Suddenly the orchestra became animated and burst into a waltz, one of
those ageless, rhythmic compositions that might have been the very
first or the very last waltz ever written. Supported by wailing strings
and the irrelevant flute, the enjoyment of the diners took on fresh
impetus. The lady with the shoulders became a vibrating obbligato. The
pumpkin-faced man beamed fatuous delight, an electric light behind him
giving the odd effect that he was illuminated inside like a Hallow-e'en
figure. A girl, who might have been pretty if she hadn't rouged, took a
puff from her toilet-case and powdered her nose. She felt that the
evening was commencing. Over the whole scene my melancholy brooded as a
ghostly presence. To me it seemed like the dominant seventh in a chord
of surfeiting commonplaceness; once it was heard, the whole pitch of
the evening would alter to another key.
Fortunately the dominant seventh remained unheard.
The waltz stopped, and we turned our undivided attention to dinner.
"Klotz," said my host, pouring me a glass of wine, "should have made a
mark, but----"
"Damn Klotz!"
"That has been done, Pest. The Bricklayers' Union, or something equally
esthetic, took exception to him for one reason or another, and
prevailed upon its sister-cabal to debar him from the big orchestras.
To offend your Union, dear boy, is to accomplish the total eclipse of
your future. Even genius to-day is subject to regulations. Klotz is in
a worse position than a clerk with a Board School education trying to
secure employment in a London bank."
"Confound it!" I said, "there must be some spheres reserved for
gentlemen."
His twinkling eyes steadied, and a dreamy look crept into them. "Pest,"
he murmured, "some day England is going to thank God for the
gentlemen--who were educated at Board Schools. Listen!--the cellist is
playing Saint-Saëns."
Dinner--or the mess of foodstuffs dignified by the name--was almost
finished when Klotz, the violinist, started one of the rare melodies
which Wagner permitted himself--the Song to the Evening Star.
It was being beautifully played--even I would have admitted that--but I
could not account for the troubled look that crept into my companion's
face, driving the gayety and the whimsicality from it as a cloud
obscures the sunlight.
"Klotz," he said anxiously, "is in great sorrow."
"How the deuce," I muttered, with a feeling of creepiness stealing over
me, "can you tell that? Do you read it in his face?"
He shook his head. "Listen!" he said; "can't you hear it? Can't you
feel the tears in it?"
And in spite of myself I remained silent, held irresistibly by the
double fascination of the German's artistry and the sense of mystery
engendered by Norman. The last sob of the G string quivered to its
finish. The crowd applauded perfunctorily, then applied themselves to
the more essential things of life--food, wine and noise.
Rousing myself from the reverie into which I had fallen, I turned to
Norman, and found his chair vacated. I started. He had reached the
platform, and was talking earnestly to the violinist. Half-contemptuous
and half-interested, I watched the pantomime as they talked. Norman's
hands were emphasizing some point, and every gesture was a pleasure to
the eye; the musician was protesting, but with steadily abating
determination. Then the scene came to a climax, and the German
disappeared.
Holding the violin in his arms, Basil Norman mounted the platform, the
fingers of his left hand picking quiet, pizzicato notes from the
strings.
"My friends----" His voice traveled like sound on the ocean at
twilight; the room subsided into silence, and diners craned their necks
to see him. The woman with the shoulders brought them to a standstill,
like an electric fan that had lost its current.
"My friends"--what a charming voice the fellow had!--"I do not want to
bring a note of sorrow into your happiness. You are here, like my
companion and myself, for enjoyment; but Herr Klotz ... his wife is
very ill; she is perhaps dying; and, my friends, it is very hard that
he should play while his wife is dying ... on Christmas Eve ... in a
strange country. You are English, and I know you are kind. I have sent
him home, and I promised that I would take his place, as well as I can
take the place of such an artist. For you who work so hard, it is not
fair to spoil your happiness on this of all nights--but you will
forgive me? Good!"
And his face had a whimsical, tender look.
A murmur of sympathy rose from the crowd, but died away as he raised
the violin in his hands and brought from it a tone that breathed over
them like a benediction. It was Gounod's "_Ave Maria_," and the
pianist's fingers were mothering the keys as they had not done since
his ambition evaporated like a cloud on a summer day.
It was exquisite--haunting. It was a prayer to Mary, but a prayer sung
in a field of daisies and violets. There was sorrow in it, but it was
the grief of a girl over a shattered dream. It was mature artistry, yet
was born of sunshine and throbbed with the primrose sweetness of youth.
It touched one like the face of a beautiful child.
Still caressing the violin, he repeated the "_Ave Maria_," whistling a
unison. With almost any one else it would have been commonplace; with
him it was a sound more pleasing than any flute, and only accentuated
his sense of emancipation from the thrall of years. He played "_Still
wie die Nacht_," "_Old King Wenceslaus_," "_Meditation_" from Thaïs,
"_Intermezzo_" of Mascagni; and whatever he did, or however hackneyed
the piece, he surrounded it with a joyousness that trembled on the
brink of tears.
I looked at my watch; it was nearly midnight, and the evening so
dreaded was almost at a close. He had put down his violin with a
gesture of finality, when the prolonged outburst of applause changed
his decision, and, with another of those rare smiles, he took the
instrument once more.
Maxwellton's braes are bonnie
Where early fa's the dew,
And it's there that Annie Laurie
Gi'ed me her promise true....
The violin seemed to speak the words; and I'll swear there wasn't a
woman in the place who wasn't recalling the sweet innocence of her
first love. He had hardly finished, when the man with the face like a
pumpkin jumped to his feet, and I rubbed my eyes.
The fellow had changed. His face had expression. Confound it! there was
something rather splendid about his features--a kindliness--a----
"Young feller, m'lad," he was saying, "I knows I speaks for hevery one
when I says we ain't 'eard music like that there since we was knee-'igh
to a grass'opper, and I knows you won't take it hamiss if we was to
pass the 'at and----"