A LIVELY MUSICIAN
Gard discovered that such mockery or berating of military officials,
with whom the ordinary public came in servile contact, was rather
common in Germany in spite of the universal adoration of the army.
Intermixed with Friedrich's take-off were his moments of "the grand
manner," appropriate to a musical director who is born to command
fickle or imperious singers and musicians. He was naturally an
actor. His refreshing mimicries amused Gard. Against the bovine
background of the Villa Elsa circle, he stood out in relief as an
enlivening figure with flitting phases of elegance.
He was clever, talented. He spun off a lot of new music at the
piano, much of it coming from his own pen. Elsa hung absorbed over
the wing of the instrument. Friedrich, of about Kirtley's age but
adequately equipped and ambitious, was aspiring to some one of the
dignified thrones in the musical kingdom of Germany. Gard was only
just hatching out as a man. He was essentially but a lad grown up.
Von Tielitz showed already a wholly developed maturity. German
instruction again versus American education!
Friedrich was better versed in English than the Bucher children. He
paid two calls on Gard that first day. Talking Anglo-Saxon was good
practice. On the second call he discharged a missile that struck
Kirtley near the heart, and gave him a feeling of faintness.
"Don't you like Elsa?" Von Tielitz whipped out with no preamble.
"She is really a nice girl, a very nice girl. Her family thinks we
are to marry. Well, perhaps. I don't know. Sometimes I think yes.
Sometimes I think no. There are so many others, don't you know. But
I think we will marry as soon as I get my Kapellmeistership. We are
always such good friends. She used to sit on my lap before I went
away. O! we are _very_ good friends. But now I am not so much in
Dresden and, my dear Mr. Kirtley, my poor Kapellmeistership does not
come along. It is most aggravating, as you say in English. I get so
discouraged."
He brightened again.
"They tell me you and Elsa have been playing duos. Such good
training. Very agreeable. We used to play together also. A nice girl
to rub one's knees against under the piano--oh,
"I am Titania the blond,
Titania, of the air!"
Friedrich twittered gayly the lines from "Mignon." Then he abruptly
changed.
"But I have now so little time for serious maidens. Ach Himmel! How
I am driven by going here and going there! One says this to me,
another says that to me, and my head gets all in a whirl."
So he wandered on with his mixtures of _nonchalance_, condescension
and, above all, his ebullient self-esteem that flowed over on to
everyone to the point of deluging them. When he went away, it was
with such a warm invitation to call upon him the next week that
Kirtley could not but accept. Besides, here was opened up a novel
and suggestive line of behavior from the standpoint of the German
young man of the world.
Gard was left with confused feelings that drooped their wings in
displeasure if not distress. So there was a rival, and of long
standing, on the little rosy sea of his romance! And this was he.
Was it a wonder that Elsa had "spells"? Here was a true
heart-breaker. Just the type to play havoc with a girl. What place
was there left for the mild, unpretending Gard? And still she
deserved far better than Von Tielitz. Perhaps it was this feeling
that added to her unhappiness. His vulgarity! To talk as Von Tielitz
did about one who might become his wife, and to a stranger, was a
new form of German brutality. It steadied and deepened Gard's
admiration for her. Who ever heard a young Yankee speak like this
about his serious sweetheart? However raw he may be, there is a
certain sacred respect at the bottom of his language about her--his
bearing toward her.
Elsa did not appear at meals for a day or two after Friedrich left.
Kirtley was not encouraged by learning that this usually happened
after a call from the composer. He thought it strange that the Frau,
with all her plain speech and hardy lack of sentiment, still made
no reference to her daughter's trouble. Marriage is to the Germans
such an earth-to-earth affair, as Gard perceived, that he marveled
she did not unbosom herself capaciously about what must be a
mother's anxiety. But the Teuton daughter is like a glove that can
be put on or cast off by the sovereign male. She is meant to be
toughened, exposed to rude blasts, fortified, to be able to support
the draft-mare burdens of Teuton wifehood.