Carlo Donati had considerable insight into character; not only had he
been born with this gift, but his wandering life had brought him into
contact with all sorts and conditions of men, and had been an excellent
education to one who had always known how to observe. He was, moreover,
of so sympathetic a temperament that he could generally tell in a moment
when trouble was in the air, and the ridiculously trivial affair about
the music-stand, which could not have dwelt in his mind for a minute on
its own account, opened his eyes to the relations existing between Mr.
Horner and the Norwegian. That something was wrong with the latter he
had perceived when Frithiof had first spoken to him in the cloak-room,
and now, having inadvertently been the cause of bringing upon him a
severe rebuke, he was determined to make what amends lay in his power.
He cut short Mr. Horner’s flattering remarks and reiterated apologies as
to the slight _contretemps_.
“It is of no consequence at all,” he said. “By the by, what is the
nationality of that young fellow? I like his face.”
“He is Norwegian,” replied Mr. Horner, glancing at Frithiof, who was
arranging the platform for Madame Gauthier, the pianiste.
“You think, no doubt, that I spoke too severely to him just now, but you
do not realize what a worthless fellow he is. My partner retains him
merely out of charity, but he has been proved to be unprincipled and
dishonest.”
The last few words reached Frithiof distinctly as he came down the
steps; he turned ghastly pale, his very lips grew white; it was as
though some one had stabbed him as he re-entered the little room, and
the eyes that turned straight to the eyes of the Italian were full of a
dumb anguish which Donati never forgot. Indignant with the utter want of
kindness and tact which Mr. Horner had shown, he turned abruptly away
without making the slightest comment on the words; but often through the
evening, when Frithiof was engrossed in other things, Donati quietly
watched him, and the more he saw of him the less was he able to believe
in the truth of the accusation. Meantime he was waiting for his
opportunity, but he was unable to get a word with the Norwegian until
the end of the concert, when he met him on the stairs.
“Are you at liberty?” he asked. “Is your work here over?”
Frithiof replied in the affirmative, and offered to look for the great
baritone’s carriage, imagining that this must be the reason he had
addressed him.
“Oh, as, to the carriage!” said Donati easily, “it will be waiting at
the corner of Sackville Street. But I wanted a few minutes’ talk with
you, and first of all to apologize for having been the unwilling hearer
of that accusation, which I am quite sure is false.”
Frithiof’s clouded face instantly cleared; all the old brightness
returned for a moment to his frank blue eyes, and forgetful of the fact
that he was not in Norway, and that Donati was the idolized public
singer, he grasped the hand of the Italian with that fervent,
spontaneous gratitude which is so much more eloquent than words.
“Thank you,” he said simply.
“Well, now, is it possible for an outsider to help in unraveling the
mystery?” said Donati. “For when a man like you is accused in this way I
take it for granted there must be a mystery.”
“No one can possibly explain it,” said Frithiof, the troubled look
returning to his face. “I can’t tell in the least how the thing
happened, but appearances were altogether against me. It is the most
extraordinary affair, but God knows I had no hand in it.”
“I want to hear all about it,” said Donati with that eagerness of manner
and warmth of interest which made him so devotedly loved by thousands.
“I am leaving England to-morrow; can’t you come back and have supper
with me now, and let me hear this just as it all happened?”
Even if he had wished to refuse, Frithiof could hardly have done so;
and, as it was, he was so miserable that he would have caught at much
less hearty sympathy. They walked along the crowded pavement toward
Sackville Street, and had almost reached the carriage when a
conversation immediately behind them became distinctly audible.
“They make such a fuss over this Donati,” said the speaker. “But I
happen to know that he’s a most disreputable character. I was hearing
all about him the other day from some one who used to know him
intimately. They say, you know, that—”
Here the conversation died away in the distance, and what that curse of
modern society—the almighty “They”—said as to Donati’s private affairs
remained unknown to him.
Frithiof glanced at the singer’s face. Apparently he had not yet reached
those sublime heights where insults cease from troubling and slanders
fail to sting. He was still young, and naturally had the disadvantages
as well as the immense gains of a sensitive artistic temperament. A
gleam of fierce anger swept over his face, and was quickly succeeded by
a pained look that made Frithiof’s heart hot within him; in silence the
Italian opened the door of the carriage, signed to Frithiof to get in,
and they drove off together.
“No matter,” said Donati in a minute, speaking reflectively, and as if
he were alone. “I do not sing for a gossiping public. I sing for
Christ.”
“But that they should dare to say such a thing as that!” exclaimed
Frithiof, growing more and more indignant as his companion’s serenity
returned.
“For one’s self,” said Donati, “it is—well—not much; but for the sake of
those belonging to one it certainly does carry a sting. But every one
who serves the public in a public capacity is in the same boat.
Statesmen, artists, authors, actors, all must endure this plague of
tongues. And, after all, it merely affects one’s reputation, not one’s
character. It doesn’t make one immoral to be considered immoral, and it
doesn’t make you a thief to be considered dishonest. But now I want to
hear about this accusation of Mr. Horner’s. When did it all happen?”
In the dim light Frithiof told his story; it was a relief to tell it to
sympathetic ears; Donati’s faith in him seemed to fill him with new
life, and though the strange events of that miserable Monday did not
grow any clearer in the telling, yet somehow a rope began to dawn in his
heart.
“It certainly is most unaccountable,” said Donati, as the carriage drew
up before a pretty little villa in Avenue Road. He paused to speak to
the coachman. “We shall want the carriage in time to go to the 9.40
train at Charing Cross, Wilson; good-night.”
“But if you start so early,” said Frithiof, “I had better not hinder you
any longer.”
“You do not hinder me; I am very much interested. You must certainly
come in to supper, and afterward I want to hear more about this. How
unlucky it was that the five-pound note should have been changed that
day by Sardoni!”
At this moment the door was opened; Frithiof caught a vision of a slim
figure in a pale rose-colored tea gown, and the loveliest face he had
ever seen was raised to kiss Donati as he entered.
“How nice and early you are!” exclaimed a fresh, merry voice. Then,
catching sight of a stranger, and blushing a little, she added, “I
fancied it was Jack and Domenica you were bringing back with you.”
“Let me introduce you to my wife, Herr Falck,” said Donati, and Frithiof
instantly understood that here lay the explanation of the Italian’s
faultless English, since, despite her foreign name, it was impossible
for a moment to mistake Francesca Donati’s nationality.
The house was prettily, but very simply, furnished, and about it there
was that indefinable air of home that Frithiof had so often noticed in
Rowan Tree House.
“You must forgive a very unceremonious supper, Herr Falck,” said
Francesca, herself making ready the extra place that was needed at
table. “But the fact is, I have sent all the servants to bed, for I knew
they would have to be up early to-morrow, and they feel the traveling a
good deal.”
“Much more than you and I do,” said Donati. “We have grown quite
hardened to it.”
“Then this is not your regular home?” asked Frithiof.
“Yes, it is our English home. We generally have five months here and
five at Naples, with the rest of the time either at Paris, or Berlin, or
Vienna. After all, a wandering life makes very little difference when
you can carry about your home with you.”
“And baby is the best traveler in the world,” said Donati, “and in every
way the most model baby. I think,” glancing at his wife, “that she is as
true a gipsy as Gigi himself.”
“Poor Gigi! he can’t bear being left behind! By the by, had you time to
take him back to school before the concert, or did he go alone?”
“I had just time to take him,” said Donati, waiting upon Frithiof as he
talked. “He was rather doleful, poor old man; but cheered up when I told
him that he was to spend the summer holidays at Merlebank, and to come
to Naples at Christmas. It is a nephew of mine of whom we speak,” he
explained to Frithiof; “and, of course, his education has to be thought
of, and cannot always fit in with my engagements. You go in very much
for education in Norway, I understand?”
Frithiof found himself talking quite naturally and composedly about
Norwegian customs and his former life, and it was not until afterward
that it struck him as a strange thing that on the very day after his
disgrace, when, but for Mr. Boniface’s kindness he might actually have
been in prison, he should be quietly, and even for the time happily,
talking of the old days. Nor was it until afterward that he realized how
much his interview with the great baritone would have been coveted by
many in a very different position; for Donati would not go into London
society though it was longing to lionize him. His wife did not care for
it, and he himself said that with his art, his home, and his own
intimate friends, no time was left for the wearing gayeties of the
season. The world grumbled, but he remained resolute, for though always
ready to help any one who was in trouble, and without the least touch of
exclusiveness about him, he could not endure the emptiness and
wastefulness of the fashionable world. Moreover, while applause that was
genuinely called forth by his singing never failed to give him great
pleasure, the flatteries of celebrity-hunters were intolerable to him,
so that he lost nothing and gained much by the quiet life which he
elected to lead. It was said of the great actor Phelps that “His theater
and his home were alike sacred to him as the Temple of God.” And the
same might well have been said of Donati, while something of the calm of
the Temple seemed to lurk about the quiet little villa, where refinement
and comfort reigned supreme, but where no luxuries were admitted.
Francesca had truly said that the wandering life made very little
difference to them, for wherever they went they made for themselves that
ideal home which has been beautifully described as
“A world of strife shut out,
A world of love shut in.”
They did not linger long over the supper-table, for Frithiof was
suffering too much to eat, and Donati, like most of his countrymen, had
a very small appetite. Francesca with a kindly good-night to the
Norwegian went upstairs to her baby, and the two men drew their chairs
up to the open French window at the back of the room looking on to the
little garden to which the moonlight gave a certain mysterious charm.
“I have thought over it,” said Donati, almost abruptly, and as if the
matter might naturally engross his thoughts as much as those of his
companion. “But I can’t find the very slightest clue. It is certainly a
mystery.”
“And must always remain so,” said Frithiof despairingly.
“I do not think that at all. Some day all will probably be explained.
And be sure to let me hear when it is, for I shall be anxious to know.”
A momentary gleam of hope crossed Frithiof’s face, but the gloom quickly
returned.
“It will never be explained,” he said. “I was born under an unlucky
star; at the very moment when all seems well something has always
interfered to spoil my life; and with my father it was exactly the
same—it was an undeserved disgrace that actually killed him.”
And then, to his own astonishment, he found himself telling Donati, bit
by bit, the whole of his own story. The Italian said very little, but he
listened intently, and in truth possessed exactly the right
characteristics for a confidant—rare sympathy, tact, and absolute
faithfulness. To speak out freely to such a man was the best thing in
the world for Frithiof, and Donati, who had himself had to battle with a
sea of troubles, understood him as a man who had suffered less could not
possibly have done.
“It is to this injustice,” said Frithiof, as he ended his tale, “to this
unrighteous success of the mercenary and scheming, and failure of the
honorable, that Christianity tells one to be resigned. It is that which
sets me against religion—which makes it all seem false and
illogical—actually immoral.”
Probably Donati would not even have alluded to religion had not his
companion himself introduced the subject. It was not his way to say much
on such topics, but when he did speak his words came with most wonderful
directness and force. It was not so much that he said anything
noteworthy or novel, but that his manner had about it such an intensity
of conviction, such rare unconsciousness, and such absolute freedom from
all conventionality. “Pardon me, if I venture to show you a flaw in your
argument,” he said quietly. “You say we are told to be resigned. Very
well. But what is resignation? It was well defined once by a noble
Russian writer who said that it is ‘placing God between ourselves and
our trouble.’ There is nothing illogical in that. It is the merest
common-sense. When finite things worry and perplex you, turn to the
Infinite from which they may be safely and peacefully viewed.”
Frithiof thought of those words which had involuntarily escaped his
companion after the remark of the passer-by in Piccadilly—“No matter!—I
do not sing for a gossiping world.” He began to understand Donati
better—he longed with an intensity of longing to be able to look at life
with such eyes as his.
“These things are so real to you,” he said quickly. “But to me they are
only a hope—or, if for an hour or two real, they fade away again. It may
be all very well for you in your successful happy life, but it is
impossible for me with everything against me.”
“Impossible!” exclaimed Donati, his eyes flashing, and with something in
his tone which conveyed volumes to the Norwegian.
“If not impossible at any rate very difficult,” he replied.
“Yes, yes,” said Donati, his eyes full of sympathy. “It is that to all
of us. Don’t think I make light of your difficulties. It is hard to seek
God in uncongenial surroundings, in a life harassed and misunderstood,
and in apparent failure. But—don’t let the hardness daunt you—just go
on.”
The words were commonplace enough, but they were full of a wonderful
power because there lurked beneath them the assurance—
“I have been through where ye must go;
I have seen past the agony.”
“Do you know,” said Frithiof, smiling, “that is almost what you said to
me the first time I saw you. You have forgotten it, but a year ago you
said a few words to me which kept me from making an end of myself in a
fit of despair. Do you remember coming to the shop about a song of
Knight’s?”
“Why yes,” said Donati. “Was that really you? It all comes back to me
now—I remember you found the song for me though I had only the merest
scrap of it, without the composer’s name.”
“It was just before my illness,” said Frithiof. “I never forgot you, and
recognized you the moment I saw you to-night. Somehow you saved my life
then just by giving me a hope.”
Perhaps no greater contrast could have been found than these two men
who, by what seemed a mere chance, had been thrown together so
strangely. But Donati almost always attracted to himself men of an
opposite type; as a rule it was not the religious public that understood
him or appreciated him best, it was the men of the world, and those with
whom he came in contact in his professional life. To them his character
appealed in a wonderful way, and many who would have been ashamed to
show any enthusiasm as a rule, made an exception in favor of this man,
who had somehow fascinated them and compelled them into a belief in
goodness little in accord with the cynical creed they professed.
To Frithiof in his wretchedness, in his despairing rebellion against a
fate which seemed relentlessly to pursue him, the Italian’s faith came
with all the force of a new revelation. He saw that the success, for
which but a few hours ago he had cordially hated the great singer, came
from no caprice of fortune, but from the way in which Donati had used
his gifts; nor had the Italian all at once leapt into fame, he had gone
through a cruelly hard apprenticeship, and had suffered so much that not
even the severe test of extreme popularity, wealth, and personal
happiness could narrow his sympathies, for all his life he would carry
with him the marks of a past conflict—a conflict which had won for him
the name of the “Knight-errant.”
The same single-hearted, generous nature which had fitted him for that
past work, fitted him now to be Frithiof’s friend. For men like Donati
are knights-errant all their life long, they do not need a picturesque
cause, or seek a paying subject, but just travel through the world,
succoring those with whom they come in contact. The troubles of the
Norwegian in his prosaic shop-life were as much to Donati as the
troubles of any other man would have been; position and occupation were,
to him, very insignificant details; he did not expend the whole of his
sympathies on the sorrows of East London, and shut his heart against the
griefs of the rich man at the West End; nor was he so engrossed with his
poor Neapolitans that he could not enter into the difficulties of a
London shopman. He saw that Frithiof was one of that great multitude
who, through the harshness and injustice of the world, find it almost
impossible to retain their faith in God, and, through the perfidy of one
woman, are robbed of the best safeguard that can be had in life. His
heart went out to the man, and the very contrast of his present life
with its intense happiness quickened his sympathies. But what he said
Frithiof never repeated to any one, he could not have done it even had
he cared to try. When at length he rose to go Donati had, as it were,
saved him from moral death, had drawn him out of the slough of despond,
and started him with renewed hope on his way.
“Wait just one moment,” he said, as they stood by the door; “I will give
you one of my cards and write on it the Italian address. There! _Villa
Valentino, Napoli._ Don’t forget to write and tell me when this affair
is all cleared up.”
Frithiof grasped his hand, and, again thanking him, passed out into the
quiet, moonlit street.