OFFERINGS TO THE GOD OF GENIUS
The holiday season parted the lovers temporarily. Alexis' Christmas
gift, a carved emerald, about her neck, like a symbol of slavery, Anne
went to Virginia to visit her aunt. She was gone two weeks and the
change did her good. An invalid, her aunt saw almost no one, and the
blessed sunny monotony of the days fell like balm upon Anne's irked
spirit. Wrapped in rugs, for the air was keen, she sat with the old lady
in the frost-touched garden and read aloud to her from gentle, time-worn
books, which they both loved. Stevenson and Thackeray, and once or twice
Jane Austen. Or, if they felt particularly devilish, Bourget, or even
Prévost. Well-bred salacities, as mild and unfleshly as a Watteau
screen. Meanwhile, Anne's soul basked in the radiant peace.
The winter had not proved an easy one, so far, and as the time
approached for Alexis' concert, Anne welcomed his increased absorption.
His accompanist, Paul Leon, spent the greater part of the week at the
house in Long Island, leaving Saturdays and Sundays as the only free
days, and the greater part of these were spent either in practicing, or
in talking over with Anne the programs for his coming season. Following
his recital in Carnegie Hall, at the end of January, there were to be
several appearances with different orchestras, including the
Philharmonic. After that the projected tour of the principal cities
would come. All this required a very careful and varied choice of
program. And Alexis was both painstaking and meticulous. As he was
temperamental as well, it naturally followed that he often changed his
mind. One day, a Tchaikowsky Concerto would obsess him to the point of
rapture. The next he would develop a Beethoven complex. Some waltz of
Wienawski, a serenade of Kreisler would fling him into Paradise for a
week. The Serenade Melancolique rode him for days like a subconscious
sorrow. He would get out of bed, and still half asleep, take out his
violin and play it until exhaustion overcame him.
"It is the song of a fallen angel," he cried one night, tears falling
down his working face. "The agony of lost glory, the utter hopelessness
are all there."
Her own eyes overflowing, Anne pillowed his head on her shoulder, and
murmured comfort until he fell into a sorrowful slumber. Frequently she
lay awake beside him for hours. These days filled with a continuous wave
of sound, left her storm-tossed and weary. Fragments of concertos
thundered through her tired brain. Mingled with a sonata, the piercing
sweetness of a Berçeuse; the monotonous, but beautiful precision of an
exercise, until her head hummed like the inside of a seashell, and her
spirit felt as void. She envied Alexis his ability to throw off a mood
at will. To forget the labors of the day in the transports of the night.
And yet it was this very quality which she dreaded. After hours of
planning programs and listening to excerpts from problematical choices,
she was expected to play the grande amoureuse, to respond with ardor to
Alexis' quenchless thirst. If Anne's embraces were tepid, her smile a
little absent, her echoing and aching head was heaped with reproaches.
She did not love him any more. She never had loved him. She was fickle
as the new moon, and as cold. She was thinking of marrying some one
else. Yes, yes, that must be it. Who was it? That snobbish fool of a
Gerald Boynton, who thought he could play the piano? (The cheek of these
amateurs was amusing.) Or that Marchese, of whom Ellen was constantly
hinting? Why didn't she tell him and put him out of his agony
immediately? She knew he was not able to marry her, himself. He was tied
hand and foot to a fond fool, who would not give him his freedom. Yes,
but he would take it just the same, this precious freedom, if it tore
Claire into little pieces, to wrest it from her! And so on, sometimes
for an hour. Until Anne's nerves shrieked for peace, and her tongue was
numb from reiterated denials. Until exhausted, Alexis would cease as
suddenly as he had begun, and laying his head upon her knees, beg for
the forgiveness which was so ungrudgingly granted. The humility of his
joy always aroused Anne's compassion. Heavy with fatigue, sorrowful for
his shame, she would allow Alexis to have his way.
It was not strange that Anne welcomed the peace of her aunt's Southern
household, and basked wistfully within its sunny garden.
And yet her memories, of course, were not all irksome. There had been
hours of splendid companionship, moments of exquisite communion, and it
was upon these that her thoughts preferred to dwell. Alexis absent was
so much more comfortable than in the flesh. Safe from his fatiguing
intensity, Anne wondered how she ever could have taken his moods so
seriously. And his letters were so pathetic. Incoherent, ridiculously
young, they poured forth an incense of supplication that was lyrical and
even beautiful. Almost biblically flowery, Anne called them her 'Songs
of Alexis,' and laughed softly over their pages.
However, the situation was becoming more difficult to handle every day.
Alexis' passion, increased by possession, tantalized by infrequent and
stolen meetings, had become an obsession both rapturous and tragic. The
thought that he had no claim upon Anne beyond that of tenderness,
tortured him. Although he was careful not to mention it to her as a
definite fact, Anne felt that he was doing all in his power to bring
about an annulment of his marriage to Claire, and she secretly hoped
that he would be unsuccessful. At his vague hints, she always laughed
and told him she was not a marrying woman. That if he wanted a wife, he
must look elsewhere. But she could see that it made almost no impression
upon him at all. He desired their union so ardently himself that it was
impossible for him to believe that Anne could refuse to marry him, once
he were free. He even went so far as to depict their future life in
terms both ecstatic and impractical. A patient smile upon her lips, Anne
would shudder inwardly. She had neither the desire nor the intention of
becoming Alexis' wife. There were almost ten years between their ages
and she could imagine nothing more tragic, nor more difficult, than to
be the elderly wife of a young genius. It would take endless courage to
live up to his exactions, to respond to his demand. She would have to be
eternally beautiful, a very river of sympathy and understanding, upon
whose bosom he could float in perfect serenity and peace. In other
words, mother as well as companion, not to mention accompanist, fellow
traveler, and perfect hostess. If she were sufficiently unfortunate to
continue to love him, there would be scores of other women to combat,
especially after the first glamour had worn off, and he had commenced to
realize the difference in their ages. Even now, when he was supposedly
in retirement, he received countless letters from hysterical women and
girls, endless demands for interviews and photographs, which kept his
newly-acquired secretary occupied most of the day. No, marriage with
Alexis would not only be unspeakably wearing, but very probably spell
tragedy for them both.
Meanwhile, there were precious moments to be garnered.
With renewed serenity and rested nerves, she bade farewell to the gentle
little aunt, who would probably have succumbed if she had suspected to
what Anne was returning. Reluctantly, but with suppressed excitement,
Anne wended her way northwards.
There were only ten days left before the first recital, and she found
Alexis more engrossed in his work than ever. Her little absence had in
some measure restored his former independence. Almost automatically, the
situation adjusted itself. They saw less and less of each other, meeting
sometimes for lunch, sometimes for tea at a quiet restaurant. Anne made
only one trip to Long Island. She found Alexis absent-minded, more
erratic than ever. His eyes, brilliantly hard, seemed to be focussed
entirely upon the future. His manner toward herself was less apologetic,
more assured.
Anne took up her customary life with indifference. Seeing as little as
possible of Ellen and her friends, she treated the former with a cold
cordiality which if not an actual declaration of war, constituted a
challenge. Gerald Boynton frequented the house as usual, however. A tame
cat is a great convenience to a woman like Anne. A necessary escort, he
was at her beck and call at all moments, to secure theater tickets, and
even to run errands. Caldenas came to see her once or twice, and Anne
found herself liking him well enough to promise to sit for her portrait.
But all this was merely artificial, a stuffing of cotton into the void
of time. Weary of New York as never before, Anne longed for her villa in
Florence, her sun-baked terrace, the pungent smell of the black earth
awakening in anticipation of spring. Nothing but Alexis and his need
could have kept her in New York another day.
Later, when the New York concerts would be over, and Alexis had gone on
tour, she, too, would flit. Then he could follow her if he desired, and
they might meet somewhere on the Continent. But not in Florence. No, not
there, where her memories were all of Vittorio. She could not receive
Alexis within a stone's throw of Vittorio's mother, that beautiful old
lady, who had so often joined her pleas to his. Indeed, she could not
find it in her heart to return to Florence at all, if it were not that
she was so sure that Vittorio would be in Sicily. Ah, Vittorio! There
was a man, if you please! A Grand Seigneur, and yet a worker. One of the
best. Where was he now? Still in Mexico digging up Aztec relics, or had
the ocean already separated them?
Arrived here, Anne would sigh and push the rebellious thought back into
her teeming subconscious, much as a careless housemaid sweeps
undesirables beneath the bed. By her own action, she had closed the door
between Vittorio and all of his forever. Was she not above peeking
through the keyhole?
She fixed her eyes resolutely upon the actualities of the present.