"O celeste haine,
Comment t'assouvir?
O souffrance humaine,
Qui te peut guerir?
Si lourde est ma peine
J'en voudrais mourir--
Tel est mon desir!
"Navre de comprendre,
Las de compatir,
Pour ne plus entendre,
Ni voir, ni sentir,
Je suis pret a rendre
Mon dernier soupir--
Et c'est mon desir!
"Ne plus rien connaitre,
Ni me souvenir--
Ne jamais renaitre,
Ni me rendormir--
Ne plus jamais etre,
Mais en bien finir--
Voila mon desir!"--Anon.
Barty went third class to Bruges, and saw all over it, and slept at
the "Fleur de Ble," and heard new chimes, and remembered his
Longfellow.
Next morning, a very fine one, as he was hopefully smoking his
centime cigar with immense relish near the little three-horsed
wagonette that was to bear him to Blankenberghe, he saw that he was
to have three fellow-passengers, with a considerable amount of very
interesting luggage, and rejoiced.
First, a tall man about thirty, in a very smart white summer suit,
surmounted by a jaunty little straw hat with a yellow ribbon. He was
strikingly handsome, and wore immense black whiskers but no
mustache, and had a most magnificent double row of white, pearly
teeth, which he showed very much when he smiled, and he smiled very
often. He was evidently a personage of importance and very well off,
for he gave himself great airs and ordered people about and chaffed
them, and it made them laugh instead of making them angry; and he
was obeyed with wonderful alacrity. He spoke French fluently, but
with a marked Italian accent.
Next, a very blond lady of about the same age, not beautiful, but
rather overdressed, and whose accent, when she spoke French, was
very German, and who looked as if she might be easily moved to
wrath. Now and then she spoke to the gentleman in a very audible
Italian aside, and Barty was able to gather that her Italian was
about as rudimentary as his own.
Last and least, a pale, plain, pathetic little girl of six or eight,
with a nose rather swollen, and a black plait down her back, and
large black eyes, something like Leah Gibson's; and she never took
these eyes off Barty's face.
Their luggage consisted of two big trunks, a guitar and violin (in
their cases), and music-books bound together by a rope.
"Vous allez a Blankenberghe, mossie?" said the Italian, with a
winning smile.
Barty answered in the affirmative, and the Italian smiled ecstatic
delight.
"Je souis bienn content--nous ferons route ensiemble...." I will
translate: "I call myself Carlo Veronese--first barytone of the
theatre of La Scala, Milan. The signora is my second wife; she is
prima donna assoluta of the grand opera, Naples. The little ragazza
is my daughter by my first wife. She is the greatest violinist of her
age now living--un' prodige, mossie--un' fenomeno!"
Barty, charmed with his new acquaintance, gave the signore his card,
and Carlo Veronese invited him graciously to take a seat in the
wagonette, as if it were his own private carriage. Barty, who was
the most easily impressed person that ever lived, accepted with as
much sincere gratitude as if he hadn't already paid for his place,
and they started on their sunny drive of eight miles along the dusty
straight Belgian chaussee, bordered with poplars on either side, and
paved with flagstones all the way to Blankenberghe.
Signor Veronese informed Barty that on their holiday travels they
always managed to combine profit with pleasure, and that he proposed
giving a grand concert at the Cafe on the Plage, or the Kursaal,
next day; that he was going to sing Figaro's great song in the
_Barbiere_, and the signora would give "_Roberto, toua que z'aime_"
in French (or, rather, "_Ropert, doi que ch'aime_," as _she_ called
it, correcting his accent), and the fenomeno, whose name was
Marianina, would play an arrangement of the "Carnival of Venice" by
Paganini.
"Ma vous aussi, vous etes mousicien--je vois ca par la votre
figoure!"
Barty modestly disclaimed all pretensions, and said he was only an
art student--a painter.
"All the arts are brothers," said the signore, and the little
signorina stole her hand into Barty's and left it there.
"Listen," said the signore; "why not arrange to live together, you
and we? I hate throwing away money on mere pomposity and grandiosity
and show. We always take a little furnished apartment, elle et moi.
Then I go and buy provisions, bon marche--and she cooks them--and we
have our meals better than at the hotel and at half the price! Join
us, unless you like to throw your money by the window!"
The Signorina Marianina's little brown hand gave Barty's a little
warm squeeze, and Barty was only too delighted to accept an
arrangement that promised to be so agreeable and so practically
wise.
They arrived at Blankenberghe, and, leaving their luggage at the
wagonette station, went in search of lodgings. These were soon found
in a large attic at the top of a house, over a bakery. One little
mansarde, with a truckle-bed and wash-hand stand, did for the family
of Veronese; another, smaller still, for Barty.
Other mansardes also opened on to the large attic, or grenier, where
there were sacks of grain and of flour, and a sweet smell of
cleanliness. Barty wondered that such economical arrangements could
suit his new friends, but was well pleased; a weight was taken off
his mind. He feared a style of living he could not have afforded to
share, and here were all difficulties smoothed away without any
trouble whatever.
They got in their luggage, and Barty went with the signore in search
of bread and meat and wine and ground coffee. When they got back, a
little stove was ready lighted in the Veronese garret; they cooked
the food in a frying-pan, opening the window wide and closing the
door, as the signore thought it useless to inform the world by the
sense of smell that they did their cooking _en famille_; and Barty
enjoyed the meal immensely, and almost forgot his trouble, but for
the pain of his seton.
After lunch the signore produced his placards, already printed by
hand, and made some paste in an iron pot, and the signora made
coffee. And Veronese tuned his guitar and said:
"Je vais vous canter couelquecose--una piccola cosa da niente!--vous
comprenez l'Italien?"
"Oh yes," said Barty: he had picked up a deal of Italian and many
pretty Italian canzonets from his friend old Pergolese, who kept the
Italian eating-house in Rupert Street. "Sing me a stornella--je les
adore."
And he set himself to listen, with his heart in his mouth from sheer
pleasurable anticipation.
The signore sang a pretty little song, by Gordigiani, called "Il
vero amore." Barty knew it well.
"E lo mio amor e andato a soggiornare
A Lucca bella--e diventar signore...."
Alas for lost illusions! The signore's voice was a coarse,
unsympathetic, strident buffo bass, not always quite in the middle
of the note; nor, in spite of his native liveliness of accent and
expression, did he make the song interesting or pretty in the least.
Poor Barty had fallen from the skies; but he did his best not to
show his disenchantment, and this, from a kind and amiable way he
always had and a constant wish to please, was not difficult.
Then the signora sang "O mon Fernand!" from the _Favorita_, in
French, but with a hideous German accent and a screech as of some
Teutonic peacock, and without a single sympathetic note; though
otherwise well in tune, and with a certain professional knowledge of
what she was about.
And then poor Marianina was made to stand up on six music-books,
opposite a small music-easel, and play her "Carnival of Venice" on
the violin. Every time she made a false note in the difficult
variations, her father, with his long, thick, hairy middle finger,
gave her a fierce fillip on the nose, and she had to swallow her
tears and play on. Barty was almost wild with angry pity, but
dissembled, for fear of making her worse enemies in her father and
stepmother.
Not that the poor little thing played badly; indeed, she played
surprisingly well for her age, and Barty was sincere in his warm
commendation of her talent.
"Et vous ne cantez pas du tout--du tout?" said Veronese.
"Oh, si, quelquefois!"
"Cantez couelquecoze--ze vous accompagnerai sous la guitare!--n'ayez
pas paoure--nous sommes indoulgents, elle et moi--"
"Oh--je m'accompagnerai bien moi-meme comme je pourrai--" said
Barty, and took the guitar, and sang a little French Tyrolienne
called "Fleur des Alpes," which he could always sing quite
beautifully; and the effect was droll indeed.
Marianina wept; the signore went down on his knees in a theatrical
manner to him, and called him "maestro" and other big Italian names;
the Frau signora, with tears in her eyes, asked permission to kiss
his hand, which his modesty refused--he kissed hers instead.
"He was a great genius, a bird of God, who had amused himself by
making fools of poor, innocent, humble, wandering minstrels. Oh,
would he not be generous as he was great and be one of them for a
few days, and take half the profits--more--whatever he liked?" etc.
[Illustration: "THE CARNIVAL OF VENICE"]
And indeed they immediately saw the business side of the question, and
were, to do them justice, immensely liberal in their conditions of
partnership--and also most distressingly persistent, with adulations
that got more and more fulsome the more he held back.
There was a long discussion. Barty had to be quite brutal at the
end--told them he was not a musician, but a painter, and that
nothing on earth should induce him to join them in their concert.
And finally, much crestfallen and somewhat huffed, the pair went out
to post their placards all over the town, and Barty went for a bath
and a long walk--suddenly feeling sad again and horribly one-eyed
and maimed, and more wofully northless and homeless and friendless
than ever.
Blankenberghe was already very full, and when he got back he saw the
famous placards everywhere. And found his friends cooking their
dinner, and was pressed to join them; and did so--producing a
magnificent pasty and some hot-house grapes and two bottles of wine
as a peace-offering--and was forgiven.
And after dinner they all sat on grain-sacks together in the large
granary, and made music--with lady's-maids and valets and servants
of the house for a most genial and appreciative audience--and had a
very pleasant evening; and Barty came to the conclusion that he had
mistaken his trade--that he sang devilish well, in fact; and so he
did.
Whatever his technical shortcomings might be, he could make any tune
sound pretty when he sang it. He had the native gift of ease,
pathos, rhythm, humor, and charm--and a delightful sympathetic twang
in his voice. His mother must have sung something like that; and all
Paris went mad about her. No technical teaching in the world can
ever match a genuine inheritance; and that's a fact.
Next morning they all bathed together, and Barty unheroically and
quite obscurely saved a life.
The signore and his fat white signora went dancing out into the
Sunny waves and right away seawards.
Then came Barty with an all-round shirt-collar round his neck and a
white tie on, to conceal his seton, and a pair of blue spectacles
for the glare. And behind him Marianina, hopping on and following as
best she might. He turned round to encourage her, and she had
suddenly disappeared; half uneasy, he went back a step or two, and
saw her little pale-brown face gasping just beneath the surface--she
had just got out of her depth.
He snatched her out, and she clung to him like a small monkey and
cried dreadfully, and was sick all over him and herself. He managed
to get her back on shore and washed and dried and consoled her
before her people came back--and had the tact not to mention this
adventure, guessing what fillips she would catch on her poor little
pink nose for her stupidity. She looked her gratitude for this
reticence of his in the most touching way, with her big black
eyes--and had a cunning smile of delight at their common tacit
understanding. Her rescuer from a watery grave did not apply for the
"medaille de sauvetage"!
Barty took an immense walk that day to avoid the common repast; he
was getting very tired of the two senior Veroneses.
The concert in the evening was a tremendous success. The blatant
signore sang his Figaro song very well indeed--it suited him better
than little feminine love-ditties. The signora was loud and
passionate and dramatic in "Roberto"; and Belgians make more
allowance for a German accent in French than Parisians; besides, it
was not _quite_ their own language that was being murdered before,
them. It _may_ be, some day! I sincerely hope so. Je leur veux du
bien.
Poor little Marianina stood on her six music-books and played with
immense care and earnestness, just like a frightened but
well-trained poodle walking on its hind-legs--one eye on her music
and the tail of the other on her father, who accompanied her with
his guitar. She got an encore, to Barty's great relief; and to hers
too, no doubt--if she hadn't, fillips on the nose for supper that
night! Then there were more solos and duets, with obbligatos for the
violin.
Next day Veronese and his wife were in high feather at the Kursaal,
where they had sung the night before.
A very distinguished military foreigner, in attendance on some
august personage from Spain or Portugal (and later from Ostend),
warmly and publicly complimented the signore on "his admirable
rendering of 'Largo al factotum'--which, as his dear old friend
Rossini had once told him (the General), he (Rossini) had always
modestly looked upon as the one thing he had ever written with which
he was _almost_ pleased!"
Marianina also received warm commendation from this agreeable old
soldier, while quite a fashionable crowd was listening; and Veronese
arranged for another concert that evening, and placarded the town
accordingly.
Barty managed to escape any more meals in the Casa Veronese, but
took Marianina for one or two pleasant walks, and told her stories
and sang to her in the grenier, while she improvised for him clever
little obbligatos on her fiddle.
He found a cheap eating-house and picked up a companion or two to
chat with. He also killed time with his seton-dressing and self
dry-cupping--and hired French novels and read them as much as he
dared with his remaining eye, about which he was morbidly nervous;
he always fancied it would get its retina congested like the other,
in which no improvement manifested itself whatever--and this
depressed him very much. He was a most impatient patient.
To return. The second concert was as conspicuous a failure as the first
had been a success: the attendance was small and less distinguished, and
there was no enthusiasm. The Frau signora slipped a note and lost her
temper in the middle of "Roberto," and sang out of tune and with
careless, open contempt of her audience, and this the audience seemed to
understand and openly resent. Poor Marianina was frightened, and played
very wrong notes under the furious gaze of her papa, and finally broke
down and cried, and there were some hisses for him, as well as kind and
encouraging applause for the child. Then up jumps Barty and gets on the
platform and takes the signore's guitar and twangs it, and smiles all
round benignly--immense applause!
Then he pats Marianina's thin pale cheek and wipes her eyes and
gives her a kiss. Frantic applause! Then "Fleur des Alpes!"
Ovation! encore! bis! ter!
And for a third encore he sings a very pretty little Flemish ballad
about the rose without a thorn--"Het Roosje uit de Dorne." It is the
only Flemish song he knows, and I hope I have spelt it right! And
the audience goes quite crazy with enthusiasm, and everybody goes
home happy, even the Veroneses--and Marianina does not get filliped
that night.
After this the Veroneses tried humbler spheres for the display of
their talents, and in less than a week exhausted every pothouse and
beer-tavern and low drinking-shop in Blankenberghe! and at last they
took to performing for casual coppers in the open street, and went
very rapidly down hill. The signore lost his jauntiness and grew
sordid and soiled and shabby and humble; the signora looked like a
sulky, dirty, draggle-tailed fury, ready to break out into violence
on the slightest provocation; poor Marianina got paler and thinner,
and Barty was very unhappy about her. The only things left rosy
about her were her bruised nose, and her fingers, that always seemed
stiff with cold; indeed, they were blue rather than rosy--and
anything but clean.
One evening he bought her a little warm gray cloak that took his
fancy; when he went home after dinner to give it her he found the
three birds of song had taken flight--sans tambour ni trompette, and
leaving no message for him. The baker-landlord had turned them
adrift--sent them about their business, sacrificing some of his rent
to get rid of them; not a heavy loss, I fancy.
Barty went after them all over the little town, but did not find
them; he heard they were last seen marching off with guitar and
fiddle in a southerly direction along the coast, and found that
their luggage was to be sent to Ostend.
He felt very sorry for Marianina and missed her--and gave the cloak
to some poor child in the town, and was very lonely.
One morning as he loafed about dejectedly with his hands in his
pockets, he found his way to the little Hotel de Ville, whence
issued sounds of music. He went in. It was like a kind of
reading-room and concert-room combined; there was a piano there, and
a young lady practising, with her mother knitting by her side; and
two or three other people, friends of theirs, lounging about and
looking at the papers.
The mamma was a very handsome person of aristocratic appearance. The
pretty daughter was practicing the soprano part in a duet by
Campana, which Barty knew well; it was "Una sera d' amore." The
tenor had apparently not kept his appointment, and madame expressed
some irritation at this; first to a friend, in French, but with a
slight English accent--then in English to her daughter; and Barty
grew interested.
After a little while, catching the mamma's eye (which was not
difficult, as she very frankly and persistently gazed at him, and
with a singularly tender and wistful expression of face), he got up
and asked in English if he could be of any use--seeing that he knew
the music well and had often sung it. The lady was delighted, and
Barty and mademoiselle sang the duet in capital style to the mamma's
accompaniment: "guarda che Bianca luna," etc.
"What a lovely voice you've got! May I ask your name?" says the
mamma.
"Josselin."
"English, of course?"
"Upon my word I hardly know whether I'm English or French!" said
Barty, and he and the lady fell into conversation.
It turned out that she was Irish, and married to a Belgian soldier,
le General Comte de Cleves (who was a tremendous swell, it
seems--but just then in Brussels).
Barty told Madame de Cleves the story of his eye--he was always very
communicative about his eye; and she suddenly buried her face in her
hands and wept; and mademoiselle told him in a whisper that her
eldest brother had gone blind and died three or four years ago, and
that he was extraordinarily like Barty both in face and figure.
Presently another son of Madame de Cleves came in--an officer of
dragoons in undress uniform, a splendid youth. He was the missing
tenor, and made his excuses for being late, and sang very well
indeed.
And Barty became the intimate friend of these good people, who made
Blankenberghe a different place to him--and conceived for him a
violent liking, and introduced him to all their smart Belgian
friends; they were quite a set--bathing together, making music and
dancing, taking excursions, and so forth. And before a fortnight was
over Barty had become the most popular young man in the town, the
gayest of the gay, the young guardsman once more, throwing dull care
to the winds; and in spite of his impecuniosity (of which he made no
secret whatever) the _boute-en-train_ of the company. And this led to
many droll adventures--of which I will tell one as a sample.
A certain Belgian viscount, who had a very pretty French wife, took
a dislike to Barty. He had the reputation of being a tremendous
fire-eater. His wife, a light-hearted little flirt (but with not
much harm in her), took a great fancy to him, on the contrary.
One day she asked him for a wax impression of the seal-ring he wore
on his finger, and the following morning he sealed an empty envelope
and stamped it with his ring, and handed it to her on the Plage. She
snatched it with a quick gesture and slipped it into her pocket with
quite a guilty little coquettish look of mutual understanding.
Monsieur Jean (as the viscount was called) noticed this, and jostled
rudely against Josselin, who jostled back again and laughed.
Then the whole party walked off to the "tir," or shooting-gallery on
the Plage; some wager was on, I believe, and when they got there
they all began to shoot--at different distances, ladies and
gentlemen; all but Barty; it was a kind of handicap.
Monsieur Jean, after a fierce and significant look at Barty, slowly
raised his pistol, took a deliberate aim at the small target, and
fired--hitting it just half an inch over the bull's-eye; a capital
shot. Barty couldn't have done better himself. Then taking another
loaded pistol, he presented it to my friend by the butt and said,
with a solemn bow:
"A vous, monsieur de la garde."
"Messieurs de la garde doivent toujours tirer les premiers!" said
Barty, laughing; and carelessly let off his pistol in the direction
of the target without even taking aim. A little bell rang, and there
was a shout of applause; and Barty was conscious that by an
extraordinary fluke he had hit the bull's-eye in the middle, and saw
the situation at once.
Suddenly looking very grave and very sad, he threw the pistol away,
and said:
"Je ne tire plus--j'ai trop peur d'avoir la main malheureuse un
jour!" and smiled benignly at M. Jean.
A moment's silence fell on the party and M. Jean turned very pale.
Barty went up to Madame Jean:
"Will you forgive me for giving you with my seal an empty envelope?
I couldn't think of anything pretty enough to write you--so I gave
it up. Tear it and forgive me. I'll do better next time!"
The lady blushed and pulled the letter out of her pocket and held it
up to the light, and it was, as Barty said, merely an empty envelope
and a red seal. She then held it out to her husband and exclaimed:
"Le cachet de Monsieur Josselin, que je lui avais demande...!"
So bloodshed was perhaps avoided, and Monsieur Jean took care not to
jostle Josselin any more. Indeed, they became great friends.
For next day Barty strolled into the Salle d'Armes, Rue des
Dunes--and there he found Monsieur Jean fencing with young de
Cleves, the dragoon. Both were good fencers, but Barty was the
finest fencer I ever met in my life, and always kept it up; and
remembering his adventure of the previous day, it amused him to
affect a careless nonchalance about such trivial things--"des
enfantillages!"
"_You_ take a turn with Jean, Josselin!" said the dragoon.
"Oh! I'm out of practice--and I've only got one eye...."
"Je vous en prie, monsieur de la garde!" said the viscount.
"Cette fois, alors, nous allons tirer _ensemble_!" says Barty, and
languidly dons the mask with an affected air, and makes a fuss about
the glove not suiting him; and then, in spite of his defective
sight, which seems to make no difference, he lightly and gracefully
gives M. Jean such a dressing as that gentleman had never got in his
life--not even from his maitre d'armes: and afterwards to young de
Cleves the same. Well I knew his way of doing this kind of thing!
So Barty and M. and Madame Jean became quite intimate--and with his
usual indiscretion Barty told them how he fluked that bull's-eye,
and they were charmed!
"Vous etes impayable, savez-vous, mon cher!" says M. Jean--"vous
avez tous les talents, et un million dans le gosier par-dessus le
marche! Si jamais je puis vous etre de service, savez-vous, comptez
sur moi pour la vie ..." said the impulsive viscount when they bade
each other good-bye at the end.
[Illustration: "'A VOUS, MONSIEUR DE LA GARDE!'"]
"Et plus jamais d'enveloppes vides, quand vous m'ecrirez!" says
madame.
* * * * *
So frivolous time wore on, and Barty found it pleasant to frivol in
such pleasant company--very pleasant indeed! But when alone in his
garret, with his seton-dressing and dry-cuppings, it was not so gay.
He had to confess to himself that his eye was getting slowly worse
instead of better; darkening day by day; and a little more retina
had been taken in by the strange disease--"la peau de chagrin," as
he nicknamed this wretched retina of his, after Balzac's famous
story. He could still see with the left of it and at the bottom, but
a veil had come over the middle and all the rest; by daylight he
could see through this veil, but every object he saw was discolored
and distorted and deformed--it was worse than darkness itself; and
this was so distressing, and so interfered with the sight of the
other eye, that when the sun went down, the total darkness in the
ruined portion of his left retina came as a positive relief. He took
all this very desperately to heart and had very terrible
forebodings. For he had never known an ache or a pain, and had
innocently gloried all his life in the singular perfection of his
five wits.
Then his money was coming to an end; he would soon have to sing in
the streets, like Veronese, with Lady Archibald's guitar.
Dear Lady Archibald! When things went wrong with her she would always
laugh, and say:
"Les miseres du jour font le bonheur du lendemain!"
This he would say or sing to himself over and over again, and go to
bed at night quite hopeful and sanguine after a merry day spent
among his many friends; and soon sink into sleep, persuaded that his
trouble was a bad dream which next morning would scatter and dispel.
But when he woke, it was to find the grim reality sitting by his
pillow, and he couldn't dry-cup it away. The very sunshine was an
ache as he went out and got his breakfast with his blue spectacles
on; and black care would link its bony arm in his as he listlessly
strolled by the much-sounding sea--and cling to him close as he swam
or dived; and he would wonder what he had ever done that so serious
and tragic a calamity should have befallen so light a person as
himself; who could only dance and sing and play the fool to make
people laugh--Rigoletto--Triboulet--a mere grasshopper, no ant or
bee or spider, not even a third-class beetle--surely this was not
according to the eternal fitness of things!
And thus in the unutterable utterness of his dejection he would make
himself such evil cheer that he sickened with envy at the mere sight
of any living thing that could see out of two eyes--a homeless
irresponsible dog, a hunchback beggar, a crippled organ-grinder and
his monkey--till he met some acquaintance; even but a rolling
fisherman with a brown face and honest blue eyes--a pair of
them--and then he would forget his sorrow and his envy in chat and
jokes and laughter with him over each a centime cigar; and was set
up in good spirits for the day! Such was Barty Josselin, the most
ready lover of his kind that ever existed, the slave of his last
impression.
And thus he lived under the shadow of the sword of Damocles for many
months; on and off, for years--indeed, as long as he lived at all. It is
good discipline. It rids one of much superfluous self-complacency and
puts a wholesome check on our keeping too good a conceit of ourselves;
it prevents us from caring too meanly about mean things--too keenly
about our own infinitesimal personalities; it makes us feel quick
sympathy for those who live under a like condition: there are many such
weapons dangling over the heads of us poor mortals by just a hair--a
panoply, an armory, a very arsenal! And we grow to learn in time that
when the hair gives way and the big thing falls, the blow is not half so
bad as the fright had been, even if it kills us; and more often than not
it is but the shadow of a sword, after all; a bogie that has kept us off
many an evil track--perhaps even a blessing in disguise! And in the end,
down comes some other sword from somewhere else and cuts for us the
Gordian knot of our brief tangled existence, and solves the riddle and
sets us free.
This is a world of surprises, where little ever happens but the
unforeseen, which is seldom worth meeting halfway! And these moral
reflections of mine are quite unnecessary and somewhat obvious, but
they harm nobody, and are very soothing to make and utter at my time
of life. Pity the sorrows of a poor old man and forgive him his
maudlin garrulity....
* * * * *
One afternoon, lolling in deep dejection on the top of a little sandy
hillock, a "dune," and plucking the long coarse grass, he saw a very
tall elderly lady, accompanied by her maid, coming his way along the
asphalt path that overlooked the sea--or rather, that prevented the
sea from overlooking the land and overflowing it!
She was in deep black and wore a thick veil.
With a little jump of surprise he recognized his aunt Caroline--Lady
Caroline Grey--of all his aunts the aunt who had loved him the best
as a boy--whom he had loved the best.
She was a Roman Catholic, and very devout indeed--a widow, and
childless now. And between her and Barty a coolness had fallen
during the last few years--a heavy raw thick mist of cold
estrangement; and all on account of his London life and the
notoriety he had achieved there; things of which she disapproved
entirely, and thought "unworthy of a gentleman": and who can blame
her for thinking so?
She had at first written to him long letters of remonstrance and
good advice; which he gave up answering, after a while. And when
they met in society, her manner had grown chill and distant and
severe.
He hadn't seen or heard of his aunt Caroline for three or four
years; but at the sudden sight of her a wave of tender childish
remembrance swept over him, and his heart beat quite warmly to her:
affliction is a solvent of many things, and first-cousin to
forgiveness.
She passed without looking his way, and he jumped up and followed
her, and said:
"Oh, Aunt Caroline! won't you even speak to me?"
She started violently, and turned round, and cried: "Oh, Barty,
Barty, where have you been all these years?" and seized both his
hands, and shook all over.
"Oh, Barty--my beloved little Barty--take me somewhere where we can
sit down and talk. I've been thinking of you very much, Barty--I've
lost my poor son--he died last Christmas! I was afraid you had
forgotten my existence! I was thinking of you the very moment you
spoke!"
The maid left them, and she took his arm and they found a seat.
She put up her veil and looked at him: there was a great likeness
between them in spite of the difference of age. She had been his
father's favorite sister (some ten years younger than Lord
Runswick); and she was very handsome still, though about fifty-five.
"Oh, Barty, my darling--how things have gone wrong between us! Is it
_all_ my doing? Oh, I hope not!..." And she kissed him.
"How like, how like! And you're getting a little black and bulgy
under the eyes--especially the left one--and so did _he_, at just
about your age! And how thin you are!"
"I don't think anything need ever go wrong between us again, Aunt
Caroline! I am a very altered person, and a very unlucky one!"
"Tell me, dear!"
And he told her all his story, from the fatal quarrel with her
brother Lord Archibald--and the true history of that quarrel; and
all that had happened since: he had nothing to keep back.
She frequently wept a little, for truth was in every tone of his
voice; and when it came to the story of his lost eye, she wept very
much indeed. And his need of affection, of female affection
especially, and of kinship, was so immense that he clung to this
most kind and loving woman as if she'd been his mother come back
from the grave, or his dear Lady Archibald.
[Illustration: "'I AM A VERY ALTERED PERSON!'"]
This meeting made a great difference to Barty in many ways--made amends!
Lady Caroline meant to pass the winter at Malines, of all places in the
world. The Archbishop was her friend, and she was friends also with one
or two priests at the seminary there. She was by no means rich, having
but an annuity of not quite three hundred a year; and it soon became the
dearest wish of her heart that Barty should live with her for a while,
and be nursed by her if he wanted nursing; and she thought he did.
Besides, it would be convenient on account of his doctor, M. Noiret, of
the University of Louvain, which was near Malines--half an hour by
train.
And Barty was only too glad; this warm old love and devotion had
suddenly dropped on to him by some happy enchantment out of the
skies at a moment of sore need. And it was with a passion of
gratitude that he accepted his aunt's proposals.
He well knew, also, how it was in him to brighten her lonely life,
almost every hour of it--and promised himself that she should not be
a loser by her kindness to Mr. Nobody of Nowhere. He remembered her
love of fun, and pretty poetry, and little French songs, and droll
chat--and nice cheerful meals tete-a-tete--and he was good at all
these things. And how fond she was of reading out loud to him! The
time might soon arrive when that would be a blessing indeed.
Indeed, a new interest had come into his life--not altogether a
selfish interest either--but one well worth living for, though it
was so unlike any interest that had ever filled his life before. He
had been essentially a man's man hitherto, in spite of his gay light
love for lovely woman; a good comrade par excellence, a frolicsome
chum, a rollicking boon-companion, a jolly pal! He wanted quite
desperately to love something staid and feminine and gainly and well
bred, whatever its age! some kind soft warm thing in petticoats and
thin shoes, with no hair on its face, and a voice that wasn't male!
Nor did her piety frighten him very much. He soon found that she was
no longer the over-zealous proselytizing busybody of the Cross--but
immensely a woman of the world, making immense allowances. All roads
lead to Rome (dit-on!), except a few which converge in the opposite
direction; but even Roman roads lead to this wide tolerance in the
end--for those of a rich warm nature who have been well battered by
life; and Lady Caroline had been very thoroughly battered indeed: a
bad husband--a bad son, her only child! both dead, but deeply loved
and lamented; and in her heart of hearts there lurked a sad suspicion
that her piety (so deep and earnest and sincere) had not bettered
their badness--on the contrary, perhaps! and had driven her Barty
from her when he needed her most.
Now that his need of her was so great, greater than it had ever been
before, she would take good care that no piety of hers should ever
drive him away from her again; she felt almost penitent and
apologetic for having done what she had known to be right--the woman
in her had at last outgrown the nun.
She almost began to doubt whether she had not been led to selfishly
overrate the paramount importance of the exclusive salvation of her
own particular soul!
And then his frank, fresh look and manner, and honest boyish voice,
so unmistakably sincere, and that mild and magnificent eye, so
bright and humorous still, "so like--so like!" which couldn't even
see her loving, anxious face.... Thank Heaven, there was still one
eye left that she could appeal to with both her own!
And what a child he had been, poor dear--the very pearl of the Rohans!
What Rohan of them all was ever a patch on this poor bastard of
Antoinette Josselin's, either for beauty, pluck, or mother-wit--or even
for honor, if it came to that? Why, a quixotic scruple of honor had
ruined him, and she was Rohan enough to understand what the temptation
had been the other way: she had seen the beautiful bad lady!
And, pure as her own life had been, she was no puritan, but of a
church well versed in the deepest knowledge of our poor weak frail
humanity; she has told me all about it, and I listened between the
words.
So during the remainder of her stay at Blankenberghe he was very
much with Lady Caroline, and rediscovered what a pleasant and lively
companion she could be--especially at meals (she was fond of good
food of a plain and wholesome kind, and took good care to get it).
She had her little narrownesses, to be sure, and was not
hail-fellow-well-met with everybody, like him; and did not think
very much of giddy little viscountesses with straddling loud-voiced
Flemish husbands, nor of familiar facetious commercial millionaires,
of whom Barty numbered two or three among his adorers; nor even of
the "highly born" Irish wives of Belgian generals and all that.
Madame de Cleves was an O'Brien.
These were old ingrained Rohan prejudices, and she was too old
herself to alter.
But she loved the good fishermen whose picturesque boats made such a
charming group on the sands at sunset, and also their wives and
children; and here she and her nephew were "bien d'accord."
I fear her ladyship would not have appreciated very keenly the
rising splendor of a certain not altogether unimportant modern house
in Barge Yard, Bucklersbury--and here she would have been wrong. The
Time has come when we throw the handkerchief at female Rohans, we
Maurices and our like. I have not done so myself, it is true; but
not from any rooted antipathy to any daughter of a hundred
earls--nor yet from any particular diffidence on my own part.
Anyhow, Lady Caroline loved to hear all Barty had to say of his gay
life among the beauty, rank, and fashion of Blankenberghe. She was
very civil to the handsome Irish Madame de Cleves, _nee_ O'Brien,
and listened politely to the family history of the O'Briens and that
of the de Cleveses too: and learnt, without indecent surprise, or
any emotion of any kind whatever, what she had never heard
before--namely, that in the early part of the twelfth century a
Rohan de Whitby had married an O'Brien of Ballywrotte; and other
prehistoric facts of equal probability and importance.
She didn't believe much in people's twelfth--century reminiscences;
she didn't even believe in those of her own family, who didn't
believe in them either, or trouble about them in the least; and I
dare say they were quite right.
Anyhow, when people solemnly talked about such things it made her
rather sorry. But she bore up for Barty's sake, and the resigned,
half-humorous courtesy with which she assented to these fables was
really more humiliating to a sensitive, haughty soul than any mere
supercilious disdain; not that she ever wished to humiliate, but she
was easily bored, and thought that kind of conversation vulgar,
futile, and rather grotesque.
Indeed, she grew quite fond of Madame de Cleves and the splendid
young dragoon, and the sweet little black-haired daughter with
lovely blue eyes, who sang so charmingly. For they were singularly
charming people in every way, the de Cleveses; and that's a way
Irish people often have--as well as of being proud of their ancient
blood. There is no more innocent weakness. I have it very
strongly--moi qui vous parle--on the maternal side. My mother was a
Blake of Derrydown, a fact that nobody would have known unless she
now and then accidentally happened to mention it herself, or else my
father did. And so I take the opportunity of slipping it in
here--just out of filial piety!
So the late autumn of that year found Barty and his aunt at Malines,
or Mechelen, as it calls itself in its native tongue.
They had comfortable lodgings of extraordinary cheapness in one of
the dullest streets of that most picturesque but dead-alive little
town, where the grass grew so thick between the paving-stones here
and there that the brewers' dray-horses might have browsed in the
"Grand Brul"--a magnificent but generally deserted thoroughfare
leading from the railway station to the Place d'Armes, where rose
still unfinished the colossal tower of one of the oldest and finest
cathedrals in the world, whose chimes wafted themselves every
half-quarter of an hour across the dreamy flats for miles and miles,
according to the wind, that one might realize how slow was the
flight of time in that particular part of King Leopold's dominions.
"'And from a tall tower in the town
Death looks gigantically down!'"
said Barty to his aunt--quoting (or misquoting) a bard they were very
fond of just then, as they slowly walked down the "Grand Brul" in
solitude together, from the nineteenth century to the fourteenth in
less than twenty minutes--or three chimes from St. Rombault, or
fifty skrieks from the railway station.
But for these a spirit of stillness and mediaeval melancholy brooded
over the quaint old city and great archiepiscopal see and most
important railway station in all Belgium. Magnificent old houses in
carved stone with wrought-iron balconies were to be had for rents
that were almost nominal. From the tall windows of some of these a
frugal, sleepy, priest-ridden old nobility looked down on broad and
splendid streets hardly ever trodden by any feet but their own, or
those of some stealthy Jesuit priest, or Sister of Mercy.
Only during the Kermesse, or at carnival-time, when noisy revelers
of either sex and ungainly processions of tipsy masques and mummers
waked Mechelen out of its long sleep, and all the town seemed one
vast estaminet, did one feel one's self to be alive. Even at night,
and in the small hours, frisky masques and dominoes walked the
moonlit streets, and made loud old Flemish mediaeval love, a la
Teniers.
There was a beautiful botanical garden, through which a river flowed
under tall trees, and turned the wheels of the oldest flour-mills in
Flanders. This was a favorite resort of Barty's,--and he had it
pretty much to himself.
And for Lady Caroline there were, besides St. Rombault, quite
half-a-dozen churches almost as magnificent if not so big, and in
them as many as you could wish of old Flemish masters, beginning
with Peter Paul Rubens, who pervades the land of his birth very much
as Michael Angelo pervades Florence and Rome.
And these dim places of Catholic worship were generously open to
all, every day and all day long, and never empty of worshippers,
high and low, prostrate in the dust, or kneeling with their arms
extended and their heads in the air, their wide-open, immovable,
unblinking eyes hypnotized into stone by the cross and the crown of
thorns. Mostly peasant women, these: with their black hoods falling
from their shoulders, and stiff little close white caps that hid the
hair.
Out of cool shadowy recesses of fretted stone and admirably carved
wood emanations seemed to rise as from the long-forgotten past--tons
of incense burnt hundreds of years ago, and millions of closely
packed supplicants, rich and poor, following each other in secula
seculorum! Lady Caroline spent many of her hours haunting these
crypts--and praying there.
At the back of their house in the Rue des Ursulines Blanches,
Barty's bedroom window overlooked the playground of the convent "des
Soeurs Redemptoristines": all noble ladies, most beautifully dressed
In scarlet and ultramarine, with long snowy veils, and who were
Waited upon by non-noble sisters in garments of a like hue but less
expensive texture.
So at least said little Finche Torfs, the daughter of the
house--little Frau, as Lady Caroline called her, and who seems to
have been one of the best creatures in the world; she became warmly
attached to both her lodgers, who reciprocated the feeling in full;
it was her chief pleasure to wait on them and look after them at all
times of the day, though Lady Caroline had already a devoted maid of
her own.
Little Frau's father was a well-to-do burgher with a prosperous
ironmongery in the "Petit Brul."
This was his private house, where he pursued his hobby, for he was
an amateur photographer, very fond of photographing his kind and
simple-minded old wife, who was always attired in rich Brussels
silks and Mechelen lace on purpose. She even cooked in them, though
not for her lodgers, whose mid-day and evening meals were sent from
"La Cigogne," close by, in four large round tins that fitted into
each other, and were carried in a wicker-work cylindrical basket.
And it was little Frau's delight to descant on the qualities of the
menu as she dished and served it. I will not attempt to do so.
But after little Frau had cleared it all away, Barty would descant
on the qualities of certain English dishes he remembered, to the
immense amusement of Aunt Caroline, who was reasonably fond of what
is good to eat.
He would paint in words (he was better in words than any other
medium--oil, water, or distemper) the boiled leg of mutton, not
overdone; the mashed turnips; the mealy potato; the caper-sauce. He
would imitate the action of the carver and the sound of the
carving-knife making its first keen cut while the hot pink gravy
runs down the sides. Then he would wordily paint a French roast
chicken and its rich brown gravy and its water-cresses; the pommes
sautees; the crisp, curly salade aux fines herbes! And Lady
Caroline, still hungry, would laugh till her eyes watered, as well
as her mouth.
When it came to the sweets, the apple-puddings and gooseberry-pies
and Devonshire cream and brown sugar, there was no more laughing,
for then Barty's talent soared to real genius--and genius is a
serious thing. And as to his celery and Stilton cheese--But there!
it's lunch-time, and I'm beginning to feel a little puckish
myself....
Every morning when it was fine Barty and his aunt would take an
airing round the town, which was enclosed by a ditch where there was
good skating in the winter, on long skates that went very fast, but
couldn't cut figures, 8 or 3!
There were no fortifications or ramparts left. But a few of the
magnificent old brick gateways still remained, admitting you to the
most wonderful old streets with tall pointed houses--clean little
slums, where women sat on their door-steps making the most beautiful
lace in the world--odd nooks and corners and narrow ways where it
was easy to lose one's self, small as the town really was;
innumerable little toy bridges over toy canals one could have leaped
at a bound, overlooked by quaint, irregular little dwellings, of
colors that had once been as those of the rainbow, but which time
had mellowed into divine harmonies, as it does all it touches--from
grand old masters to oak palings round English parks; from Venice to
Mechelen and its lace; from a disappointed first love to a great
sorrow.
Occasionally a certain distinguished old man of soldier-like aspect
would pass them on horseback, and gaze at their two tall British
figures with a look of curious and benign interest, as if he
mentally wished them well, and well away from this drear limbo of
penitence and exile and expiation.
They learnt that he was French, and a famous general, and that his
name was Changarnier; and they understood that public virtue has to
be atoned for.
And he somehow got into the habit of bowing to them with a good
smile, and they would smile and bow back again. Beyond this they
never exchanged a word, but this little outward show and ceremony of
kindly look and sympathetic gesture always gave them a pleasant
moment and helped to pass the morning.
All the people they met were to Lady Caroline like people in a
dream: silent priests; velvet-footed nuns, who were much to her
taste; quiet peasant women, in black cloaks and hoods, driving
bullock-carts or carts drawn by dogs, six or eight of these
inextricably harnessed together and panting for dear life;
blue-bloused men in French caps, but bigger and blonder than
Frenchmen, and less given to epigrammatic repartee, with mild, blue,
beery eyes, _a fleur de tete_, and a look of health and stolid
amiability; sturdy green-coated little soldiers with cock-feathered
brigand hats of shiny black, the brim turned up over the right eye
and ear that they might the more conveniently take a good aim at the
foe before he skedaddled at the mere sight of them; fat, comfortable
burgesses and their wives, so like their ancestors who drink beer
out of long glasses and smoke long clay pipes on the walls of the
Louvre and the National Gallery that they seemed like old friends;
and quaint old heavy children who didn't make much noise!
And whenever they spoke French to you, these good people, they said
"savez-vous?" every other second; and whenever they spoke Flemish to
each other it sounded so much like your own tongue as it is spoken in
the north of England that you wondered why on earth you couldn't
understand a single word.
Now and then, from under a hood, a handsome dark face with Spanish
eyes would peer out--eloquent of the past history of the Low
Countries, which Barty knew much better than I. But I believe there
was once a Spanish invasion or occupation of some kind, and I dare
say the fair Belgians are none the worse for it to-day. (It might
even have been good for some of us, perhaps, if that ill-starred
Armada hadn't come so entirely to grief. I'm fond of big,
tawny-black eyes.)
All this, so novel and so strange, was a perpetual feast for Lady
Caroline. And they bought nice, cheap, savory things on the way
home, to eke out the lunch from "la Cigogne."
In the afternoon Barty would take a solitary walk in the open
country, or along one of those endless straight _chaussees_, paved
in the middle, and bordered by equidistant poplars on either side,
and leading from town to town, and the monotonous perspective of
which is so desolating to heart and eye; backwards or forwards, it
is always the same, with a flat sameness of outlook to right and
left, and every 450 seconds the chime would boom and flounder
heavily by, with a dozen sharp railway whistles after it, like
swordfish after a whale, piercing it through and through.
Barty evidently had all this in his mind when he wrote the song of
the seminarist in "Gleams," beginning:
"Twas April, and the sky was clear,
An east wind blowing keenly;
The sun gave out but little cheer,
For all it shone serenely.
The wayside poplars, all arow,
For many a weary mile did throw
Down on the dusty flags below
Their shadows, picked out cleanly."
Etc., etc., etc.
(Isn't it just like Barty to begin a lyric that will probably last
as long as the English language with an innocent jingle worthy of a
school-boy?)
After dinner, in the evening, it was Lady Caroline's delight to read
aloud, while Barty smoked his cigarettes and inexpensive cigars--a
concession on her part to make him happy, and keep him as much with
her as she could; and she grew even to like the smell so much that
once or twice, when he went to Antwerp for a couple of days to stay
with Tescheles, she actually had to burn some of his tobacco on a
red-hot shovel, for the scent of it seemed to spell his name for her
and make his absence less complete.
Thus she read to him _Esmond_, _Hypatia_, _Never too Late to Mend_,
_Les Maitres Sonneurs_, _La Mare au Diable_, and other delightful
books, English and French, which were sent once a week from a
circulating library in Brussels. How they blessed thy name, good
Baron Tauchnitz!
"Oh, Aunt Caroline, if I could _only_ illustrate books! If I could
only illustrate _Esmond_ and draw a passable Beatrix coming down the
old staircase at Castlewood with her candle!" said Barty, one night.
That was not to be. Another was to illustrate _Esmond_, a poor devil
who, oddly enough, was then living in the next street and suffering
from a like disorder.[1]
[Footnote 1:
("Un malheureux, vetu de noir,
Qui me ressemblait comme un frere ..."--Ed.)]
As a return, Barty would sing to her all he knew, in five
languages--three of which neither of them quite understood--accompanying
himself on the piano or guitar. Sometimes she would play for him
accompaniments that were beyond his reach, for she was a decently taught
musician who could read fairly well at sight; whereas Barty didn't know
a single note, and picked up everything by ear. She practised these
accompaniments every afternoon, as assiduously as any school-girl.
Then they would sit up very late, as they always had so much to talk
about--what had just been read or played or sung, and many other
things: the present, the past, and the future. All their old
affection for each other had come back, trebled and quadrupled by
pity on one side, gratitude on the other--and a little remorse on
both. And there were long arrears to make up, and life was short and
uncertain.
Sometimes l'Abbe Lefebvre, one of the professors at the seminaire
and an old friend of Lady Caroline's, would come to drink tea, and
talk politics, which ran high in Mechelen. He was a most
accomplished and delightful Frenchman, who wrote poetry and adored
Balzac--and even owned to a fondness for good old Paul de Kock, of
whom it is said that when the news of his death reached Pius the
Ninth, his Holiness dropped a tear and exclaimed:
"Mio caro Paolo di Kocco!"
Now and then the Abbe would bring with him a distinguished young priest,
a Dominican--also a professor; Father Louis, of the princely house of
Aremberg, who died a Cardinal three years ago.
Father Louis had an admirable and highly cultivated musical gift,
and played to them Beethoven and Mozart, Schubert, Chopin, and
Schumann--and this music, as long as it lasted (and for some time
after), was to Barty as great a source of consolation as of
unspeakable delight; and therefore to his aunt also. Though I'm
afraid she preferred any little French song of Barty's to all the
Schumanns in the world.
First of all, the priest would play the "Moonlight Sonata," let us
say; and Barty would lean back and listen with his eyes shut, and
almost believe that Beethoven was talking to him like a father, and
pointing out to him how small was the difference, really, between
the greatest earthly joy and the greatest earthly sorrow: these were
not like black and white, but merely different shades of gray, as on
moonlit things a long way off! and Time, what a reconciler it
was--like distance! and Death, what a perfect resolution of all
possible discords, and how certain! and our own little life, how
short, and without importance! what matters whether it's to-day,
this small individual flutter of ours; or was a hundred years ago;
or will be a hundred years hence! it has or had to be got
through--and it's better past than to come.
[Illustration: "THE MOONLIGHT SONATA"]
"It all leads to the same divine issue, my poor friend," said Beethoven;
"why, just see here--I'm stone-deaf, and can't hear a note of what I'm
singing to you! But it is not about _that_ I weep, when I am weeping. It
was terrible when it first came on, my deafness, and I could no longer
hear the shepherd's pipe or the song of the lark; but it's well worth
going deaf, to hear all that _I_ do. I have to write everything down,
and read it to myself; and my tears fall on the ruled paper, and blister
the lines, and make the notes run into each other; and when I try to
blot it all out, there's that still left on the page, which, turned into
sound by good father Louis the Dominican, will tell you, if you can only
hear it aright, what is not to be told in any human speech; not even
that of Plato, or Marcus Aurelius, or Erasmus, or Shakespeare; not even
that of Christ himself, who speaks through me from His unknown grave,
because I am deaf and cannot hear the distracting words of men--poor,
paltry words at their best, which mean so many things at once that they
mean just nothing at all. It's a Tower of Babel. Just stop your ears and
listen with your heart and you will hear all that you can see when you
shut your eyes or have lost them--and those are the only realities, mein
armer Barty!"
Then the good Mozart would say:
"Lieber Barty--I'm so stupid about earthly things that I could never
even say Boh to a goose, so I can't give you any good advice; all my
heart overflowed into my brain when I was quite a little boy and
made music for grown-up people to hear; from the day of my birth to
my fifth birthday I had gone on remembering everything, but learning
nothing new--remembering all that music!
"And I went on remembering more and more till I was thirty-five; and
even then there was such a lot more of it where that came from that
it tired me to try and remember so much--and I went back thither.
And thither back shall you go too, Barty--when you are some thirty
years older!
"And you already know from me how pleasant life is there--how sunny
and genial and gay; and how graceful and innocent and amiable and
well-bred the natives--and what beautiful prayers we sing, and what
lovely gavottes and minuets we dance--and how tenderly we make
love--and what funny tricks we play! and how handsome and well
dressed and kind we all are--and the likes of you, how welcome!
Thirty years is soon over, Barty, Barty! Bel Mazetto! Ha, ha! good!"
Then says the good Schubert:
"I'm a loud, rollicking, beer-drinking Kerl, I am! Ich bin ein
lustiger Student, mein Pardy; and full of droll practical jokes;
worse than even you, when you were a young scapegrace in the Guards,
and wrenched off knockers, and ran away with a poor policeman's hat!
But I don't put my practical jokes into my music; if I did, I
shouldn't be the poor devil I am! I'm very hungry when I go to bed,
and when I wake up in the morning I have Katzenjammer (from an empty
stomach) and a headache, and a heartache, and penitence and shame
and remorse; and know there is nothing in this world or beyond it
worth a moment's care but Love, Love, Love! Liebe, Liebe! The good
love that knows neither concealment nor shame--from the love of the
brave man for the pure maiden whom he weds, to the young nun's love
of the Lord! and all the other good loves lie between these two, and
are inside them, or come out of them, ... and that's the love I put
into my music. Indeed, my music is the only love I know, since I am
not beautiful to the eye, and can only care for tunes!...
"But you, Pardy, are handsome and gallant and gay, and have always
been well beloved by man and woman and child, and always will be;
and know how to love back again--even a dog! however blind you go,
you will always have that, the loving heart--and as long as you can
hear and sing, you will always have my tunes to fall back upon...."
"And mine!" says Chopin. "If there's one thing sweeter than love,
it's the sadness that it can't last; _she_ loved me once--and now
she loves _tout le monde_! and that's a little sweet melodic sadness
of mine that will never fail you, as long as there's a piano within
your reach, and a friend who knows how to play me on it for you to
hear. You shall revel in my sadness till you forget your own. Oh,
the sorrow of my sweet pipings! Whatever becomes of your eyes, keep
your two ears for _my_ sake; and for your sake too! You don't know
what exquisite ears you've got. You are like me--you and I are made
of silk, Barty--as other men are made of sackcloth; and their love,
of ashes; and their joys, of dust!
"Even the good priest who plays me to you so glibly doesn't
understand what I am talking about half so well as _you_ do, who
can't read a word I write! He had to learn my language note by note
from the best music-master in Brussels. It's your mother-tongue! You
learned it as you sucked at your sweet young mother's breast, my
poor love-child! And all through her, your ears, like your remaining
eye, are worth a hatful of the common kind--and some day it will be
the same with your heart and brain...."
"Yes"--continues Schumann--"but you'll have to suffer first--like
me, who will have to kill myself very soon; because I am going
mad--and that's worse than any blindness! and like Beethoven who
went deaf, poor demigod! and like all the rest of us who've been
singing to you to-night; that's why our songs never pall--because we
are acquainted with grief, and have good memories, and are quite
sincere. The older you get, the more you will love us and our songs:
other songs may come and go in the ear; but ours go ringing in the
heart forever!"
In some such fashion did the great masters of tune and tone
Discourse to Barty through Father Louis's well-trained finger-tips.
They always discourse to you a little about yourself, these great
masters, always; and always in a manner pleasing to your self-love!
The finger-tips (whosesoever's finger-tips they be) have only to be
intelligent and well trained, and play just what's put before them
in a true, reverent spirit. Anything beyond may be unpardonable
impertinence, both to the great masters and yourself.
Musicians will tell you that all this is nonsense from beginning to
end; you mustn't believe musicians about music, nor wine-merchants
about wine--but vice versa!
When Father Louis got up from the music-stool, the Abbe would say to
Barty, in his delightful, pure French:
"And now, mon ami--just for _me_, you know--a little song of
autrefois."
"All right, M. l'Abbe--I will sing you the 'Adelaide,' of
Beethoven ... if Father Louis will play for me."
"Oh, non, mon ami, do not throw away such a beautiful organ as yours
on such really beautiful music, which doesn't want it; it would be
sinful waste; it's not so much the tune that I want to hear as the
fresh young voice; sing me something French, something light,
something amiable and droll; that I may forget the song, and only
remember the singer."
"All right, M. l'Abbe," and Barty sings a delightful little song by
Gustave Nadaud, called "Petit bonhomme vit encore."
And the good Abbe is in the seventh heaven, and quite forgets to
forget the song.
And so, cakes and wine, and good-night--and M. l'Abbe goes humming
all the way home....
"He, quoi! pour des peccadilles
Gronder ces pauvres amours?
Les femmes sont si gentilles,
Et l'on n'aime pas toujours!
C'est bonhomme
Qu'on me nomme....
Ma gaite, c'est mon tresor!
Et bonhomme vit encor'--
Et bonhomme vit encor'!"
An extraordinary susceptibility to musical sound was growing in
Barty since his trouble had overtaken him, and with it an
extraordinary sensitiveness to the troubles of other people, their
partings and bereavements and wants, and aches and pains, even those
of people he didn't know; and especially the woes of children, and
dogs and cats and horses, and aged folk--and all the live things
that have to be driven to market and killed for our eating--or shot
at for our fun!
All his old loathing of sport had come back, and he was getting his
old dislike of meat once more, and to sicken at the sight of a
butcher's shop; and the sight of a blind man stirred him to the
depths ... even when he learnt how happy a blind man can be!
These unhappy things that can't be helped preoccupied him as if he
had been twenty, thirty, fifty years older; and the world seemed to
him a shocking place, a gray, bleak, melancholy hell where there was
nothing but sadness, and badness, and madness.
And bit by bit, but very soon, all his old trust in an all-merciful,
all-powerful ruler of the universe fell from him; he shed it like an
old skin; it sloughed itself away; and with it all his old conceit
of himself as a very fine fellow, taller, handsomer, cleverer than
anybody else, "bar two or three"! Such darling beliefs are the best
stays we can have; and he found life hard to face without them.
And he got as careful of his aunt Caroline, and as anxious about her
little fads and fancies and ailments, as if he'd been an old woman
himself.
Imagine how she grew to dote on him!
And he quite lost his old liability to sudden freaks and fits of noisy
fractiousness about trifles--when he would stamp and rave and curse and
swear, and be quite pacified in a moment: "_Soupe-au-lait_," as he was
nicknamed in Troplong's studio!
* * * * *
Besides his seton and his cuppings, dry and wet, and his blisters on
his arms and back, and his mustard poultices on his feet and legs,
and his doses of mercury and alteratives, he had also to deplete
himself of blood three times a week by a dozen or twenty leeches
behind his left ear and on his temple. All this softens and relaxes
the heart towards others, as a good tonic will harden it.
So that he looked a mere shadow of his former self when I went over
to spend my Christmas with him.
And his eye was getting worse instead of better; at night he couldn't
sleep for the fireworks it let off in the dark. By day the trouble
was even worse, as it so interfered with the sight of the other
eye--even if he wore a patch, which he hated. He never knew peace
but when his aunt was reading to him in the dimly lighted room, and
he forgot himself in listening.
Yet he was as lively and droll as ever, with a wan face as eloquent
of grief as any face I ever saw; he had it in his head that the
right eye would go the same way as the left. He could no longer see
the satellites of Jupiter with it: hardly Jupiter itself, except as
a luminous blur; indeed, it was getting quite near-sighted, and full
of spots and specks and little movable clouds--_muscae volitantes_,
as I believe they are called by the faculty. He was always on the
lookout for new symptoms, and never in vain; and his burden was as
much as he could bear.
He would half sincerely long for death, of which he yet had such a
horror that he was often tempted to kill himself to get the bother
of it well over at once. The idea of death _in the dark_, however
remote--an idea that constantly haunted him as his own most probable
end--so appalled him that it would stir the roots of his hair!
Lady Caroline confided to me her terrible anxiety, which she managed
to hide from him. She herself had been to see M. Noiret, who was no
longer so confident and cocksure about recovery.
I went to see him too, without letting Barty know. I did not like
the man--he was stealthy in look and manner, and priestly and feline
and sleek: but he seemed very intelligent, and managed to persuade
me that no other treatment was even to be thought of.
I inquired about him in Brussels, and found his reputation was of
the highest. What could I do? I knew nothing of such things! And
what a responsibility for me to volunteer advice!
I could see that my deep affection for Barty was a source of immense
comfort to Lady Caroline, for whom I conceived a great and warm
regard, besides being very much charmed with her.
She was one of those gentle, genial, kindly, intelligent women of
the world, absolutely natural and sincere, in whom it is impossible
not to confide and trust.
When I left off talking about Barty, because there was really
nothing more to say, I fell into talking about myself: it was
irresistible--she _made_ one! I even showed her Leah's last
photograph, and told her of my secret aspirations; and she was so
warmly sympathetic and said such beautiful things to me about Leah's
face and aspect and all they promised of good that I have never
forgotten them, and never shall--they showed such a prophetic
insight! they fanned a flame that needed no fanning, good heavens!
and rang in my ears and my heart all the way to Barge Yard,
Bucklersbury--while my eyes were full of Barty's figure as he again
watched me depart by the _Baron Osy_ from the Quai de la Place Verte
in Antwerp; a sight that wrung me, when I remembered what a
magnificent figure of a youth he looked as he left the wharf at
London Bridge on the Boulogne steamer, hardly more than two short
years ago.
When I got back to London, after spending my Christmas holiday with
Barty, I found the beginning of a little trouble of my own.
My father was abroad; my mother and sister were staying with some
friends in Chiselhurst, and after having settled all business
matters in Barge Yard I called at the Gibsons', in Tavistock Square,
just after dusk. Mrs. Gibson and Leah were at home, and three or
four young men were there, also calling. There had been a party on
Christmas-eve.
I'm afraid I did not think much, as a rule, of the young men I met
at the Gibsons'. They were mostly in business, like myself; and why
I should have felt at all supercilious I can't quite see! But I did.
Was it because I was very tall, and dressed by Barty's tailor, in
Jermyn Street? Was it because I knew French? Was it because I was a
friend of Barty the Guardsman, who had never been supercilious
towards anybody in his life? Or was it those maternally ancestral
Irish Blakes of Derrydown stirring within me?
The simplest excuse I can make for myself is that I was a young
snob, and couldn't help it. Many fellows are at that age. Some grow
out of it, and some don't. And the Gibsons were by way of spoiling
me, because I was Leah's bosom friend's brother, and I gave myself
airs in consequence.
As I sat perfectly content, telling Leah all about poor Barty,
another visitor was announced--a Mr. Scatcherd, whom I didn't know;
but I saw at a glance that it would not do to be supercilious with
Mr. Scatcherd. He was quite as tall as I, for one thing, if not
taller. His tailor might have been Poole himself; and he was
extremely good-looking, and had all the appearance and manners of a
man of the world. He might have been a Guardsman. He was not that,
it seemed--only a barrister.
He had been at Eton, had taken his degree at Cambridge, and ignored
me just as frankly as I ignored Tom, Dick, and Harry--whoever they
were; and I didn't like it at all. He ignored everybody but Leah and
her mamma: her papa was not there. It turned out that he was the
only son of the great wholesale furrier in Ludgate Hill, the largest
house of the kind in the world, with a branch in New York and
another in Quebec or Montreal. He had been called to the bar to
please a whim of his father's.
He had been at the Gibson party on Christmas-eve, and had paid Leah
much attention there; and came to tell them that his mother hoped to
call on Mrs. Gibson on the following day. I was savagely glad that
he did not succeed in monopolizing Leah; not even I could do that.
She was kind to us all round, and never made any differences in her
own house.
Mr. Scatcherd soon took his departure, and it was then that I heard
all about him.
[Illustration: ENTER MR. SCATCHERD]
There was no doubt that Mr. and Mrs. Gibson were immensely flattered
by the civilities of this very important and somewhat consequential
young man, and those of his mother, which were to follow; for within
a week the Gibsons and Leah dined with Mr. and Mrs. Scatcherd in
Portland Place.
On this occasion Mr. Gibson was, as usual, very funny, it seems.
Whether his fun was appreciated I doubt, for he confided to me that
Mr. Scatcherd, senior, was a pompous and stuck-up old ass. People
have such different notions of what is funny. Nobody roared at Mr.
Gibson's funniments more than I did; but he was Leah's papa.
"Let him joke his bellyful;
I'll bear it all for Sally!"
Young Scatcherd was fond of his joke too--a kind of supersubtly
satirical Cambridgy banter that was not to my taste at all; for I am
no Cantab, and the wit of the London Stock Exchange is subtle enough
for me. His father did not joke. Indeed he was full of useful
information, and only too fond of imparting it, and he always made
use of the choicest language in doing so; and Mrs. Scatcherd was
immensely genteel.
Young Scatcherd became the plague of my life. The worst of it is
that he grew quite civil--seemed to take a liking. His hobby was to
become a good French scholar, and he practised his French--which was
uncommonly good of its English kind--on me. And I am bound to say
that his manners were so agreeable (when he wasn't joking), and he
was such a thoroughly good fellow, that it was impossible to snub
him; besides, he wouldn't have cared if I had.
Once or twice he actually asked me to dine with him at his club, and
I actually did; and actually he with me, at mine! And we spoke
French all through dinner, and I taught him a lot of French
school-boy slang, with which he was delighted. Then he came to see
me in Barge Yard, and I even introduced him to my mother and sister,
who couldn't help being charmed with him. He was fond of the best
music only (he had no ear whatever, and didn't know a note), and
only cared for old pictures--the National Gallery, and all that; and
read no novels but French--Balzac and George Sand--and that only for
practice for he was a singularly pure young man, the purest in all
Cambridge, and in those days I thought him a quite unforgivable
prig.
So Scatcherd was in my thoughts all day and in my dreams all
night--a kind of incubus; and my mother made herself very unhappy
about him, on Leah's account and mine; except that now and then she
would fancy it was Ida he was thinking of. And that would have
pleased my mother very much; and me too!
His mother called on mine, who returned the call--but there was no
invitation for us to dine in Portland Place.
Nothing of all this interrupted for a moment the bosom-friendship
between my sister and Leah; nothing ever altered the genial
sweetness of Leah's manners to me, nor indeed the cordiality of her
parents: Mr. Gibson could not get on without that big guffaw of
mine, at Whatever he looked or said or did; no Scatcherd could laugh
as loudly and as readily as I! But I was very wretched indeed, and
poured out my woes to Barty in long letters of poetical Blaze, and
he would bid me hope and be of good cheer in his droll way; and a
Blaze letter from him would hearten me up wonderfully--till I was
told of Leah's going to the theatre with Mrs. Scatcherd and her son,
or saw his horses and groom parading up and down Tavistock Square
while he was at the Gibsons', or heard of his dining there without
Ida or me!
Then one fine day in April (the first, I verily believe) young
Scatcherd proposed to Leah--and was refused--unconditionally
refused--to the deep distress and dismay of her father and mother,
who had thoroughly set their hearts on this match; and no wonder!
But Leah was an obstinate young woman, it seems, and thoroughly knew
her own mind, though she was so young--not seventeen.
Was I a happy man? Ah, wasn't I! I was sent to Bordeaux by my father
that very week on business--and promised myself I would soon be
quite as good a catch or match as Scatcherd himself. I found
Bordeaux the sunniest, sweetest town I had ever been in--and the
Bordelais the jolliest men on earth; and as for the beautiful
Bordelaises--ma foi! they might have been monkeys, for me! There was
but one woman among women--one lily among flowers--everything else
was a weed!
Poor Scatcherd! when I met him, a few days later, he must have been
struck by the sudden warmth of my friendship--the quick idiomatic
cordiality of my French to him. This mutual friendship of ours
lasted till his death in '88. And so did our mutual French!
Except Barty, I never loved a man better; two years after his
refusal by Leah he married my sister--a happy marriage, though a
childless one; and except myself, Barty never had a more devoted
friend. And now to Barty I will return.