The girl sitting on a rough bench by the low building stirred slightly.
She glanced behind her. Deep blackness in the wood, shifting moonshine
about her. She breathed a quick sigh. It was like that other night. Ah,
he would not come!
Her face fell forward into her slender fingers. She sat immovable. The
shadow trembled a little, but the girl by the low house was blind and
deaf. Melodies of the past were about her. The shadow moved, but she had
no eyes to see; slowly it travelled across the short-cropped grass,
mystically green and white in the waning moon. Noiselessly it came; it
sank noiselessly into the shadow of the low house. A sound clicked and
was still. But the girl had not moved--memory music held her. It moved
upon her spirit, low and sweet, and stirred the pulse, and breathed
itself away.
She stirred a little, and laid her cheek upon her palm. Her opened eyes
rested carelessly on the ground; her look flashed wide and leaped to the
lattice window beside her, and back again to the ground. A block of
light lay there, clear and defined. It was not moonlight or dream-light.
She sprang to her feet and moved a step nearer the window. Then she
stopped, her hand at her side, her breath coming quickly. The high,
sweet notes were calling from the night. Swiftly she moved. The door
gave lightly beneath her touch. She crossed the smooth floor. She was by
his side. The music was around them, above them, shimmering. It held
them close. Slowly he turned his big, homely face and looked at her, but
the music did not cease. It hovered in the air above, high and pure and
sweet. The face of the young countess bent lower; a look of tenderness
waited in her subtle eyes.
He sprang to his feet, his hands outstretched to ward it off.
"Nein. It is not I. It is the music. You shall not be bewitched!" His
hands made swift passes, as if he would banish a spell.
She caught them to her and waited.
"Am I bewitched--Franz?" she said at last. The voice was very low. The
laughing eyes were looking into his.
"Ja, you are bewitched," he returned stoutly.
"And you?"
"I have only love for you."
"And I have only love for you," she repeated softly. She hummed a bit of
the melody and stopped, looking at him sweetly. "It is my song," she
questioned--"the song you went to seek for me?"
He lifted his head proudly.
"It came for you."
She nodded with brimming eyes. Her hands stole softly up to the big
face. They framed it in, with its look of pride, and touched it gently.
"Dear face!" she breathed, "dear ugly face--my music face!"
They moved swiftly apart. The figure of the count was in the open
doorway.
She moved forward serenely and slipped her hand in his.
"I am here, Father Johann," she said quietly.
His fingers closed about the white ones.
"Go outside, Cara. Wait there till I come."
Her dark, troubled eyes looked into his. They were not laughing now.
"Nay, father," she said gently, "it is you who will wait outside--while
we say farewell."
The count regarded her for a long moment, then he turned toward the
young musician, his face full of compassion and a kind of envy.
"My friend," he said slowly, "for five minutes I shall leave her with
you. You will go away--forever."
Schubert bowed proudly. His eyes were on the girl's face.
As the door closed, she turned to him, holding out her hands.
He took them in his, and they stood silent, looking into each other's
eyes.
She drew a long breath.
"What do people say when they are dying?" she asked.
"Nein, I know not." His voice trembled.
"There is so much, and it is nothing," said the girl dreamily. She moved
a step toward the piano, his hands locked fast in hers. "Tell me again
you love me!" she whispered.
He took off the great spectacles, and laid them beside the scrawled
page.
"Look in my eyes," he said gently. A kind of grandeur had touched the
homely features. The soul behind them looked out.
She bent toward him. A little sob broke from her lips. She lifted the
hands and moved them swiftly toward the keys.
"Tell me!" she said.
With a smile of sadness, he obeyed the gesture.
Melody filled the room. It flooded the moonlight. The count, pacing back
and forth, halted, a look of bewilderment in his face. He stepped
swiftly toward the door.
The lights on the piano flared uncertainly. They fell on the figure at
the piano. It loomed grotesque and grim, and melted away in flickering
shadow. Music played about it. Strains of sadness swept over it in the
gloom and drifted by, and the sweet, high notes rose clear. A little
distance away the figure of the young countess stood in the shifting
light. Her clasped hands hung before her. She swayed and lifted them,
groping, and turned. Her father sprang to her. Side by side they passed
into the night. The music sounded about them far and sweet.
* * * * *
Franz Schubert, with his youth and his wreaths of fame, his homely face
and soul of fire, is dead these many years; but the soul of fire is not
dead.... The Countess Esterhazy, framed for love, is dust and ashes in
her marble house. The night music plays over her tomb.
The night music plays wherever night is.