soon turned to Mr. Semple to select something more
to her own taste. She chose a composition with which she was very
familiar, one of her special favorites, and passed it to Henri.
Semple glanced it over, and being himself of kindred spirit with
her own at once detected certain signs,--how it had been well used
but carefully handled, certain passages marked, some private marks,
evidently her own.
“Miss Cultus, don’t you play this accompaniment yourself?”
“Oh, yes!”
“I thought so--let me resign!”
“Don’t you know it?--it’s not difficult.”
“So I see, but I’m sure none could play it exactly as you would feel
it.”
Adele knew this to be true; no one could really accompany the songs
she really loved so completely to her own satisfaction as herself,
that was the way she had learned to love them.
“You won’t be offended if I do?”
Semple responded at once and stood beside her, but he felt intensely
curious to know exactly why, since she was so different from many,
she desired to do so with this particular piece,--the accompaniment
did not appear to be especially exacting, so he asked her about the
peculiarities of the composition.
“I like to be near the composer, near as I can,” was all she said in
reply, and without further ado seated herself at the instrument.
Some noticing her movement were disappointed, others delighted; the
latter were those who loved music which came from the heart,--the
former those who admired what came from the head.
The Doctor asked her father if she preferred to accompany herself.
“Only at times,” said the Professor, and he appeared rather serious
himself when he observed the mood she was in. It would probably
be Adele at her best, but by no means likely to command the most
general appreciation. Then he told the Doctor: “She knows that head
and heart must work together as one if any true emotion is to come
with the music, and she thinks this is such a subtle matter in her
own case that she must become as near like the composer himself as
she possibly can to render the music as he originally conceived and
felt it. She insists that every good song is fundamentally emotional,
the spirit dominating the art. To get close to this spirit in the
piece, to become the composer and try to re-create the piece, is what
she is after. One soul and mind, the voice soul and the artistic
accompaniment; both had come originally from one creative source, the
composer, whose whole being must have throbbed with one emotion when
he wrote the piece if worth anything. Those who would really feel the
same emotion must try to be like him and follow him in spirit and in
truth. She wishes to reproduce the intimate sympathetic blending of
voice and accompaniment which the composer had felt when he wrote the
song.”
“How intensely she must feel!” said the Doctor, pensive, and
turned to listen, giving attention to the singer to recognize her
personality as creator for the time being of the song,--the singer
giving new life, a renaissance or resurrection to the song.
What Adele sang was a melody by Gounod with simple chords in the
accompaniment, the piano filling in like a second voice when her own
was not prominent. The second voice sang with her, that is, to her
and for her, and the two blended as one, a veritable duet of heart
and head as one. The piano gave the atmosphere in which the melody
lived, moved and had its being, and the melody itself was the voice
of a living soul singing in truth and purity.
To sing it as she did required intense mental effort, herself under
admirable control;--the dominating emotional spirit within. It was
the divine art, the purity in the art, hence divine in origin. Art
dominated by the Spirit of Truth that is Holy, in Music. Music as
Truth, for a religious fervor lay deep within the song. It was
the overflow of her own feelings which others heard and felt, yet
she sang as if no one was present,--none,--herself alone,--Adele
an Idyl. As she continued, the melody seemed to gain in spiritual
significance, so pure, so true, so simply lovely, the good, true and
beautiful, as one, a trinity of inner experience, and thus possessing
a high spiritual significance. All who heard, associated with her
voice their own best thoughts. They “became one” with her,--and
while she thus led them towards higher and better things, the melody
soared upon the wings of a dove, rising as if nearing the celestial
choir. It did not diminish, grow less, nor die away, but passed from
hearing; it was heard, and then it was not heard, gone--gone to live
among the melodies of immortality, for the truth in her music had
made it an immortal song--none could ever forget, neither her, her
song, nor how she sang it.
“How angelic!” whispered those who heard her.
“She is an angel,” said her mother, who knew her best.
The Doctor mused; he was still thinking some time after the
song ceased. There was to him a feeling of both exhaustion and
exaltation,--the human and the divine in his own personality.
As to Paul,--the emotion was rather strong for him, rather too
much just then, the complications of feeling decidedly confusing,
especially as he would be called upon to sing next. He felt perfectly
limp. “What on earth can I do, after an angel has carried the whole
crowd into the upper regions!”
The suppressed applause which followed Adele’s sacred song had hardly
ceased, the hum of appreciation still heard, and Adele herself about
to ask Henri Semple for the bouquet of American Beauties which he
held for her, when she caught the eye of Paul and gave him a slight
inclination of the head to approach.
Paul had been asked to sing next. She knew it,--she also knew the
style of his music, that it could not possibly sound to advantage
immediately after her own success. She also knew Paul’s sensibility,
yet desire to oblige. In the kindness of her heart, now so sensitive
from the holy spirit in music which had prompted her singing, she
wished in some way to aid Paul to bridge over the dilemma into which
her mother’s lack of appreciation of the personal element in music
threatened to lead him, for it was Mrs. Cultus who had insisted upon
his singing as soon as Adele finished.
May it not also be said that Adele herself was about to take another
step forward in her musical career? namely, by a very practical
appreciation of the vast domain of melodic expression,--in other
words the comprehensiveness of “the art of putting things” and the
wonderful difference in methods and means by which spiritual effects
may be produced. She knew that Paul’s voice did appeal to mankind, at
least to some, quite as positively as her own; he also was sensitive
about it, but his emotional feeling was so different from her own.
She wished to be altruistic, and assure Paul fair treatment.
Paul joined her. “I never heard you sing better.”
“I’m glad you were here,--I felt like it,--Gounod is a great friend
of mine.”
“I wish I had a friend on hand.”
“How so?”
“To sing for me, my voice is scared to death.”
“It doesn’t sound that way, but I know what you mean.”
“’Pon honor!--the crudity of it! and then to be asked to sing after
you.”
“Never mind that, think of the music, and forget yourself.”
“What! forget the music and think of myself!” He had hardly uttered
the thought upside down before it seemed to suggest something to him.
He said nothing, however, for a moment, and then seemed to brace up,
and began talking about other things, until Mrs. Cultus approached.
Adele knew, or rather thought she knew, that if her mother pressed
him too hard in his present mood she might receive a refusal in
return, a polite apology for not singing. Much to her surprise,
Paul consented with considerable cordiality, saying he would do his
best gladly; but there was a twinkle in his eye which he could not
disguise as he said it. Adele wondered what the twinkle meant. Mamma
felt sure he would do “stunts.”
What had influenced Paul so suddenly? The twisted words giving a new
association of ideas had suggested yet another motive for singing.
“Forget the music, and think of you, Adele.” He had thought of a
songlet which did just that sort of thing--he would try it.
Why had Adele failed to appreciate the twinkle? Simply because she
did not then know him well enough to recognize one of the strongest
elements in his character, namely, a certain sure reserve power which
men of his type are apt to possess, and manifest in positions of this
sort with marked individuality in form of expression. Paul was just
such a man.
With him it had been Adele’s first song, the florid aria to show off
her voice, which had made the passing impression, not the second; in
fact, the train of thought first excited had continued on through
Adele’s second song, blinding him to a certain extent,--so that
although he did hear the beautiful finale when her voice passed from
hearing, he was preoccupied; he heard it only as another instance of
her highly cultivated technique, nothing more. Its real spiritual
significance had been lost upon him because his mind was preoccupied
in another direction. Having ears he had not heard, yet being what
he was, he had; consequently his impressions of her performance
were complicated. He had appreciated her cultivated voice as fully,
probably, as any in the room, but also remembered how at the hospital
some time before she had sung much less ambitious music which excited
even greater sympathy, bringing tears rather than applause. He did
not wish Adele to lose her charm in that respect, and now, in his
present frame of mind, feared lest she might do so. In fact, being
somewhat askew in his own mind, yet rather sensitive about her, he
jumped to the conclusion that she might give up the old simplicity of
real power in order to electrify society by flights of vocalization.
Thus the spirituality of a sincere, practical man did not differ
fundamentally from that of another with greater æsthetic and artistic
development, but the manifestation of it took an entirely different
form.
Evidently Paul was quite as much interested in Adele’s success as
she was in his,--but how different the motive and varied the form
of expressing the emotion. Paul determined to give her some sort of
a hint as to how he felt, and in a way she alone would recognize.
If he had been older, no doubt he would have told her so direct,
but youth is fonder of playing games in which self-reliance takes a
prominent part. He made up his mind to sing anyhow, and quick as a
flash the thought had come to him, “her effect was through the music,
not the words, why not forget the music and think of the words?--try
it with a style and with a purpose so different from hers that no
comparison can possibly be in order?” He would force attention to
the words rather than the music, and compel the audience to listen
for the sake of the words. As to sentiment! His eyes twinkled as he
thought of it; the audience could interpret that, each after his own
fashion,--as for him, he would forget the music and think of Adele.
Paul went to the piano, telling Adele not to listen, as it was only
some verses from “_Life_” which the Doctor had set to music. This was
quite enough to excite Adele’s curiosity, and made her more attentive
even than the others.
Paul’s voice was a rich baritone with but little cultivation, and
fresh as nature had given it to him, with some few rich masculine
notes as soft as velvet. When he felt intensely, yet kept himself
under control, and the song brought into play those particular notes,
Paul could make even a society reporter listen with sincerity. His
articulation being clear, the listeners heard the words without
effort, and the music became a harmonious medium of communication.
Much to his satisfaction he felt this mood coming over him. The
Doctor, too, knew by his manner that Paul would be at his best, so
played the accompaniment to sustain the voice, yet allow expression
absolutely free with Paul,--a condition of things only possible to
those who have personal sympathy as well as melodic instinct.
Each line of the song told its own tale;--the sentiment, not the
cultivation of the voice nor accompaniment, attracted attention;--a
few gestures gave the proper emphasis.
“She is so fair,
And yet to me
She is unfair
As she can be.
“Were she less fair,
I should be free;
Or less unfair,
Her slave I’d be.
“Fair, or unfair--
Ah! woe is me;
So ill I fare--
Farewell to thee!”
The effect was peculiar. Some caught what they thought were puns in
the words, and called for a repetition to catch them better; others
said the fellow was a fool to give up the girl so soon,--she was not
really so unfair as she appeared to him. Society amused itself hugely
over the absurd situation.
Adele turned to the Doctor. “I don’t care for that song.”
“No! Why?”
“The girl was misunderstood.”
“How strange! I didn’t see it that way at all,” said the Doctor.
“What did you see?”
“The young lady did not appreciate her admirer.”
“What is it called?” asked Adele.
“A Paradox.”
Paul overheard them and noticed an introspective expression on
Adele’s countenance. Was she trying to recall the words? He would
make sure of them, so in response to the encore repeated after this
fashion:
“Thou art so fair, and yet to me
Thou art unfair as thou canst be.
“Wert thou less fair, I should be free;
Or less unfair, thy slave I’d be.
“Fair, or unfair--Ah! woe is me;
So ill I fare,--farewell to thee.”
And as he sang, the peculiar twinkle in his eyes again appeared.
To the hearers it seemed very appropriate to the song, part of the
spirit of the thing. Paul was more interested as to how it would
affect Adele.
Adele was more confused than ever. Did he, or did he not, intend
anything? She hardly knew how she ought to address him the next
minute. It would be foolish to lay any stress upon such a song,
merely a _play upon words_ at best; yet her womanly instinct told her
it might mean a great deal. She had no time, however, to think much
about it, and did not care much anyhow, so tried to put the matter
quite aside.
“What absurd words!--not so bad either ... but he certainly made them
tell,” and she looked around the room as if to notice what others
thought.
People were still discussing the Paradox.
“The impression seems to last,” said she.
The Doctor caught her final word.
“What lasts, Miss Adele?”
A twinkle in her eye this time.
“Paul’s song,--wasn’t it amusing?” and they both laughed heartily.
“The supper is served,” whispered a waiter to the Doctor, and shortly
after Adele was seen entering the supper-room on the Doctor’s arm.
Paul escorted Miss Winchester.
V
AFTER DARK IN THE PARK
After the guests had departed the Doctor decided he would fill his
lungs with fresh air by a short stroll in the park before retiring.
Thus to saunter was a favorite experience with him after an evening
spent in close quarters. He could be alone, yet not alone,--in the
world, yet not of it.
“These breathing places are delicious,” he mused, “good for all, day
or night; to the poor a blessed change from close and narrow homes,
and to the wealthy if they only knew it, from their over-heated
rooms. Fresh air in the lungs and a good quaff of pure water are the
most healthy somnorifics I know. Thank Heaven, this park furnishes
such luxuries to all.” This as he took a seat near a fountain which
overflowed conveniently for the thirsty wayfarer.
The trees overhead were coming into new leaf, and the grass plots
newly trimmed,--the resurrection of spring evidently near at hand.
Arc lights from a distance shone through, giving a silvery lustre to
the undersides of the new foliage, and a radiant glow which permeated
the long vista.
He looked above into the azure,--it was a starlit night; also towards
the horizon, down one of the wide avenues which intersected at the
park. Upon a public building in the distance some statuary above the
cornice stood distinct in outline against the sky, but from time to
time the figures were obscured by clouds of smoke or steam enveloping
as in a luminous mist. The figures came and went as if they
themselves were endowed with movement. He watched the smoke-mist,
tracing to its source,--a press establishment,--the newspaper workers
busy while the public slept. He hoped that to-morrow’s issue might
bring news of something better than the smoke of war, mists of
politics, and the vile conflicts of the debased side of humanity. Why
not accentuate the good in the world instead of the evil? Such would
be the way of truth in life, to overcome the evil with the good. But
he did not feel very sanguine that to-morrow’s issue would be of
that sort,--certainly not so long as the use and abuse of head-lines
purposely to mislead the public for the sake of cash obtained.