She kept her word. To Mrs. Irving she merely said that she had already
trespassed too long upon their hospitality, and that she thought it best
to go away. She had talked with Herr Kaufmann, and he had advised her to
go to the city and have her voice trained. Yes, she would write, and
would always think of them kindly.
Lynn, who had passed the first sleepless night of his life, went to the
train with her, but few words were spoken. Iris was cool, dignified, and
cruelly formal. An immeasurable distance lay between them, and one, at
least, made no effort to lessen it.
They had only a few minutes to wait, and, just as the train came in
sight, Lynn bent over her. "Iris," he said, unsteadily, "if you ever
want me, will you promise me that you will let me know?"
"Yes," she replied, with an incredulous laugh, "if I ever want you, I
will let you know."
"I will go to you," said Lynn, struggling for his self-control, "from
the very end of the world. Just send me the one word: 'Come.' And let me
thank you now for all the happiness you have given me, and for the
memory of you, which I shall have in my heart for always."
"You are quite welcome," she returned, frigidly. "You--" but the roar of
the train mercifully drowned her words.
The sun still shone, the birds did not cease their singing. Outwardly,
the world was just as fair, even though Iris had gone. Lynn walked away
blindly, no longer dull, but keenly alive to his hurt.
From the crucible of Eternity, Time, the magician, draws the days. Some
are wholly made of beauty; of wide sunlit reaches and cool silences.
Some of dreams and twilight, with roses breathing fragrance through the
dusk. Some of darkness, wild and terrible, lighted only by a single
star. Others still of riving lightnings and vast, reverberating
thunders, while the heart, swelled to bursting, breaks on the reef of
Pain.
It seemed as though Lynn's heart were rising in an effort to escape. "I
must keep it down," he thought. It was like an imprisoned bird, cut,
bruised, and bleeding, beating against the walls of flesh. And yet,
there was a hand upon it, and the iron fingers clutched unmercifully.
Iris had gone, and the dream was at an end. Iris had gone, flouting him
to the last, calling his love an insult. "Machine--clod--mountebank"--
the bitter words rang through his consciousness again and again.
It might be true, part of it at least. Herr Kaufmann had told him, more
than once, that he played like a machine. Clod? Possibly. Mountebank?
That might be, too. Trickster with the violin, trickster with words?
Perhaps. But a thing without a heart? Lynn laughed bitterly and put his
hand against his breast to quiet the throbbing.
No one knew--no one must ever know. Iris would not betray him, he was
sure of that, but he must be on his guard lest he should betray himself.
He must hide it, must keep on living, and appear to be the same. His
mother's keen eyes must see nothing amiss. Fortunately, he could be
alone a great deal--outdoors, or practising, and at night. He shuddered
at the white night through which he had somehow lived, and wondered how
many more would follow in its train.
Suddenly, he remembered that it was his lesson day, and he was not
prepared. Common courtesy demanded that he should go up to Herr
Kaufmann's, and tell him that he did not feel like taking his
lesson--that he had a headache, or something of the kind--that
he had hurt his wrist, perhaps.
He hoped that Fraeulein Fredrika would come to the door, and that he
might leave his message with her, but it was Herr Kaufmann who answered
his ring.
"So," said the Master, "you are once more late."
"No," answered Lynn, refusing to meet his eyes, "I just came to tell you
that I couldn't take my lesson to-day. I don't think," he stammered,
"that I can ever take any more lessons."
"And why?" demanded the Master. "Come in!"
Before he realised it, he was in the parlour, gay with its accustomed
bright colours. One look at Lynn's face had assured Herr Kaufmann that
something was wrong, and, for the first time, he was drawn to his pupil.
"So," said the Master. "Mine son, is it not well with you?"
Lynn turned away to hide the working of his face. "Not very," he
answered in a low tone.
"Miss Iris," said the Master, "she will have gone away?"
It was like the tearing of a wound. "Yes," replied Lynn, almost in a
whisper, "she went this morning."
"And you are sad because she has gone away? I am sorry mineself. Miss
Iris is one little lady."
"Yes," returned Lynn, clenching his hands, "she is."
Something in the boy's eyes stirred an old memory, and made the Master's
heart very tender toward him. "Mine son," he said very gently, "if
something has troubled you, perhaps it will give you one relief to tell
me. Only yesterday Miss Iris was here. She was very sad when she came,
and when she went away the world was more sunny, or so I think."
Quickly surmising that Herr Kaufmann had something more than a hint of
it, and more eager for sympathy than he realised, Lynn stammered out the
story, choking at the end of it.
There was a long silence, in which the Master went back twenty-five
years. Lynn's eyes, so full of trouble, were they not like another's,
long ago? The organ-tone of the thunder once more reverberated through
the forest, where the great boughs arched like the nave of a cathedral,
and the dead leaves scurried in fright before the rising wind.
"That is all," said the boy, his face white to the lips. "It is not
much, but it is a great deal to me."
"So," said the Master, scornfully, "you are to be an artist and you are
afraid of life! You are summoned to the ranks of the great and you
shrink from the signal--cover your ears, that you shall not hear the
trumpet call! This, when you should be on your knees, thanking the good
God that at last He has taught you pain!"
Lynn's face was pitiful, and yet he listened eagerly.
"There is no half-way point," the Master was saying; "if you take it,
you must pay. Nothing in this world is free but the sun and the fresh
air. You must buy shelter, food, clothing, with the work of your hands
and brain. If someone else gives it to you, it is not yours--you are one
parasite. You must earn it all.
"You think you can take all, and give nothing? It is not so. For six,
eight years now, you study the violin. You learn the scales, the
technique, the good wrist, and nothing else. I teach you all I can, but
it must come from yourself, not me. I can only guide--tell you when you
have made one mistake.
"What is it that the art is for? Is it for one great assembly of people
to pay the high price for admission? 'See,' they say, 'this young man,
what good tone he has, what bowing, what fine wrist! How smooth he plays
his concerto! When it is marked fortissimo, see how he plays fortissimo!
It is most skilful!' Is the art for that? No!
"It is for everyone in the world who has known trouble to be lifted up
and made strong. They care nothing for the means, only for the end. They
have no eyes for the fine bowing, the good wrist--what shall they know
of technique? And yet you must have the technique, else you cannot give
the message.
"Everyone that hears has had his own sorrow. None of them are new ones,
they are all old, and so few that one person can suffer all. It is for
you to take that, to know the hurt heart and the rebellious soul, so
that you can comfort, lift up, and make noble with your art.
"And you--you cry out when you should be glad. Miss Iris does not love
you, and beyond that you do not see. Suppose one thousand people were
before you, and all had loved someone who did not care for them. Could
you make it easier if you knew nothing of it by yourself?
"Listen. On a hill in Italy there was once a tree. It was a seed at the
beginning, a seed you could hold with the ends of your fingers, so. It
was buried in the ground, covered up with earth like something that had
died. Do you think the seed liked that?
"But is it afraid, when its heart is swelling? No! It breaks through,
with the great hurt. Still there is earth around it, still it is buried,
but yet it aspires. One day it comes to the surface of the ground, and
once more it breaks through, with pain.
"But the sun is bright and warm, and the seed grows. Careless feet
trample upon it--there is yet one more hurt. But it straightens, waits
through the long nights for the blessed sun, and so on, until it is so
high as one bush.
"Constantly, there is growing, one aspiration upward. Bark comes and the
tree swells outward, always with pain. Someone cuts off all the lower
branches, and the tree bleeds, yet keeps on. Other branches come thick
about it; there is one struggle, but through the dense growth the tree
climbs, always upward. In the sun above the thick shade, it can laugh at
the ache and the thorns, but it does not forget.
"And so, upward, always upward, till it is lifted high above its
fellows. Birds come there to sing, to build their nests, to rear their
young, to mourn when one little bird falls out from the nest and is made
dead.
"The sun shines fiercely, and it nearly dies in the heat. The storm
comes and it is shrouded in ice--made almost to die with the cold. The
wild winds rock it and tear off the branches, making it bleed--there
must always be pain. The thunders play over its head, the lightnings
burn it, and yet its heart lives on. The rains beat upon it like one
river, and still it grows.
"The years go by and each one brings new hurt, but the tree is made hard
and strong. One day there comes a man to look at it, all the straight
fine length, the smooth trunk. 'It will do,' he says, and with his axe
he chops it down. Do you think it does not hurt the tree? After the long
years of fighting, to be cut like that?
"Then it falls, crashing heavy through the branches to the ground. See,
there must always be pain, even at the end. Then more cutting, more
bleeding, more heat, more cold. Fine tools--steel knives that tear and
split the fibres apart. Do you think it does not hurt? More sun, more
cold, still more cutting, tearing, and throwing aside. Then, one day, it
is finished, and there is mine Cremona--all the strength, all the
beauty, all the pain, made into mine violin!
"But the end is not yet. God is working with me and mine as well as with
mine instrument. As yet, I do not know that it is for me--it comes to me
through pain.
"One old gentleman, one of the first to travel abroad from this country
for pleasure, he goes to Italy, he finds it in the hands of one ignorant
drunkard, and he buys it for little. He brings it home, but he cannot
play, and no one else can play; he does not know its value, but it
pleases him and he takes it. For long years, it stays in one attic, with
the dust and the cobwebs, kicked aside by careless feet.
"Meanwhile, I know one lovely young lady. I meet her by chance, and we
like each other, oh, so much! 'Franz,' she says to me, 'you live on one
hill in West Lancaster, and mine mother, she would never let me speak
with you, so I must see you sometimes, quite by accident, elsewhere. On
pleasant days, I often go to walk in the woods. Mine mother likes me to
be outdoors.' So, many times, we meet and we talk of strange things.
Each day we love each other more, and all the time her mother does not
suspect. We plan to go away together and never let anyone know until we
are married and it is too late, but first I must find work.
"'Franz,' she says to me one day, 'up in mine attic there is one old
violin, which I think must be valuable. Mine mother is away with a
friend and the house is by itself. Will you not come up to see?'
"So we go, and the house is very quiet. No one is there. We go like two
thieves to the attic, laughing as though we were children once more.
Presently we find the violin, and I see that it is one Cremona, very
old, very fine, but with no strings. I fit on some strings that I have
in mine pocket, but there is no bow and I can only play pizzicato. I
need to hear the tone but one moment to know what it is that I have. 'It
is most wonderful,' I say, and then the door opens and one very angry
lady stands there.
"She tells me that I shall never come into that house again, that I must
go right away, that I have no--what do you say?--no social place, and
that I am not to speak with her daughter. To her she says: 'I will
attend to you very soon.' We creep down the stairs together and mine
Beloved whispers: 'Every day at four, at the old place, until I come.' I
understand and I go away, but mine heart is very troubled for her.
"For long days I wait, and every day, at four, I am at the
meeting-place in the wood, but no one comes, and there is no message, no
word. All the time I feel as you feel now because Miss Iris has gone
away and does not care. I wait and wait, but I can get no news, and I
fear to go to the house because I shall perhaps harm mine Beloved, and
she has told me what to do. Every day I am there, even in the rain,
waiting.
"At last she comes, with the violin under her arm, wrapped in her coat.
'I have only one minute,' she cries; 'they are going to take me away,
and we can never see each other again. So I give you this. You must keep
it, and when you are sad it will tell you how much I love you, how much
I shall always love you. You will not forget me,' she says. There is
just one instant more together, with the thunders and the lightnings all
around us, then I am alone, except for mine violin.
"Do you not see? There must always be pain. The dear God has made mine
instrument, and in the same way He has made me, with the cutting and the
bruises and the long night. I, too, have known the storm and all the
fury of the winds and rain. Like the tree, I have aspired, I have grown
upward, I have done the best I could. Otherwise, I should not be fitted
to play on mine Cremona--I would not deserve to touch it, and so, in a
way, I am glad.
"I have had mine fame," he went on. "With the sorrow in mine heart, I
have studied and worked until I have made mineself one great artist. If
you do not believe, I can show you the papers, where much has been
written of me and mine violin. Women have cried when I have played, and
have thrown their red roses to me. I had the technique, and when the
hurt broke open mine heart, I was immediately one artist. I understood,
I could play, I could lift up all who suffered, because I had known
suffering mineself.
"Mine son, do you not understand? You can give only what you have. If
one sorrow is in your heart, if you have learned the beauty and the
nobility of it, you can teach others the same thing. You can show them
how to rise above it, like the tree that had one long lifetime of hurt,
and ended in mine Cremona to help all who hear. The one who plays the
instrument must be made in the same way, of the same influences--the
cutting, the night, and the cold. Of softness nothing good ever comes,
for one must always fight.
"Nothing in this whole world is free but the sun and the fresh air and
the water to drink. We must pay the fair price for all else. I have had
mine fame and I have paid mine price, but the heights are lonely, and
sometimes I think it would be better to walk in the valley with a
woman's hand in mine. But at the first, before I knew, I chose. I said:
'I will be an artist,' and so I am, but I have paid, oh, mine son, I
have paid and I am still paying! There is no end!"
The Master's face was grey and haggard, but his eyes burned. Lynn saw
what it had cost him to open this secret chamber--to lay bare this old
wound. "And I," he said huskily, "I touched the Cremona!"
"Yes," said the Master, sadly, "on that first day, you lifted up mine
Cremona, and until to-day I have never forgiven. There has been
resentment in mine old heart for you, though I have tried to put it
aside. Her hands were last upon it--hers and mine. When I touched it, it
was the place where her white fingers rested, where many a time I put
mine kiss to ease mine heart. And you, you took that away from me!"
"If I had only known," murmured Lynn.
"But you did not know," said the Master, kindly; "and to-day I have
forgiven."
"Thank you," returned Lynn, with a lump in his throat; "it is much to
give."
"Sometimes," sighed the Master, "when I have been discouraged, I have
been very hungry for someone to understand me--someone to laugh, to
touch mine tired eyes, to make me forget with her little sweet ways. In
mine fancy, I have seen it all, and more.
"When I have gone down the hill to the post-office, where there has
never been the letter from her, and the little children have run to me,
holding out their arms that I should take them up, I have felt that the
price was too high that I have paid. But all the time I have understood
that on the heights one must go alone, for a time at least, with the
thunders and the lightnings and the storms. If I had been given one son,
I think he would have been like you, one fine tall young fellow with the
honest face and the laughing ways, but you have been shielded, and I
should not have done so. I should have let you grow from the start and
learn all things so soon as you could."
"I never knew my father," Lynn said, deeply moved, "but if I could
choose, I would choose you."
"So," said the Master, his eyes filling. Then their hands met in a long
clasp of understanding.
"Already I am the richer for it," Lynn went on, after a little. "I know
now what I did not know before."
The boy's face was still white, but the look of hopeless despair was
merged into something which foreshadowed ultimate acceptance. The Master
still held his hand.
"If you are to be an artist," he said, once more, "you must not be
afraid of life. You must welcome it to its utmost cross. You must take
the cold, the heat, the poverty, the hunger, the burning way through the
desert, the snow-clad steeps, the keen hurt, and the happiness--it is
all one, for it gives you knowledge. You must know all the pain of the
world, face to face, if you are to help those who bear it. Keen feelings
give you the great hurt, but also, in payment, the great joy. The
balance swings true. The Herr Doctor has told me this. He is most wise;
he understands."
"I see," answered Lynn. "I will never be afraid again."
"That," said the Master, with his face alight,--"that is mine son's true
courage. Take it with your head up, your teeth shut, and your heart
always believing. Fear nothing, and much will be given back to you,--is
it not so? Let life do all it can--you will never be crushed unless you
are willing that it should be so. Defeat comes only to those who invite
it."
"I see," said Lynn, again; "with all my heart I thank you."
He went away soon afterward, insensibly comforted. Overnight, he had
come into his heritage of pain, had lost the girl he loved, and in swift
restitution found comradeship with the Master.
That stately figure lingered long before his vision, grey and rugged,
yet with a certain graciousness--simple, kindly, and yet austere; one
who had accepted his sorrow, and, by some alchemy of the spirit,
transmuted it into universal compassion, to speak, through the Cremona,
to all who could understand.