Kitabı oku: «The Devourers», sayfa 17

XVIII

So Nancy did not go to Porto Venere after all. Nor to Spezia. For there was no great violin teacher in either of those blue and lovely places.

There were only balconied rooms, with wide views over the Mediterranean Sea, where Nancy could have written her Book, and seen visions and dreamed dreams; but surely, as Fräulein said, she could write her book in any nice quiet room, with a table in it, and pen and ink, while Anne-Marie must cultivate her gift and her calling. Anne-Marie must study her violin. So Nancy wrote, and explained this to the Ogre, and then she went with Anne-Marie and Fräulein to Prague, where the greatest of all violin-teachers lived, fitting left hands with wonderful technique, and right hands with marvellous pliancy; teaching slim fingers to dance and scamper and skip on four tense strings, and supple wrists to wield a skimming, or control a creeping, bow. And this greatest of teachers took little Anne-Marie to his heart. He also called her the Wunderkind, and set her eager feet, still in their white socks and button shoes, on the steep path that leads up the Hill of Glory.

Nancy unpacked her manuscripts in an apartment in one of the not very wide streets of old Prague; opposite her window was a row of brown and yellow stone houses; she had a table, and pen and ink, and there was nothing to disturb her. True, she could hear Anne-Marie playing the violin two rooms off, but that, of course, was a joy; besides, when all the doors were shut one could hardly hear anything, especially if one tied a scarf or something round one's head, and over one's ears.

So Nancy had no excuse for not working. She told herself so a hundred times a day, as she sat at the table with the scarf round her head, staring at the yellow house opposite. Through the open window came the sound of loud, jerky Czech voices. The strange new language, of which Nancy had learned a few dozen words, rang in her ears continuously: Kavarna … Vychod … Lekarna … the senseless words turned in her head like a many-coloured merry-go-round. Even at night in her dreams she seemed to be holding conversations in Czech. But that would pass, and she would be able to work; for now she had no anxieties and no preoccupations. Fräulein looked after Anne-Marie, body and soul, with unceasing and agitated care, deeming it as important that she should have her walk as that she should play the "Zigeunerweisen," that she should say her prayers as that she should eat her soup. And Nancy had no material preoccupations either. She had decided to accept gratefully, and without scruple, all that she needed for two years from her friend the Ogre. Long before then The Book would be out, and she could repay him. And what mattered repaying him? All he wanted was that she should be happy, and live her own life for two years. He would have to go back to Peru, and stay there for about that period of time. Let her meanwhile live her own life and fulfil her destiny—thus he wrote to her. And the Prager Bankverein had money for her when she needed it.

So Nancy sat before her manuscripts and lived her own life, and tried not to hear the violin, and not to mind interruptions. In her heart was a great longing—the longing to see the Ogre again before he left Europe, a great, aching desire for the blue chilliness of his eyes, for his stern manner, and his gruff voice, and for the shy greatness of his heart that her own heart loved and understood.

And besides this ache was the yearn and strain and sorrow of her destiny unfulfilled. For once again the sense of time passing, of life running out of her grasp, bit at her breast like an adder.

 
"La belle qui veut,
La belle qui n'ose
Cueillir les roses
Du jardin bleu."
 

She sat down and wrote to him. "I cannot work. I cannot work. I am swept away and overwhelmed by some chimeric longing that has no name. My soul drowns and is lost in its indefinite and fathomless desire. Will you take me away before you go, away to some rose-lit, jasmine-starred nook in Italy, where my heart may find peace again? I feel such strength, such boundless, turbulent power, yet my spirit is pinioned and held down like a giant angel sitting in a cave with huge wings furled....

"You have unclosed the sweep of heaven before me; I will bring the sunshot skies down to your feet...."

The door opened, and Fräulein's head appeared, solemn and sibylline, with tears shining behind her spectacles.

"Nancy, to-day for the first time Anne-Marie is to play Beethoven. Will you come?"

Yes, Nancy would come. She followed Fräulein into the room where Anne-Marie was with the Professor and his assistant.

The Professor did not like to play the piano, so he had brought the assistant with him, who sat at the piano, nodding a large, rough black head in time to the music. Anne-Marie was in front of her stand. The Professor, with his hands behind him, watched her. The Beethoven Romance in F began.

The simple initial melody slid smoothly from under the child's fingers, and was taken up and repeated by the piano. The willful crescendo of the second phrase worked itself up to the passionate high note, and was coaxed back again into gentleness by the shy and tender trills, as a wrathful man by the call of a child. Martial notes by the piano. The assistant's head bobbed violently, and now Beethoven led Anne-Marie's bow, gently, by tardigrade steps, into the first melody again. Once more, the head at the piano bobbed over his solo. Then, on the high F, down came the bow of Anne-Marie, decisive and vehement.

"That's right!" shouted the Professor suddenly. "Fa, mi, sol—play that on the fourth string."

Anne-Marie nodded without stopping. Eight accented notes by the piano, echoed by Anne-Marie.

"That is to sound like a trumpet!" cried the master.

"Yes, yes; I remember," said Anne-Marie.

And now for the third time the melody returned, and Anne-Marie played it softly, as in a dream, with a gruppetto in pianissimo that made the Professor push his hands into his pockets, and the assistant turn his head from the piano to look at her. At the end the slowly ascending scales soared and floated into the distance, and the three last, calling notes fell from far away.

No one spoke for a moment; then the Professor went close to the child and said:

"Why did you say, 'I remember' when I told you about the trumpet notes?"

"I don't know," said Anne-Marie, with the vague look she always had after she had played.

"What did you mean?"

"I meant that I understood," said Anne-Marie.

The Professor frowned at her, while his lips worked.

"You said, 'I remember.' And I believe you re member. I believe you are not learning anything new. You are remembering something you have known before."

Fräulein intervened excitedly. "Ach! Herr Professor! I assure you the child has never seen that piece! I have been with her since the first day she überhaupt had the violin, and—"

The Professor waved an impatient hand. He was still looking at Anne-Marie. "Who is it?" and he shook his grey head tremulously. "Whom have we here? Is it Paganini? Or Mozart? I hope it is Mozart." Then he turned to the man at the piano, who had his elbows on the notes, and his face hidden in his hands. "What say you, Bertolini? Who is with us in this involucrum?"

"I know not. I am mute," said the black-haired man in moved tones.

"Thank the Fates that you are not deaf," said the Professor, looking vaguely for his hat, "or you would not have heard this wonder."

Then he took his leave, for he was a busy man. Bertolini remained to pack up the Professor's precious Guarnerius del Gesù, dearer to him than wife and child, and his music, and his gloves, and his glasses, and anything else that he left behind him, for the Professor was an absent-minded man.

Then Nancy said to the assistant: "Are you Italian?"

"Sissignora," said Bertolini eagerly.

"So am I," said Nancy. And they were friends.

Bertolini came the next day to ask if he might practise with "little Wunder," as he called her. He also came the next day, and the day after, and then every day. He was a second-rate violinist, and a third-rate pianist; but he was an absolutely first-rate musician, an extravagant, impassioned, boisterous musician, whose shouts of excitement, after the first half-hour of polite shyness, could be heard all over the house.

Anne-Marie loved to hear him vociferate. She used to watch his face when she purposely played a false note; she liked to see him crinkle up his nose as if something had stung him, and open a wild mouth to shout. Once she played through an entire piece in F, making every B natural instead of flat. "Si bemolle! B flat!" said Bertolini the first time. "Bemolle!" cried Bertolini the second time. "Bemolle!" he roared, trampling on the pedals, and with his hand grasping his hair, that looked like a curly black mat fitted well over his head.

"What is the matter with Bemolle?" asked Fräulein, raising bland eyes from her needlework.

Anne-Marie laughed. "I don't know what is the matter with him. I think he's crazy." And thus Signor Bertolini was christened Bemolle for all time.

Bemolle, who was a composer, now composed no more. He soon became one of the Devoured. His mornings were given up to the Professor; his afternoons he gave to Anne-Marie. He would arrive soon after lunch, and sit down at the piano, tempting the child from playthings or story-book by rippling accompaniments or dulcet chords. And because the Professor had said: "With this child one can begin at the end," Bemolle lured her long before her ninth birthday across the ditches and pitfalls of Ernst and Paganini, over the peaks and crests of Beethoven and Bach.

On the day that Nancy was called from her writing to hear Anne-Marie play Bach's "Chaconne," Nancy folded up the scarf that she had used to cover her ears with, and put it away. Then she took her manuscripts, and kissed them, and said good-bye to them for ever, and put them away.

Soon afterwards the Ogre came to Prague. He had received Nancy's letter about Italy, and had come to answer it in person. It was good to see him again. His largeness filled the room, his mastery controlled and soothed the spirit. He was the "wall" that Clarissa had spoken of in the Villa Solitudine long ago.

Lucky is the woman who belongs to a wall. When she has bruised and fretted herself in trying to push through it, and get round it, and jump over it, let her sit down quietly in its protecting shadow and be grateful.

An hour after his arrival the imperious Anne-Marie was subjugated and entranced, Fräulein was a-bustle and a-quiver with solicitude as to his physical welfare, and Nancy sat back in a large armchair, and felt that nothing could hurt, or ruffle, or trouble her any more.

In the evening, when Fräulein had taken Anne-Marie to bed, the Ogre smoked his long cigar, and said to Nancy:

"There is no jasmine in this season in Italy. And not many roses. But the place that you asked for is ready. It has a large garden. When I have settled you there, I am going to Peru."

"Oh, must you?" said Nancy. "Must you really?"

"The Mina de l'Agua needs looking after. Something has gone wrong with it. I ought to have gone three months ago, when I first wrote to you that I should," said the Ogre. "But enough. That does not concern you."

Nancy looked very meek. "I am sorry," she said apologetically.

"Very well," said the Ogre "Now let us talk about your work and Italy. When do you start?"

Those four words thrilled Nancy with indescribable joy. "When do you start?" What a serene, what an attractive phrase!

"Can you be ready on Thursday?" Again the balm and charm of the question ran into Nancy's veins. She felt that she could listen to questions of this kind for ever. But he stopped questioning, and expected an answer. It was a hesitant answer. She said:

"What about Anne-Marie's violin?"

He waited for her to explain, and she did so. Anne-Marie was going to be a portentous virtuosa. The great master had said so. It would never do to take her away from Prague. Nowhere would she get such lessons, nowhere would there be a Bemolle to devote himself utterly and entirely to her.

The Ogre listened with his eyes fixed on Nancy.

"Well? Then what?"

"Ah!" said Nancy. "Then what!" And she sighed.

"Do you want to leave her here?" asked the Ogre.

"No," said Nancy.

"Do you want to take her with you?"

"N-no," said Nancy.

"Then what?" said the Ogre again.

Nancy raised her clouded eyes under their wing-like eyebrows to his strong face. "Help me," she said.

He finished smoking his cigar without speaking; then he helped her. He looked in her face with his firm eyes while he spoke to her.

He said: "You cannot tread two ways at once. You said your genius was a giant angel sitting in a cave, with huge wings furled."

"Yes; but since then the genius of Anne-Marie has flown with clarion wings into the light."

"You said that your unexpressed thoughts, your unfulfilled destiny, hurt you."

"Yes; but am I to silence a singing fountain of music in order that my silent, unwritten books may live?"

He did not speak for some time. Then he said: "Has it never occurred to you that it might be better for the little girl to be just a little girl, and nothing else?"

"No," said Nancy. "It never occurred to me."

"Might it not have been better if you yourself, instead of being a poet, had been merely a happy woman?"

"Ah, perhaps!" said Nancy. "But Glory looked me in the face when I was young—Glory, the sorcerer!—the Pied Piper!—and I have had to follow. Through the days and the nights, through and over and across everything, his call has dragged at my heart. And, oh! it is not his call that hurts; it is the being pulled back and stopped by all the outstretched hands. The small, everyday duties and the great loves that hold one and keep one and stop one—they it is that break one's heart in two. Yes, in two, for half one's heart has gone away with the Piper." She drew in a long breath, remembering many things. Then she said: "And now he is piping to Anne-Marie. She has heard him, and she will go. And if her path leads over my unfulfilled hopes and my unwritten books, she shall tread and trample and dance on them. And good luck to her!"

"Well, then—good luck to her!" said the Ogre.

And Nancy said: "Thank you."

"Now you are quite clear," he said after a pause; "and you must never regret it. If you want your child to be an eagle, you must pull out your own wings for her."

"Every feather of them!" said Nancy.

"And when you have done so, then she will spread them and fly away from you."

"I know it," said Nancy.

"And you will be alone."

"Yes," said Nancy.

And she closed her eyes to look into the coming years.

XIX

The Ogre remained in Prague a week, and took Anne-Marie on the Moldau and to the White Mountain, to the Stromovka and the Petrin Hill. Bemolle was frantic. For six days Anne-Marie had not touched the violin. He had looked forward to long hours of music with Anne-Marie, and had prepared her entire repertoire carefully in contrasting programmes for the English visitor's pleasure. But the English visitor would have none of it, or very little, and that little not of the best. Not much Beethoven, scarcely any Bach, no Brahms! Only Schubert and Grieg. Short pieces! Then the large man would get up and shake hands, first with Anne-Marie, then with Bemolle, and say "Thank you, thank you," and the music was over.

On the last day of his stay he came before luncheon, and went to the valley of the Sarka alone with "Miss Brown"—he never called Nancy anything else, and she loved the name. It was a clear midsummer day. The country was alight with poppies, like a vulgar summer hat. The heart of Miss Brown was sad.

"I leave this evening," he said, "at 8.40."

"You have told me that twenty times," said Miss Brown.

"I like you to think of it," he said; and she did not answer. "I am going back to the mines, back to Peru—"

"You have said that two hundred times," said Miss Brown pettishly.

He paid no attention. "To Peru," he continued, "and I may have to stay there a year, or two years … to look after the mine. Then I return." He coughed. "Or—I do not return."

No answer.

"You have not changed your mind about going to Italy and writing your book?"

"No," said Nancy, with little streaks of white on each side of her nostrils.

"I thought not."

Then they walked along for a quarter of an hour in silence. The wind ran over the grasses, and the birds sang.

"Nancy!" he said. It was the first time he had called her by her name. She covered her face and began to cry. He did not attempt to comfort her. After a while he said, "Sit down," and she sat on the grass and went on crying.

"Do you love me very much?" he asked.

"Dreadfully," said Nancy, looking up at him helplessly through her tears.

He sat down beside her.

"And do you know that I love you very much?"

"Yes, I know," sobbed Nancy.

There was a short silence. Then he said:

"In one of your letters long ago you wrote: 'This love across the distance, without the aid of any one of our senses, this is the Blue Rose of love, the mystic marvel blown in our souls for the delight of Heaven.' Shall we pluck it, Nancy, and wear it for our own delight?"

The grasses curtseyed and the river ran. He took her hand from her face. Nancy looked at him, and the tears brimmed over.

"Then," she said brokenly, "it would not be the Blue Rose any more."

"True," he said.

"Then it would be a common, everyday, pink-faced flower like every other."

"True," he said again.

She withdrew her hand from his. Then his hand remained on his knee in the sunshine, a large brown hand, strong, but lonely.

"Oh, dear Unknown!" said Nancy; and she bent forward and kissed the lonely hand. "Do not let us throw our blue dream-rose away!"

"Very well," he said—"very well, dear little Miss Brown." And he kissed her forehead for the second time.

That evening he went back to his mines.

XX

The following winter, when Nancy had been in Prague nearly a year, the Professor said:

"Next month Anne-Marie will give an orchestral concert."

"Oh, Herr Professor!" gasped Nancy. "Was giebt's?" asked the Professor.

"Was giebt's?" asked Anne-Marie.

"She is only nine years old."

"Well?" said the Professor.

"Well?" said Anne-Marie.

Who can describe the excitement of the following days? The excitement of Bemolle over the choice of a programme! The excitement of Fräulein over the choice of a dress! The excitement of Nancy, who could close no eye at night, who pictured Anne-Marie breaking down or stopping in the middle of a piece, or beginning to cry, or refusing to go on to the platform, or catching cold the day before! Everyone was febrile and overwrought except Anne-Marie herself, who seemed to trouble not at all about it.

She was to play the Max Bruch Concerto? Gut! And the Fantasia Appassionata? All right. And the Paganini variations on the G string? Very well. And now might she go out with Schop? For Schopenhauer, long-bodied and ungainly, had come with them to Europe, and was now friends with all the gay dogs of Prague.

"I will order the pink dress," said Fräulein.

"Oh no! Let it be white," said Nancy.

"I want it blue," said Anne-Marie.

So blue it was.

One snowy morning Anne-Marie went to her first rehearsal with the orchestra. There was much friendly laughter among the strings and wind, the brass and reeds, when the small child entered through the huge glass doors of the Rudolfinum, followed by Bemolle carrying the violin, Nancy carrying the music, Fräulein carrying the dog, and the Professor in the rear, with his hat pulled down deeply over his head, and a large unlit cigar twisting in his fingers. Anne-Marie was introduced to the Bohemian chef d'orchestre, and was hoisted up to the platform by Fräulein and the Professor. Violins and violas tapped applause on their instruments.

And now Jaroslav Kalas raps his desk with the bâton and raises his arm. Then he remembers something. He stops and bends down to Anne-Marie. Has she the A? Yes, thank you. And the little girl holds the fiddle to her ear and plucks lightly and softly at the strings. She raises it to her shoulder, and stands in position.

Again the conductor taps and raises his arms. B-r-r-r-r-r roll the drums. Re-do-si, re-do-si, re-e, whisper the clarinets. A pause. Anne-Marie lifts her right arm slowly, and strikes the low G—a long vibrating note, like the note of a 'cello. Then she glides softly up the cadenza, and ends on the long pianissimo high D. Bemolle, who has been standing up, sits down suddenly. The Professor, who has been sitting down, stands up. Now Anne-Marie is purling along the second cadenza. Fräulein, beaming in her lonely stall in the centre of the empty hall, nods her head rapidly and continuously. Nancy has covered her face with her hands. But the little girl, with her cheek on the fiddle, plays the concerto and sees nothing. Only once she gives a little start, as the brass instruments blare out suddenly behind her and she turns slightly towards them with an anxious eye. Then she forgets them; and she carries the music along, winding through the andante, gliding through the adagio, tearing past the allegro, leaping into the wild, magnificent finale.

Perfect silence. The orchestra has not applauded. Kalas folds his arms and turns round to look at the Professor. But the Professor is blowing his nose. So Kalas steps down from his desk, and, taking Anne-Marie's hand, lifts it, bow and all, to his lips. Then, stepping back briskly to the desk, he raps for silence. "Vieuxtemps' Fantasie," he says, and the music-sheets are fluttered and turned.

All Prague sat expectant—rustling and murmuring and coughing—in the stalls and galleries of the Rudolfinum, on the night of the concert. The Bohemian orchestra were in their seats. Kalas stepped up to his desk, and an overture was played.

A short pause. Then, in the midst of a tense silence, Anne-Marie appeared, threading her way through the orchestra, with her violin under her arm. Now she stands in her place, a tiny figure in a short blue silk frock, with slim black legs and black shoes, and her fair hair tied on one side with a blue ribbon. Unwondering and calm, Anne-Marie confronted her first audience, gazing at the thousand upturned faces with gentle, fearless eyes. She turned her quiet gaze upwards to the gallery, where row on row of people were leaning forward to see her. Then, with a little shake of her head to throw back her fair hair, she lifted her violin to her ear, plucked lightly, and listened, with her head on one side, to the murmured reply of the strings. Kalas, on his tribune, was looking at her, his face drawn and pale. She nodded to him, and he rapped the desk. B-r-r-r-r-r-r rolled the drums.

In the artists' room at the close of the concert people were edging and pressing and pushing to get in and catch a glimpse of Anne-Marie. The Directors and the uniformed men pushed the crowd out again, and locked the doors. The Professor, who had listened to the concert hidden away in a corner of the gallery, elbowed his way through the crush and entered the artists' room. The doors were quickly locked again behind him.

The Professor had his old black violin-case in his hands. He went to the table, and, pushing aside a quantity of flowers that lay on it, he carefully put down his violin-case. It looked like a little coffin in the midst of the flowers. Anne-Marie was having her coat put on by Kalas, and a scarf tied round her head by Nancy, who was white as a sheet. The Professor beckoned to her, and she ran to him, and stood beside him at the table. He opened his violin-case and lifted out the magnificent blond instrument that he had treasured for thirty years. He turned the key of the E string, and drew the string off. Then he drew the A string off; then the D. The violin, now with the single silver G string holding up its bridge, lay in the Professor's hands for a moment. He turned solemnly to the little girl.

"This is my Guarnerius del Gesù. I give it to you."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie.

"You will always play the Paganini Variations for the G string on this violin. Put no other strings on it."

"No," said Anne-Marie.

The Professor replaced the violin in the case, and shut it. "I have taught you what I could," he said solemnly. "Life will teach you the rest."

"Yes," said Anne-Marie, and took the violin-case in her arms. The Professor looked at her a long time. Then he said:

"See that you put on warm gloves to go out; it is snowing." He turned away quickly and left the room.

Nancy put her arm round Anne-Marie.

"Oh, darling, you forgot to thank him!" she said.

Anne-Marie raised her eyes. She held the violin-case tightly in both her arms. "How can one thank him? What is the good of thanking him?" she said. And Nancy felt that she was right.

"Where are my gloves?" said Anne-Marie. "He told me to put them on. And where is Fräulein?"

Fräulein had gone. She had been sent home in a cab after the second piece, for she had not a strong heart. Bemolle, who had been weeping copiously in a corner, stepped forward with the other violin-case in his hand.

Now they were ready. Anne-Marie was carrying the Guarnerius and the flowers, so Nancy could not take her hand. The men in uniform saluted and unlocked the doors, throwing them wide open. Then Anne-Marie, who had started forward, stopped. Before her the huge passage was lined with people, crowded and crushed in serried ranks, with a narrow space through the middle. At the end of the passage near the doors they could be seen pushing and surging, like a troubled sea. Anne-Marie turned to her mother.

"Mother, what are the people waiting for?" she asked.

Nancy smiled with quivering lips. "Come, darling," she said.

"No," said Anne-Marie; "I will not come. I am sure they are waiting to see something, and I want to wait, too."

As the crowd caught sight of her and rushed forward, she was lifted up by a large policeman, who carried her on his shoulder and pushed his way through the tumult. Anne-Marie clutched her flowers and the violin-case, which knocked against the policeman's head with every step he took. Nancy followed in the crush, laughing and sobbing, feeling hands grasping her hands, hearing voices saying: "Gebenedeite Mutter! glückliche Mutter!" And she could only say: "Thank you! Thank you! Oh, thank you!"

Then they were in the carriage. The door was shut with a bang. Many faces surged round the windows.

"Wave your hand," said Nancy. And Anne-Marie waved her hand. Cheers and shouts frightened the plunging horses, and they started off at a gallop through the nocturnal streets. Nancy put her arm round Anne-Marie, and the child's head lay on her shoulder. The Guarnerius was at their feet. The flowers fell from Anne-Marie's hand on to the Professor's old black case, that was like a shabby little coffin. So they drove away out of the noise and the lights into the dark and silent streets, holding each other without speaking. Then Anne-Marie said softly:

"Did you like my concert, Liebstes?"

She had learned the tender German appellative from Fräulein.

"Yes," whispered Nancy.

"Did I play well, Liebstes?"

"Yes, my dear little girl."

A long pause. "Are you happy, Liebstes?"

"Oh yes, yes, yes! I am happy," said Nancy.