passage, six flower-maidens, bearing the debatable centrepiece, entered
from the opposite doorway. The seneschal joined them immediately, and
without a word set Tonin's lion in the centre of the snowy field,
enclosed on every side by drifts of Parma violets. Vittori then abruptly
directed the maidens to enter the banquet-hall with their ornament.
That the seneschal was alarmed lest the duke would not be pleased with
this hastily contrived decoration, Tonin read at a glance; and
impulsively he threw himself before the carriers to stay their progress.
"Don't send it in if it isn't right, Master Vittori! Try something else,
please!" he implored.
"Hist! Let them go, let them go! I have nothing else to send, so I must
stand or fall by your butter-toy. Alas for me, and you, too, sirrah, if
the duke be vexed!"
A strained silence fell upon the group in the rear passage as the
flower-maidens crossed the main corridor and entered the banquet-hall.
The grooms and maids exchanged significant nods and winks, old Vittori
unconsciously pressed his keys tightly to his breast, Pasino withdrew
into the shadow, and Tonin waited in acute suspense, wondering whether
in his desire to relieve the seneschal's dilemma he had been guilty of a
childish and ignorant blunder. As the seconds flew by, the boy's
perplexity increased, and presently he was writhing with the fear that
his offering would affront the duke, and perhaps even render him
ridiculous before the lords and ladies who sat at the board.
Sounds of harps and violins greeted them from beyond the velvet-hung
portal, but none in the rear passage regarded the melody.
Five minutes dragged by, and one of the flower-maidens stepped into the
corridor. Each person in the rear passage started breathlessly forward
to hear her message.
"His grace desires the seneschal to come to him."
"My-o! My-o!" groaned Vittori; "mercy knows what he'll do to me--and to
you, too, Tonin Canova!"
Pausing just long enough to settle his scarlet robe and adjust his linen
neckcloth, the seneschal concealed his distress as well as he could, and
walked sedately into the banquet-hall.
Tonin locked his hands together in despair.
"What a dunce I was--I, Tonin Canova, who has never been off this
mountain--to dare to set up my little work before grand persons like
those! Oh, oh! and poor Vittori may be discharged on account of it!"
Suddenly the seneschal reappeared.
"Tonin, you are wanted at once! His grace has sent for you. Hurry! Go
on!"
"Not in _there_!" gasped Tonin, retreating toward the stair door; "I
should die of fright before those great folk."
"Hurry, hurry, you impudent monkey! Do you think you can keep the Duke
d'Asolo waiting?"
To make an end of the argument, Vittori seized the boy by the arm,
giving him a push that sent him into the banquet-room with a rush.
Tonin was half-blinded by the myriads of lights, and quite dazed by the
grandeur of the spectacle. He dimly comprehended that the vast apartment
was hung with vines and banked with flowers; that a table like a huge
cross ran the entire length and nearly the breadth of the room; that the
Duke d'Asolo sat at the upper end, and that hosts of ladies and
gentlemen in gorgeous raiment turned about in their chairs and fixed
their eyes upon the young visitor.
A scalding wave of shame rushed upward through Tonin's body, scorching
his cheeks and dyeing his neck as he became conscious of his own
workaday garb. He came to an abrupt stop, standing with downcast eyes
before the Venetian company, a truly diverting figure with his loose
blouse, rolled-up trousers and sleeves, bare arms, bare legs, and
dripping apron.
"Come, my lad, and tell us something about yourself," said the duke in a
tone surprisingly gentle for one who palpitated with wrath and
vengeance.
Tonin made his way slowly up the room, pausing at the duke's elbow, and
raising his eyes just far enough to get a glimpse of his yellow lion on
the table, directly before Giovanni Falier.
"When did you do this?" inquired the master of the feast, indicating the
ornament with his jewelled index finger.
"To-night," admitted Tonin feebly.
"Can you make other figures and objects?"
"Yes, signor."
"Where did you learn?"
"From grandfather, signor."
"I have been greatly surprised this evening, as also have been my
guests, at sight of this--this decoration, and ahem--"
"Now it's coming," thought Tonin in a panic. "Perhaps he'll put me in a
dungeon."
"I have sent it clear around the table so that every one might examine
it closely, and we all agree about it. How should you like to make
statues, lad,--nymphs, you know, and fairies--"
"And goddesses like that one upstairs?" cried Tonin, his face alight
with this unexpected turn of the conversation.
"Yes."
"Oh, oh! I'd rather make a goddess like that than to be a king, or _go
to the carnival_!"
A chorus of laughter greeted this outburst, and Tonin trembled with
embarrassment and surprise.
"Then you shall," the duke declared with a smile like April sunshine.
"You must have worked pretty hard, harder than most boys ever do, to be
able to make this," pointing to the lion; "and if you are willing to
keep on working, you may learn to do great things. You shall go to
Toretto, the sculptor who did the four pieces upstairs, and he will
teach you to make statues as good. Shall you like it, my boy?"
"Like it! Oh, signor, if I had a chance to learn anything so beautiful
I'd work--I'd work--"
A vision of the glistening goddess and her wordless grace came before
him, causing something to spring up in his throat that choked him. Twice
he tried to finish his eager speech, but the words did not come. He gave
a quick, eloquent gesture of entreaty, and down went his face into his
hands before them all.
"A toast, a toast!" exclaimed the duke, springing to his feet with
upraised glass. "We'll pledge in water, if you please, good people, for
clear water and unspoiled childhood are the purest things of earth.
Ladies and gentlemen, I offer you our little friend, Tonin Canova. May
he work faithfully with his teacher day by day, and when he comes to
manhood, may he be good and great and happy! God bless him!"
Clink, clink, went the glasses.
Tonin raised his head, and as he turned to withdraw, he whispered to the
duke with a beaming smile,--
"I don't know any nice words to say, but maybe you'll tell all the
people for me how a boy feels when he's too happy to laugh and too happy
to cry."
Up the Alpine road to the village of mud-walled cabins rode a man one
day in autumn. His air was that of an experienced traveller, his dress
rich but modest, his horse a spirited charger.
At the entrance to the village, a turn in the road brought him face to
face with a man in peasant attire who was walking in the opposite
direction. The rider bent curiously, and gazed down at the passer-by
with keenest interest; then bringing his horse sharply to a standstill,
he cried,--
"Pablo! Don't you remember me?"
The man by the way halted in surprise. For a moment he regarded the
stranger blankly, then some memory out of his boyhood seemed to awaken,
for suddenly he seized the horse's bridle with both hands, and
shouted,--
"Tonin Canova! By all the fates and furies, you are the last man in the
world I expected to see to-day!"
"I knew you by your quick and springy step. I suppose you are still the
leader of the town, Pablo, the foremost citizen of Passagno."
A flush of pride crept into the peasant's cheek, but he merely waved his
hand toward the extensive vineyard lying further down the slope.
"That is mine. That's all."
"And enough, too, old friend. Your purse must be ready to overflow,
after a harvest from that fine vineyard."
The peasant blushed again and nodded. Then half timidly he addressed the
other,--
"I'm glad to see you again, signor--"
The rider lifted his hand in rebuke.
"Not _signor_ to me, Pablo! I am still your friend, and not in any wise
changed from the lad who played with you in this very roadway."
"But you have grown powerful and wealthy!"
"Ye-es, but gold coins can never make me anything else than I was
before."
"But we have heard that the city of Venice gave you a pension for your
whole life, because you had made such wonderful statues."
"Yes, Venice has been good to me."
"And that all the great people of Rome are friends with you."
"True, but--"
"That the Pope has written your name in the golden book of the capital."
"So he did; still--"
"That Napoleon of France invited you to his court, and that the German
Emperor has even made you a knight."
"Hark to me, Pablo!" and this time the rider's voice was commanding.
"These things are indeed true, for people everywhere have shown me the
rarest kindness; but while the palace doors of all Europe are open to me
if I care to enter, and ladies and gentlemen of every nation pour their
compliments and gold upon me, my heart has turned back to my native
village and the dear simple friends of my childhood. I have left the
great world for a time, and have come back to see the old faces; and
Pablo, on that slope, near the little cottage,"--here his voice broke,
as he pointed to the last of the mud-walled cabins,--"I have planned to
build a church as beautiful as the Parthenon at Athens. If my good old
neighbors cannot travel far enough to see the temples of the world, they
shall have one near at hand, which will show them that Canova has not
forgotten them."
True to his word, the sculptor lingered in Passagno until there had
risen on the mountain side a classic, snowy edifice which was the
wonder and pride of all the villagers. When the builders had finished
and had gone their way, the man who had designed it all put on his
apron, took up his chisel, and completed for the altar ornaments that he
had begun twenty years before, when he had lived in the cabin just over
the way.
How the people rejoiced in their pillared house of worship, and how
grateful they were to the giver of so splendid a gift. Warmly they bade
him farewell when his task was at length completed, and he was obliged
to go in order to execute the greater works that awaited him.
At last, in the city of Rome, when the sculptor's hair whitened, his
step faltered, and his heart grew strangely still, the friends about
him, a brilliant company, carried him tenderly up the Alpine road, and
laid him to rest beneath the altar of his own carving.
When the service was ended, the lords and ladies, the princes and
cardinals, the poets and teachers who had paid him their devotion to
the last, wound their way slowly down to the turbulent world; and Tonin
Canova slept on the mountain side, in the heart of his Alpine village.
FRÉDÉRIC OF WARSAW
[CHOPIN[4]]
It was the evening study hour at Nicholas Chopin's boarding-school.
Twenty-five lads belonging to the oldest families of Warsaw were
assembled in the schoolroom, preparing lessons for the following day.
The place was large, well lighted, and comfortably warmed; good pictures
hung on the walls, and racks of books filled every available nook. At
the upper end of the room, near the master's desk, stood an open piano;
and at the lower, a table bearing plates, cups, and wholesome
refreshments which would be distributed among the boys when study-hour
was over. Throughout the room great cheerfulness and comfort reigned,
and the apple-cheeked boys at the desks showed that they were generously
cared for under this kindly roof. They were mostly little fellows,
ranging in age from eight to twelve years, and a merrier company one
would journey far to find.
When Nicholas Chopin sat behind the desk, this hour was always a quiet
one; for while he was indulgent with the boys out of school, furthering
their enjoyment with all his heart, he was also a strict and thorough
teacher, who would tolerate no disturbance from the pupils during
lesson-time.
But to-night the master was absent, and the new assistant, a mild-eyed,
pale young man, sat in Nicholas Chopin's chair and sought to keep the
boys at their tasks. He had been among them but two or three days, and
at the very beginning the pupils had decided that this was his first
attempt at teaching. His soft voice and worried look filled the boys
with glee; and half their playtime was spent in making plans to mock and
deride him. Until now, however, they had failed to carry out their
mischievous schemes, for Nicholas Chopin had compelled them to treat
the new assistant with respectful obedience. But to-night the master had
gone from home, leaving his assistant in full charge of the school, and
the boys threw all rules to the winds for the sole purpose of vexing the
new teacher.
Instead of the usual stillness maintained at this hour, the room was
a-buzz with whispers. The boys noisily shuffled their feet, rattled
their papers, and tossed their books about on their desks. The teacher
rapped sharply with his ruler again and again, but these warnings were
greeted with impudent chuckles and laughter.
At one of the side desks sat Frédéric Chopin, the master's son, toiling
at a much blotted copy-book. He was heartily liked by every boy in the
house, and for some reason, whenever he spoke in his quiet way, the
others obeyed his wishes without a syllable of complaint. John
Skotricki, who had the strongest arms and legs at school, was the
ringleader on the playground; but Frédéric was chief councillor and
fun-maker at all other times and places. Although the master's son, he
enjoyed no special favor or liberty, but was held to the same line of
duty prescribed for the other students. In the classroom he was not
noticeably clever, for he was very bad at numbers, and it is doubtful if
he could have found his own country on the great globe in the corner;
but there was one thing that Frédéric Chopin could do better than any
other boy in the school, better than any other boy in Warsaw, better,
probably, than any other boy in all the country of Poland: he could play
magnificently on the piano. So remarkably he played that everybody
wondered, and strangers often came to the house for a glimpse of the
young musician.
A year before, when he was nine, he had played at a great charity
concert given in the city hall, and after the performance the people had
surged by the stage to shake his hand and praise him; and in the
excitement and pleasure of it all, he might have become very vain of his
powers and success, but he remembered just in time that while he could
play brilliantly on the piano, he could not jump as far by ten inches as
John Skotricki, and that he did not know as much about grammar as the
youngest pupil at school.
One boy who had attended the concert, and who loved music passionately,
was the young Prince Radziwill. He decided that evening that he would
like to know the boy pianist, and soon it was no uncommon thing for the
prince's carriage to roll up to the Chopin school. Frédéric went often
with the young nobleman to drive, sometimes even accompanying him home
to the palace; but of these things he never spoke to the boys at school,
and not one of them was jealous because Frédéric had become the prince's
friend.
He practised diligently for many hours every day in his own room; but he
never mentioned the subject of music to the other lads, and when in
their company he was as happy-go-lucky as any schoolboy in Warsaw.
To-night, however, when he saw the new teacher's face flush with
displeasure in the noisy schoolroom, he felt a bit sorry, for he knew
that the young man would prove to be a good-natured companion if he were
not enraged at the outset.
Frédéric glanced uneasily about him from time to time as the confusion
increased, realizing that even the most patient of teachers would not
long endure such rebellion. He, as much as any one, enjoyed the antics
that kept the whole school tittering, and was strongly tempted to join
in the mutiny; but he had promised his father to stand by the new
assistant this evening, and he felt honor-bound to do it.
The crisis came when John Skotricki leaped from his seat and ran down
the room in pursuit of a boy who had given him a cuff on the ear in
passing. The teacher sprang up with an angry light in his eye, and
flourished the ruler threateningly. Frédéric exchanged glances with the
assistant, and threw down his pen with the announcement,--
"Boys, if you'll all be quiet in your seats, I'll tell you a story."
The others, supposing that Frédéric was on their side, and that this was
a part of the joke, folded their arms; and instantly the room grew so
still that one could hear the ticking of the clock in the hall beyond.
Frédéric turned out all the lights, for "a story always sounds better in
the dark," he explained. Then seating himself at the piano, he began to
speak, playing all the while music that helped to tell his story.
Every student rested his arms on his desk, and bent attentively to
listen.
"Once upon a time there stood a great house on the bank of a lonely
river." (Here came a lightly running passage on the piano, like the
rippling of water.) "A band of robbers riding through the country paused
in the glade at nightfall. Seeing the old mansion by the river side,
they decided to force an entrance at midnight and carry away the gold
and jewels that were probably secreted there.
"They laid their plans carefully" (sounds of many gruff, deep-toned
voices, one at a time, then all together in a rumbling chorus), "and at
the solemn hour they had chosen" (twelve clanging tones), "they tied
their horses farther up the dell, and marched, two by two, toward the
house by the swirling river. Noiselessly they approached and surrounded
the many-pinnacled dwelling, each robber choosing a window through which
he would make his entrance. At the signal of the leader" (a high faint
trill), "each man climbed to his window ledge, sawed straight through
the iron bars that protected it" (a steady rasping sound as of edged
tools), "and ripped out the glass with the point of his dagger"
(tinklings as of shattered crystal).
"Now for the treasures! Each man had one foot inside the house, and one
hand on the inner sill, when, all at once, lights flared up in every
room" (a reckless sweep of notes), "dogs barked fiercely, shouts were
heard from the upper corridors, pistol-shots burst on the stillness of
the night, and the robbers leaped from their perches, rolling over and
over in the mud below" (loud discordant notes, and the _bang, bang_ of
the pistols mingled with the furious growling and yelping of dogs).
"Gaining their feet in a twinkling, the robbers fled as swiftly as
though wearing wings on their boots; and reaching the horses in
breathless fright, they swung themselves into their saddles and galloped
madly away. Hour after hour they rode" (pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat of the
hoof-beats), "through valley and village and glen. On, on they spurred"
(pit-a-pat, pit-a-pat), "until they came to a deep, dense forest. Into
its shadows they plunged, knowing that here they would be safe at last
from the dogs and the men who lived in the house by the rolling river.
"They pulled up their horses and listened" (silence), "and listened"
(silence), "but heard no pursuing feet. So, dismounting, they turned
their horses loose to nibble at will, and jaded by hours of reckless
riding, the robbers threw themselves upon the green turf to rest. The
scents of the flowers were sweet, the grass was deep and soft, the
leaves overhead rustled, rustled, rustled, and ere long, in the cool of
the summer's dawn, the weary robbers--fell--asleep."
So quietly had Frédéric spoken, so softly had he played as he described
the woodland sounds, that, gently touching the final chord, he
discovered, by the moonlight streaming in through the windows, that
twenty-four boys, like the tired robbers, were fast asleep.
[Illustration: "Like the tired robbers, were fast asleep."]
Stealing from the room on tiptoe, he summoned his sisters and the
servants to bring in lights; then stepping to the piano, he struck one
crashing chord.
As though a bomb had exploded among them, the boys started from their
slumbers, rubbing their eyes and staring stupidly at one another.
At that moment the clock chimed the hour of dismissal, and Nicholas
Chopin entered the room; whereupon the pupils bounded from their seats
with shouts of laughter over the musical spell that Frédéric had cast
upon them.
When the cups and plates went round, the new teacher drew the master
into the hall and told him how cleverly Frédéric had helped him to
maintain order; but in the schoolroom the lads were waving their
sandwiches and napkins, and cheering the master's son as a jolly comrade
and a true-blue mate.
The city of Warsaw adored its composer, Frédéric Chopin. The residents
detected hidden meanings in his playing of the piano which they
believed would sometime be accepted beyond the realm of Poland.
He was young, handsome, and gay, and his companionship was sought on
every side. Had not his breast been stirred by an impulse stronger than
the mere desire for popularity, Frédéric Chopin would have developed
into nothing more than an elegant young musician, the acknowledged
favorite of his fellow-townsmen. But he was not content to end his
career so tamely. He must see the world. He must conquer the public
beyond his native land. He must play, he must compose, he must work and
study to greater ends.
Accordingly, one day in November, at the age of twenty-one, he set out
for Vienna. When he found himself actually leaving kindred and home
behind, a flood of sadness swept over him.
"I shall never return," he groaned; "my eyes will never look upon Warsaw
again!"
His friends responded lightly to these fears, and with their words of
cheer he soon recovered his usual bright spirit.
He was escorted as far as the first day's travel would carry him by a
score of affectionate friends; and at the end of a banquet given in his
honor, he was touched to the heart by one of their number presenting to
him a silver goblet filled with Polish earth, with entreaties that he
would meet the world as a man, and keep his country in constant
remembrance.
In Vienna he attracted much attention by his playing, and at the end of
a year he was accounted one of the leading musical spirits of the city.
He had decided to pay a brief visit to his home and friends, when on his
way he was horrified to learn that his beloved Poland had been seized by
the Russians, that his country was in the hands of the enemy, and that
Warsaw was converted into a camp of foreign soldiers. He dared not
advance farther, as all absent Poles had been warned by the new
Government to keep away from Poland, on pain of death.
Frédéric was nearly crushed by these unlooked-for tidings, and, only
waiting to learn that his parents were safe and well, he set his face
toward Paris. Here he decided to make his home, as had so many others of
his exiled countrymen. Success in this city meant success in the world,
and for this Frédéric Chopin labored through the following years.
His playing was so rare, so peculiarly delicate, that no one in Paris
could approach him in his chosen style. One critic called him "the piano
god," another, "Velvet Fingers"; and when his compositions were printed,
and the people could play them for themselves, they were nigh
transported by his genius.
London vainly besought him to take up his residence there, but he
steadily refused, remaining for the rest of his days in Paris, the pride
of the Parisians and the idol of the many Poles who, like himself, were
exiled from their native land.
When the end came, and the "velvet fingers" were stilled at last, he was
buried from the Church of the Madeleine. Crowds of distinguished persons
and homeless Poles attended the sacred service, and the procession was
numbered by hundreds, that, to the strains of his own "Funeral March,"
followed Frédéric Chopin to the tomb.
Finally, when his body was lovingly laid in the place prepared for it,
one of his countrymen brought forth the silver goblet which for nineteen
years the composer had fondly cherished, and, as the sweetest
benediction he could offer, reverently took a handful of Polish earth
and sprinkled it upon the body of Frédéric of Warsaw.
FOOTNOTE:
[4] Chopin (pronounced _Sho-pang_).