EIN WUNDERBARES FRAULEIN
Fritz Geisling, who for many years had lived in two rooms, second floor,
No. 10 Amity Place, was short, fat, and bald. Each morning he arose at
seven, went out to an adjoining cafe where German cookery was served
"twenty-one meals for three dollars," as stated on its bill of fare, and
returned to his domicile, glancing at the small sign, "Violin Lessons,"
placed above the upper bell, and mounting the two flights of stairs,
awaited in his office, sitting room and parlor combined, the few pupils
who came his way. At noon he absorbed another of the "twenty-one for
three dollar" productions of culinary art, washed down with a stein of
foaming beer, and then, if it were matinee day at the Alhambra Temple of
Vaudeville, betook himself thither, where he played second violin. Each
evening, from the opening in September until closing time in June, he
was at his post, sawing away like the machine he was and as devoid of
sentiment. When he escaped the Alhambra, it was to join his cronies in a
convenient saloon where pinocle, beer, and choice Teutonic gossip
relieved the monotony of his existence. Year in and year out he was the
same phlegmatic, good-natured Dutchman, and lived the same unvarying and
emotionless existence. Of the great Rockhaven stock scheme he had never
heard, and would not have understood it if he had. Of "the street" and
its multiplicity of deals where "to do" the other fellow and not let him
"do" you was the golden rule, he was equally innocent--a drop in the
throbbing artery of human existence.
And then, one winter morning, Fritz returned to his lair to find
awaiting him a strangely clad man and a young half-scared girl.
"I'm told ye gin lessons on the fiddle," said the man, "an' if ye do,
I've come to engage ye fer this ere gal."
Fritz bowed low, conscious that a pair of magnificent eyes were watching
him.
"It vash mine broveshion," he answered, "und von tollar each ish de
brice. Ish de lady to be de pupils?"
"She's the one," came the answer; "an' I want ye to teach her all the
frills, 'n' yer money's ready an' waitin' any time."
"Ish she von peginner?" came from Fritz.
"Wal, sorter, 'n' sorter not," replied the man; "my name's Hutton, an'
this ere's my niece, Miss Hutton, an' I've larnt her to saw just a
leetle to start her off, ez it war. If ye'd like, she'll show ye what
she kin do with a bow. Play suthin' slow, Mona, fust," he added as a
violin was handed her, "till ye kinder ketch yerself, an' then suthin'
lively."
Mona somewhat nervously complied, and gaining courage as she forgot
where she was, skipped over a half-dozen of the familiar Scotch airs she
could play best, while the eyes of Fritz twinkled.
"She vash no peginner," he said elated; "she vash blain' alretty yet
very mooch." And seizing a music-rack and spreading a late composition
upon it, he added, "Ef de lady vill blease blay dot, ve'll see vot she
can do."
"Ye've got'r now, perfessor," interposed Jess, "she can't read that
music."
But a surprise was awaiting him, for though half-scared Mona hesitated
and made a few slips, she played the piece through to the end without a
halt.
"Why, girlie," exclaimed Jess, "I'm proud o' ye. I didn't think ye cud
do so well. Now, perfessor, ye kin take her in hand; 'n' mind ye don't
let up on her till she's larned the hull biznes, fer fiddlin's goin' to
be her futur' perfession."
That night, when Fritz had once more escaped the crowded theatre and was
quaffing his foaming stein, could any native American translate the
rapid fire jargon with which he related his morning experience, he would
have heard a marvellous tale.
"Mein Gott in Himmel!" Fritz exclaimed, after the fourth glass had been
emptied, "but she blayed mit such feelin's und such eyes dot mit me made
such strangeness feels. Ach, but she vas a vonder!"
And as time passed on, each of the two days a week when Mona came to
take her lesson only served to increase that "vonder," for now that her
timidity had worn away, the genius that lurked in her fingers asserted
itself. In technical art she was as yet a pupil, but in the far more
impressive art of inspiration and expression, so natural to her, she had
naught to learn.
"She blays mit her heart und all ofer, und vorgets all I tells her of
bosition und oxecution," explained Fritz to his cronies, "und ven she
looks at me I forgets meinself."
Then as the weeks went by, a new idea came to Fritz, who seldom had any;
and straightway he began to nurse it.
"Ef she so blays mit mein violin, ven I haf heard dat music all mein
life, vot vill beoples dinks who vash to hear her on de stage?" he said
to himself. "I vill say nodding und make some surbrises by and by."
That Mona had the same secret ambition he knew not, and most likely it
were as well he did not. But the long upward path to her goal was not an
easy one, for if Fritz had lacked emotion, he excelled in detail; and
each time Mona forgot, as she so often did, it provoked expressions from
him that tinged her cheeks with humiliation.
"I have much to learn," she answered almost pitifully, whenever her
uncle asked of her progress, "and so much to unlearn, it seems
discouraging."
"It'll come easier bimeby, girlie," he would respond cheerfully, "the
fust lesson in anything is allus the hardest."
But the vexations of tuition were only a small part of Mona's burden;
for as the weeks went by, and she became accustomed to her new life and
surroundings, the old heartache returned, and as her uncle often
insisted that she and her mother go out to some evening entertainment as
a break in the quiet boarding-house life they led, a new fear assailed
her. What if on street car or in theatre lobby she should suddenly meet
Winn Hardy! His name had not been mentioned for many months, and it was
as if he were dead.
And now Mona was unlearning the sad lesson of loving, and in its place
came a new inspiration, an ambition so broad, so uplifting, so full of
possibilities, that even the voice of love was stilled. At times the
face of Winn would return to her, however, and always bringing a thorn.
"He is what he said all his world were," she would say to herself,
"selfish, fickle, and heartless. He wished to flatter and amuse me and
himself as well, but that was all." And then the moment he had held her
in his arms would return to give the lie to all such thoughts.
At times she hoped that she might meet him some day, just to give one
look of reproach and pass on without a word; and then she dreaded to do
so, believing herself powerless to resist her own longings. Feeling thus
a sense of the wrong he had done her, the tender looks and words he had
uttered, and at last that one sweet moment,--all came back again. Put
him out of her mind she could not, nor his face either. By night,
thoughts of him haunted her pillow, and whenever she set foot out of
their temporary home, no matter where she went, and until she was safe
in it again, that peculiar dread was with her.
She did not know that during all these months of her suspense, Winn
Hardy, discouraged at the utter failure of his ambition and hopeless of
his future, was not only doing his best to put her out of his thoughts,
but battling for another foothold in life. Forget her, or the obligation
whispered on Rockhaven's wave-washed cliff, he could not and did not;
but in the hard grind of life and competition of wage-earning, love
plays only a minor part. Even less so with Winn than most, for he
distrusted all sentiment, even in himself.
Few have the scope to judge another from that person's own viewpoint of
needs and impulses; and Mona, untutored in the ways of man, was less
competent than many.
To her, the words "I love you" were a sacred obligation, far above all
selfish needs and vulgar money making and, like the glittering star of
fame, an inspiration.
It had been sweet to her in those summer days, but the real star of fame
was now rising in her horizon, and the lesser one slowly fading away.
She was fast losing her old timidity, and as each day she felt herself
gaining a better mastery over her violin, the darling wish of her new
ambition grew stronger.
And then another influence came to her aid, for phlegmatic Fritz, in
whose life the mechanical duty of each evening's playing and the
convivial hours with his cronies had measured his ambition, became
imbued with a broader one, and that to train his pupil for public
playing, and so, when thus fitted and launched in this new life under
his tuition, to pose as the discoverer of a genius. And more than that,
as her eyes began to work their spell upon him, the hope of love entered
his heart.
"Ah, Mees Hutton," he would say to her, when her lesson had been
rendered, "you haf der spirit, der soul of der blaying alretty yet, and
some day you haf him and der vorld vill listen entranced;" and his
little eyes would twinkle and rotund face glow with an enthusiasm that
was like wine to Mona.
And now another brand of fuel was added to the fire of her ambition, for
a great singer's appearance in the city was heralded in the press and
Jess, already warped into the world's ways of dress and amusement, took
Mona and her mother to hear this operatic star. They had already visited
most of the theatres, and though Mona had felt a constant dread of
meeting one, the sight of whose face she knew would seem like a knife
thrust, she was gradually overcoming that. At first a timid girl and
stranger to the city ways, her keen and ready observation of them had
made rapid change in her self-possession. Then, too, the difference in
her own and her mother's wardrobe had been a help, for Jess had spared
no money in his new role of husband and father, and so far as dress went
with all three, no observer would realize that they came from an
out-of-the-way island, where garb and deportment were unknown factors in
life.
But that evening at the opera, with all its attendant excitement of
richly gowned womankind whose decollete costumes and sparkling jewels
became a revelation to Mona, the handsome men, the exquisite music, the
wonderful singing, and the chief star, ablaze with diamonds, bowing and
smiling as wreaths and baskets of costly flowers were passed over the
footlights to her, wrought a spell upon Mona as nothing else could have
done. She was amazed, entranced, overwhelmed, intoxicated; and when the
seclusion of her own home was reached, the reflective heart-burst of
feeling came.
"Father," she whispered, her face aglow, when she was about to give him
the usual good-night kiss, "if I could stand before an audience, as that
singer did, and thrill them, as she did to-night, I would be willing to
lie down and die."
"That's a good speerit," he answered, smiling, his eyes a-twinkle; "but
if ye cud do it, ye'd a durn sight better feel ye'd like to live 'n'
keep on doin' it, 'n' make 'em pay ye good money, an' pass up flowers on
top o' that." Which sage observation perhaps best illustrates the
difference between a genius and a philosopher.
That night, sleep was slow in reaching Mona's pillow, and when it came
she dreamed that she was standing before a vast throng and suddenly,
impressed by the fear of them, sinking into unconsciousness.