Velasco sat in his Studio before the
great tiled fire-place, dreaming, with his violin
across his knees. His servant had gone to bed
and he was alone.
The coals burned brightly, and the
lamp cast a golden, radiant light on the rug at his
feet, rich-hued and jewel tinted as the stained rose
windows of Notre Dame. Tapestries hung from the
walls, a painting here and there, a few engravings.
In the centre stood an Erard, a magnificent concert-grand,
open, with music strewn on its polished lid in a confusion
of sheets; some piled, some fluttering loose, still
others flung to the floor where a chance breeze, or
a careless hand, may have scattered them. Near
it was the exquisite bronze figure of a young satyr
playing the flute, the childish arms and limbs, round
and molded, glowing rosy and warm in the lamp light.
In one corner was a violin stand, a bow tossed heedlessly
across it; and all about were boxes, half packed and
disordered. The curtains were drawn. The
malachite clock on the mantel-piece was striking two.
Velasco stirred suddenly and his dark
head turned from the fire light, moving restlessly
against the cushions. He was weary. The
applause, the uproar of the Mariinski was still in
his ears; before his eyes danced innumerable notes,
tiny and black, the sound of them boring into his
brain.
“Ye gods ye gods!”
The young Violinist sprang up and
began pacing the room, pressing his hands to his eyes
to drive away the notes, humming to himself to get
rid of the sound, the theme, the one haunting, irrepressible
motive. He walked up and down, lighting one cigarette
after the other, puffing once, twice, and then hurling
it half-smoked into the coals.
Every little while he stopped and
seemed to be listening. Then he went back to
his seat before the fire-place and flinging himself
down began to play, a few bars at a time, stopping
and listening, then playing again. As he played,
his eyes grew dreamy and heavy, the brows seemed to
press upon them until they drooped under the lids,
and his dark hair fell like a screen.
When he stopped, a strange, moody
look came over his face and he frowned, tapping the
rug nervously with his foot. Sometimes he held
the violin between his knees, playing on it as on a
cello; then he caught it to his breast again in a
sudden fury of improvisation an arpeggio,
light and running, his fingers barely touching the
strings the snatch of a theme a
trill, low and passionate the rush of a
scale. He toyed with the Stradivarius mocking
it, clasping it, listening.
His overwrought nerves were as pinpoints
pricking his body. His brain was like a church,
the organ of music filling it, thundering, reverberating,
dying away; and then, as he lay back exhausted, low,
subtle, insinuating ran the theme in his ears, the
maddening motive.
Beside him was a stand, with a decanter
of red wine and a glass. The wine was lustrous
and sparkling. He drank of it, and lit another
cigarette and threw it away. Presently Velasco
took from his pocket a twist of paper blotted, and
studied it, with his head in his hands.
“Will you help me life or death tonight?
Kaya.”
He listened again.
The theme was still running, the black
notes dancing; but between them intertwined was a
face, upturned, exquisite, the eyes pleading, the
lips parted, hands clasped and beckoning. That
night at the Mariinski ah!
He had searched for her everywhere.
Ushers had flown from loggia to loggia, ransacking
the Theatre. Next to the Imperial Box, or was
it the second? To the right? no,
the left! Below, or perhaps on the Bel-Etage? All
in vain. Was it only a dream? He stared
down at the twist of paper blotted “Kaya to-night.”
Her name came to his lips and he repeated
it aloud, smiling to himself, musing. His eyes
gazed into the coals, dreamy, heavy, half open, gleaming
like dark slits under the brows. They closed
gradually and his head fell lower. His hands
relaxed. The violin lay on his breast, his pale
cheek resting against the arch.
He was asleep.
All of a sudden there came a light
tap on the door. A pause, a tap, still lighter;
then another pause.
Velasco raised his head and tossed
back his hair restlessly; his eyes drooped again.
“Tap tap.”
He started and listened.
Some one was at the Studio door something.
It was like the flutter of a bird’s wing against
the oak, softly, persistently.
“Tap tap.”
He rose slowly, reluctantly to his
feet and went to the door. It was strange, inexplicable.
After two, and the moon was gone, the night was dark unless An
eager look came into his eyes.
“Who is there?” he cried, “Who are
you? What do you want?”
A silence followed, as if the bird
had poised suddenly with wings outstretched, hovering.
Then it came again against the oak: “Tap tap.”
Velasco threw open the door: “Bozhe moi!”
As he did so, a woman’s figure,
slim and small, hooded and wrapped in a long, black
cloak, darted inside, and snatching the door from his
hand, closed it behind her rapidly, fearfully, glancing
back into the darkness. The woman was panting
under the hood. She braced herself against the
door, still clasping the bolt as though a weapon.
Her back was crooked beneath the cloak and she seemed
to be crippled.
Velasco drew back. His eagerness
vanished and the light died out of his face.
“Who in the name of ” He hesitated:
“What in the world ” Then he
hesitated again, his dark eyes blinking under his brows.
The woman stretched her hands from
under the cloak, clasping them. She was fighting
hard for her breath.
“Tell me, Monsieur,” she
whispered, “Tell me quickly are you
married? Are you going alone to Germany?”
Her voice shook and trembled: “Oh, tell
me, quickly.”
“Married, my good woman!”
exclaimed Velasco. His eyes opened wide and
he drew back a little further: “Why really,
Madame Of course I am going alone to Germany.
What do you mean? How extraordinary!”
“Quite alone?” repeated
the woman, “no friend, no manager? Oh then,
sir, do me the little favour, the kindness it
will cost you nothing I shall never forget
it I shall bless you all the days of my
life.”
She took a step forward, limping.
Velasco recovered himself.
“Sit down, Madame,” he
said, “and explain. You are trembling so.
Let me give you some wine. Wait a minute.
There, is it money you want? Tell
me.”
His manner was that of a prince to
a beggar, lofty, authoritative, kindly, indifferent.
“Sit down, Madame.”
The woman shrank back against the
door and her hand fled to the bolt as if seeking support.
“No no!” she murmured.
“You don’t understand. It’s
not for not money! I’m in trouble,
danger. Don’t you see? I must flee
from Russia now, at once. You are
going to Germany alone, to-morrow night. Take
me with you take me with you!”
An irritated look came over Velasco’s
face. Was the creature mad? “That
is nonsense,” he said, “I can’t take
any one with me, and I wouldn’t if I could.
Besides there is only one passport.”
The woman put her hand to her breast.
It was throbbing madly under the cloak. “You
could take your wife,”
she whispered, “Your wife. No one would
suspect.”
“Really, my dear Madame!”
Velasco yawned behind his palm.
“What you say is simply absurd. I tell
you I have no wife.”
She stretched out her hands to him:
“You are a Pole, a Pole!” Her voice rose
passionately. “Surely you have suffered;
you hate Russia, this cruel, wicked, tyrannous government.
Your sympathy is with us, the people, the Liberals,
who are trying oh, I tell you I
must go, at once! After tomorrow it is death,
don’t you understand, death?
What is it to you, the matter of another passport?
You are Velasco? Every one knows that
name, every one. Your wife goes with you to Germany.
Oh, take me take me I beseech
you.”
The Violinist stared down at the hooded
face. Her voice was tense and vibrating like
the tones of an instrument. It moved him strangely.
He felt a curious numbness in his throat and a wave
passed over him like a chill. She went on, her
hands wrung together under the cloak:
“It isn’t much I ask.
The journey together at the frontier we
part part forever. The marriage, oh
listen that is nothing, a ceremony, a farce,
just a certificate to show the police the
police ”
Her voice died away in a whisper,
broken, panting. She fell back against the door,
bracing herself against it, gazing up into his eyes.
Velasco stood motionless for a moment;
then he turned on his heel and strode over to the
fire-place, staring down into the coals. The
sight of that bent and shrinking figure, a woman,
old and feeble, trembling like a creature hunted,
unmanned him.
“I can’t do it,”
he said slowly, “Don’t ask me. I
am a musician. I have no interest in politics.
There is too much risk. I can’t, Madame,
I can’t.”
He felt her coming towards him.
The flutter of her cloak, it touched him, and her
step was light, like a bird limping.
“You read it?” she whispered,
“I saw you at the Mariinski; and there there
are the violets on the table, by the violin.
Have you forgotten?”
Velasco started: “Who are
you?” he exclaimed. “Not Kaya!”
He wheeled around and faced her savagely: “You
Kaya, never! Was it you who threw the violets you?”
His dark eyes measured the shrinking
form, bent and crippled, shrouded; and he cried out
in his disappointment like a peevish boy: “I
thought it was she she! Kaya was
young, fair, her face was like a flower; her hair
was like gold; her lips were parted, arched and sweet;
her eyes You, you are not Kaya! Never!”
His voice was angry and full of scorn:
“It was all a dream, a mistake. Go out
of my sight; begone! I’ll have nothing
to do with anarchists.”
He snatched the violets from the table
and flung them on the hearth: “Begone,
or I’ll call the police.” He was
in a tempest of rage. His disappointment rose
in his throat and choked him.
The old woman shrank back from him
step by step. He followed threateningly:
“Begone, you beggar.”
His heart beat unpleasantly.
Devil take the old woman! Impostor! She
was old and ugly as sin. He was sleepy and weary.
Why had he taken the violets; why had he read the
note? If the girl were not Kaya, then who who?
“Come,” he cried sharply, “Be off!”
Suddenly the woman buried her head
in her hands. She began to sob in long drawn
breaths; they shook her form. She fell back against
the Erard, trembling and sobbing.
Velasco stared down at her.
His anger left him like a flash and his heart softened.
Poor thing, poor creature! She was old and feeble,
and crippled. He had forgotten. He had
only thought of her, Kaya, the girl with the flower-like
face. He shook himself, as if out of a dream,
and his hand patted the woman’s shoulder soothingly.
His voice lost its sharpness.
“Don’t,” he said,
“Don’t cry like that, my dear Madame no,
don’t! It will be all right. I was
hasty. Don’t mind what I said, don’t no!”
She dashed his hand from her shoulder
and broke into passionate weeping: “You
play like a god,” she cried, “but you are
not; you are a brute. You have no heart.
It is your violin that has the heart. Don’t
touch me let me go! It was so little
I asked, so little!”
She struggled away from him, but Velasco
pursued her. His heart misgave him. He
grasped her cloak with one hand, the hood with the
other, trying to raise it; “Stop!” he said,
“I can’t stand a woman crying, young or
old. I can’t stand it; it makes me sick.
Stop, I tell you! I’ll do anything.
I’ll I’ll marry you You
shall go to Germany with me. Only stop for heaven’s
sake. Don’t cry like that don’t!”
He stooped over the shrinking figure
still lower; his arm pressed her shoulder. She
struggled with him blindly, still sobbing.
“Now, by heaven,” cried
Velasco, “If you are to be my wife, I’ll
see your face at least. Be still, Madame, be
still!”
The woman cowered away from him, holding
out her hands, pressing him back. “I beg
of you I beseech you,” she said, “Not
my face! No no, Monsieur!”
She gazed at him in terror, and as
she gazed, the hood slipped back from her hair; it
fell in a golden flood to her shoulders, curling in
little rings and waves about her forehead, her neck;
veiling her face. She gave a cry.
Velasco stood for a moment petrified,
staring down into the frightened eyes that were like
twin wells of blue fixed on his own. Then he
leaped forward, snatched at the cloak, flung out his
arms, he had clasped the air. She
was gone. The door slammed back in his face and
the sound of her hurrying footsteps, light as a bird’s,
fled in the distance.
He was all alone in the room.
Velasco rubbed his eyes with his hand
and stared about him, strangely, mechanically, like
a sleep-walker. “What a dream! Ye
gods, what a dream!” He stretched his limbs
yawning and laughed aloud; then he paled suddenly.
Was it a dream; or no impossible.
On the sleeve of his black velvet jacket something
glistened and sparkled, a thread as of gold, fine
and slender like silk, invisible almost as the fibrous
strings of his bow.
He raised it between his fingers.
Then slowly, heavily, he went back to his seat before
the fire-place and flung himself down.
The lamp-light fell on the Persian
rug dimly, flickeringly, the colours were soft as
an ancient fresco; the jewels were gone, and the coals
burned lower, dying. He lit a cigarette and began
to smoke. The violin was in his arms.
He played low to himself, dreamily, fitfully, his
eyes half closed, dark slits beneath the brows.
At his feet lay the violets crushed
and strewn; a twist of paper creased, blotted.
The light of the lamp grew dimmer.
The malachite clock struck again and again.
The night passed.