TOWARD the close of Friday's sitting Elias said: “You know, Berlioz
has taken great liberties with Goethe's text--quite altered the story,
indeed, and given it an ending to suit himself.”
“That won't matter much to me,” responded Christine, “because I've never
read 'Faust,' and I have only the vaguest notion of what the story is.”
“Did it suffer a like fate to 'Wilhelm Meister's?'”
“No; but I can't read German, and I didn't know whether there was any
good translation. Is there?”
“Oh, yes; 'Bayard Taylor's is beautiful. You ought to read it.”
“Then, besides, I had an idea that it was very deep and obscure--very
hard to understand. Do you think I could understand it?”
“I'm sure you could--all that's essential. You could get the story and
the human nature. I believe you'd find it even more moving than 'Adam
Bede.'”
“Can't you tell me the story? Won't you tell it to me now?”
“Oh, I should only spoil it.”
But Christine begged him to give her the outline of it, pleading that
she would enjoy the music so much more intelligently if she were not
altogether ignorant of the plot. So, during their luncheon, Elias
related as best he could something of the love-story of Faust and
Margaret. Christine listened with bated breath, and wide eyes fastened
upon his face; and at its conclusion she drew a profound sigh, and
murmured: “Oh, how sad, how sad!”
“Now,” said Elias, “I must explain how Berlioz has tampered with it.”
Which he proceeded to do.
They walked as far as Seventh Avenue and Fifty-ninth Street, where they
took the University Place car. Elias thought he had never been so happy.
It was an exhilaration merely to share this young girl's presence,
breathing the same air that she breathed. The sunshine caught new
radiance from her hair. Lambent fires burned in her eyes. There was no
music that Elias would rather have heard, than the music of her voice
as she talked to him. They had the car to themselves for the first few
blocks; but then it began to fill up with ladies, and at last chivalry
compelled Elias to sacrifice his seat at Christine's side. He clung to
the strap in front of her, and looked down at her; and she looked up
at him; and so, with their glances, they communed together, very rarely
opening their lips, until, having reached Fourteenth Street, it behooved
them to dismount.
The music began. Christine sat forward in her chair, and listened with
manifest appreciation. But she made no sign to her companion till the
musicians had played, and the chorus sung, the first bar or two of the
“Peasants' Rondo.” Then she turned upon him suddenly, with eyes dilated
and lips apart, and drew a quick breath, and uttered an ecstatic
little “_Oh!_” The syllable sped straight to his heart, and started an
unfamiliar palpitation there. From that moment until the concert was
terminated, both of these young people were in Heaven; she, thanks to
the marvelous music, which seized hold of her, and bore her away, like a
blossom upon its bosom: he, thanks to the beautiful girl who was seated
next to him, and whose eyes kept smiling into his, and whose breath for
one priceless second fell upon his cheek. Every most trifling incident
of that afternoon somehow engraved itself upon Elias Bacharach's memory.
Long afterward he recalled it all: how Christine was dressed, the shape
of her bonnet, the color of her gloves, the fragrance of the rose that
she wore in her breast; how he had wrapped her cloak about her shoulders
when she complained of a draught; how she had beat time with her fan
when the students sang their drinking song, and laughed when Brander
sang the ballad of the rat, and looked grave when Gretchen sang “There
was a King in Thule,” and started, and paled, and caught her breath, and
put her hand impulsively upon Elias's arm, when Faust and Mephistopheles
began their tempestuous ride into hell. He remembered it all, in
exceeding bitterness of spirit. He would have followed Faust's example,
and pledged his soul to eternal bondage, gladly, eagerly, if by doing so
he could have won back the possibilities of that vanished afternoon.
Old Redwood met them, as he had promised, on the curbstone in front of
the exit.
“You'd better come up town and dine with us, Mr. Bacharach,” he said.
“Oh, yes; do, please,” urged Christine.
“I wish I could,” said Elias; “but, unfortunately, I must go home. The
concert has lasted longer than I thought it would; and now they--my
uncle, I mean--will be expecting me at home. Good-by.”
Christine gave him her hand. He watched her till she was lost to sight
in the crowd. It had cost him a pang to separate himself from her.
Now, as he saw her departing further and further away, it was like the
gradual extinction of the light and the warmth and the beauty of the
day. His heart sank. A lump began to gather and ache in his throat. He
turned about and walked slowly home.
Crossing his own threshold, he shivered, as one might upon entering
a tomb. Somehow, his house seemed darker, bleaker, bigger, and more
cheerless than it had ever seemed before. It was, as it always was,
intensely silent. His footstep upon the marble floor of the hallway
resounded sharp and metallic. He joined the rabbi in the latter's study.
They exchanged a few quiet words of greeting, and then sat motionless,
without speaking, as though waiting for something to happen..The
daylight slowly faded. By and by a star could be made out, shimmering
through the window. Both of these men rose to their feet, and put
on their hats. The rabbi lighted a candle, and, with hands uplifted,
intoned a blessing over it in Hebrew. With the candle flame he lighted
the gas. Then, picking up a bulky calf-bound volume from the table, he
began to read aloud from the Thorah, also in Hebrew. Elias paid scant
heed. He heard the rabbi's voice rise and fall in sonorous periods; but
his heart and his mind were elsewhere.
“Now, Elias,” said the rabbi suddenly, “you read on from where I have
left off.”
He handed Elias the book, pointing with his finger to the place. Elias
took it, and read mechanically, pronouncing the words clearly enough,
but giving no attention to the sense:
“And when the Lord thy God shall deliver them before thee, thou shalt
smite them and utterly destroy them; thou shalt make no covenant with
them, nor show mercy unto them. Neither shalt thou make marriages with
them; thy daughter thou shalt not give unto his son, nor his daughter
shalt thou take unto thy. son. For they will turn away thy son from
following me, that they may serve other gods; so will the anger of the
Lord be kindled against you, and destroy thee suddenly. But thus shall
ye deal with them: Ye shall destroy their altars, and break down their
images, and cut down their groves, and burn their graven images with
fire. For thou art an holy people unto the Lord thy God: the Lord thy
God hath chosen thee to be a special people unto himself, above all
people that are upon the face of the earth.'” *
* Deuteronomy, vii., 2-6.
“'Above all people that are upon the face of the earth,'” echoed the
rabbi. “Amen.”.
With the melancholy December nightfall had come the Jewish Sabbath.