Read CHAPTER XV of The Black Cross , free online book, by Olive M. Briggs, on ReadCentral.com.

The stage of the Opera House was crowded with the chorus. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but the day was rainy and the light that came from the windows at the back of the proscenium was feeble and dim, and the House itself was quite dark. The seats stretched out bare and ghostly, row after row; and beyond a dark cavern seemed yawning, mysterious and empty, the sound of the voices echoing and resounding through spaces of silence.

In the centre of the stage stood the Conductor, mounted on a small platform with his desk before him; and around him were the chorus, huddled and watchful as sheep about a shepherd. He was tapping the desk with his baton and calling out to them, and the voices had ceased.

“Meine Herren meine Damen!” he cried, “How you sing! It is like the squealing of guinea-pigs and the tenors are false! Mein Gott! Stick to the notes, gentlemen, and sing in the middle of the tone. There now, once more. Begin on the D.”

Kapellmeister Ritter glanced over his chorus with a fierce, compelling motion of his baton. He was like a general, compact and trim of figure with a short, pointed beard, and hair also short that was swiftly turning to grey. The only thing that suggested the musician was the heaviness and swelling of his brows, and the delicacy of his hands and wrists, which were white, like a woman’s, of an extraordinary suppleness and full of power; hands that were watched instinctively and obeyed. The eyes of the entire chorus were fixed on them now, gazing as if hypnotized, and hanging on every movement of his beat.

Na ­na!” he cried, “Was that F, I ask you? You bellow like bulls! Again again, I tell you! On the D and approach the note softly.

“Hist-st! Pianissimo!”

He stamped his foot in vexation and the baton struck the desk sharply: “Again the sopranos alone! Hist! Piano piano I say! Potztausend!”

The chorus glanced at one another sheepishly and a flush crept over the faces of the sopranos. The Kapellmeister was in a bad mood to-day; nothing suited him, and he beat the desk as if he would have liked to strike them all and fling the baton at their heads.

“Sheep!” he said, “Oxen cows! You have no temperament, no feeling nothing nothing! Where are your souls? Haven’t you any souls? Don’t you hear what I say? Piano! P-i-a-n-o! When I say piano, do I mean forte?”

He shrugged his shoulders, and his eyes flashed scornfully over the stage and the singers. “Now ladies, attention if you please! Look at me keep your eyes on my baton! Now piano!”

The voices of the sopranos rose softly.

“Crescendo!” They increased.

“Donnerwetter! May the devil take you! Crescendo, I say! Crescendo! Do you need all day to make crescendo?” He shrieked at them; and then, in a tempest of rage, he flung the baton down and leaped from the platform.

“Enough!” he said, “My teeth are on edge; my ears burn! Sit down. Is Fräulein Neumann here?”

A stout woman in a red blouse stepped timidly forward.

“Oh, you are, are you? Well, Madame, you haven’t distinguished yourself so far; perhaps you will do better alone. Have you the score?”

“Yes, Herr Kapellmeister.”

“Begin then.”

The soprano took a long breath and her cheeks grew red like her blouse. She watched the eyes of the leader, and there was a light in them that she mistrusted, a reddish glimmer that boded evil to any who crossed him.

She began tremulously.

“Stop.”

She started again.

“Your voice quavers like a jews’-harp. What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t know, Herr Kapellmeister, it was all right when I tried it this morning.”

“Well, it’s all wrong now.”

The soprano bit her lips: “I am doing my best, Herr Kapellmeister,” she said, “It is very difficult to take that high A without the orchestra.” Her tone was slightly defiant, but she dropped her eyes when he stared at her.

“Humph!” he said, “Very difficult! You expect the orchestra to cover your shake I suppose. Go home and study it, Madame. Siegfried would listen in vain for a bird if you were in the flies. He would never recognize that pah!” He waved his hand:

“Where is the Fräulein who wanted her voice tried?” he said curtly, “If she is present she may come forward.” He took out his watch and glanced at it. “The chorus may wait,” he said, “Look at your scores meanwhile, meine Herren, meine Damen and notice the marks!

“Ah, Madame.”

A slim figure with a cloak about her shoulders, bareheaded, approached from the wings; her curls, cut short like a boy’s, sparkled and gleamed. The Kapellmeister surveyed her coldly as she drew nearer, and then he turned and seated himself at the piano.

“Your voice,” he said shortly, “Hm what?”

“Soprano, Monsieur.”

“We have enough sopranos too many now! We don’t know what to do with them all.”

The girl shivered a little under the cloak.

“Oh!” she faltered, “Then you won’t hear me?”

“I never said I wouldn’t hear you, Madame; I simply warned you. If you were alto now but for a soprano there is one chance in a thousand, unless ” He struck a chord on the piano.

The chorus sat very still. The trying of a new voice was always a diversion; it was more amusing to watch the grilling of a victim than to be scorched themselves; and the Kapellmeister in that mood oh Je! They smiled warily at one another behind their scores, and stared at the slight, girlish figure beside the pianoforte.

She was stooping a little as if near-sighted, looking over the shoulder of the Conductor at the music on the piano rack.

“Can you read at sight, Madame?”

“Yes,” said Kaya.

“Have you ever seen this before?”

“I studied it once.”

“This?”

“I studied that too.”

“So,” he said, “Then you either have a voice, or you haven’t, one or the other. Where did you study?”

The girl hesitated a moment; then she bent lower and whispered to him: “St. Petersburg, Monsieur, with Helmanoff.”

“The great Helmanoff?”

“Yes, Monsieur.”

“You are not French then, you are Russian? They told me Mademoiselle Pou Pou ”

“That is not my real name.”

“No?”

Kaya quivered a moment: “I am Russian,” she said, “I am an exile. Don’t ask, Monsieur not here! I am I am afraid.”

The Kapellmeister went on improvising arpeggios on the piano as if he had not heard. He seemed to be pondering. “That name ” he said, “Pou Poussin! Someone called on me the other day of that name. I remember it, because when I came in she was gone. Was it you?”

The girl stood silent.

He turned suddenly and looked at her: “You are young,” he said, “and too slim to have a voice. Na child! You are trembling as if you had a chill, and the House is like an oven. Come don’t be frightened. The chorus are owls; they can stare and screech, but they know nothing. Sit down here by me and sing what you choose. Let your voice out.”

“Shall I sing a Russian song, Monsieur?”

“Very well.”

The Kapellmeister leaned back in his chair with his arms folded. He gave one fierce glance at the chorus over his shoulder. “Hush!” he cried, “No noise if you please. Attend to your scores, or go out. Now, Fräulein sing.”

Kaya pushed the chair to one side and moved closer to the piano, leaning on it and gazing out into the darkened House, at the rows of seats, ghostly and empty, and the black cave beyond. A Volkslied came to her mind, one she had heard as a child and been rocked to, a peasant song, simple and touching. Her lips parted slightly.

For a moment there was silence; then the tones came like a breath, soft and pianissimo, clear as the trill of a bird in the forest wooing its mate. It rose and fell, swelling out, filling the spaces, echoing through the vault.

“On the mountain-top were two little doves;
Their wings were soft, they shimmered and shone.
Dear little doves, pray a prayer a prayer
For the son of Fedotjen, Michaeel Michaeel,
For he is alone alone.”

With the last word, repeated, half whispered, the voice died away again; and she stood there, still leaning against the piano and clasping her hands, looking at the Kapellmeister with her blue eyes dark and pleading, like two wells. “Will it do?” she said with her voice faltering, “Will you take me, Herr Director in the chorus?”

The Kapellmeister shrugged his shoulders: “You have no voice for a chorus,” he said roughly, “Try this.”

“I know,” said Kaya, “My voice is not as it was. Helmanoff ” she laughed unsteadily, “He would be so angry if he heard me, and tell me to study, just as you told the Mademoiselle who went out; but I will do better, Monsieur, believe me. I will work so hard, and my voice will come back in time after ” She gazed at him and a mist came over her eyes. “Do take me,” she said, “I beg you to take me I beg you.”

The Kapellmeister passed his hand over his face: “Tschut, child!” he said, “What are you talking about? Be quiet now and sing this as I tell you. You have heard it before?”

“Yes, I have heard it.”

“And sung it perhaps with Helmanoff?”

“Yes Monsieur.”

He handed her the score, running his fingers over the bird motive of ‘Siegfried,’ giving her the key. Then he leaned back again and folded his arms.

Kaya gave her head a little backward movement as if to free her throat, and threw off the cloak, standing straight.

The tones came out like the sound of a flute, high and pure; they rose in her throat, swelling it out as she sang, pouring through the arch of her lips without effort or strain.

“Bravo!” cried the Director, “Um Himmel’s Willen, child, you have a voice like a lark rising in the meadows, and you sing Bravo! Bravo!”

He put out his hands and took the girl’s trembling ones into his own.

“You will take me?” she said, “You see, when I am not so nervous it will go better.”

The Kapellmeister laughed and took a card out of his pocket: “Write your name here,” he said, “Your real one. I won’t tell and your address.”

Kaya drew back suddenly: “I live in the mill,” she said, “You know, the Nonnen-Muehle by the promenade? You won’t let any one know, will you, Monsieur, because ”

“Are you afraid of spies, child? Tut, the chorus can’t hear. I won’t tell a soul.”

“No one?”

“On my honour no one. Now, your name?”

She looked away from him a moment; then she took the pencil and wrote on the card in small, running letters: “Marya Pulitsin.”

“So that’s your real name, is it?”

Her eyes were clear and blue like a child’s. “No,” she said, “ no.” And she glanced back over her shoulder with her finger to her lips.

“Never mind,” said the Kapellmeister. “You are white, child, what are you afraid of? There are no spies here! Give me the card. That is a strange place to live in the Nonnen-Muehle! I didn’t know anyone lived there, excepting the old man who takes charge of the mill. Well, in a day or so perhaps towards the end of the week you will hear from me.” He waved to the chorus.

“Stand up, meine Herren, meine Damen!” he said, “Get your scores ready. Good-bye now, Fräulein. Donnerwetter! What ails you?”

“If you want to try my voice again,” said Kaya timidly, “Would you mind, sir, trying it to-day? This afternoon, or even this evening?”

“Now by all that is holy, why, pray? I have the solos to-night, and this afternoon a rehearsal for ‘Siegfried.’” The Kapellmeister frowned: “Do you think I have nothing on earth to do, child, but run after voices?”

“Oh!” cried Kaya, “I didn’t mean that! I beg your pardon. It doesn’t matter I do beg your pardon, Herr Director.” She flushed suddenly, and started away from him, as if to put the piano between them and flee towards the door.

He looked at her narrowly, and the harsh lines came back to his face. “A pest on these singers!” he muttered under his breath, “They are all alike they want coddling. She thinks perhaps she is a Patti and is planning for her salary already. Potztausend! Bewahre!” He turned on his heel curtly and mounted the platform, taking up the baton.

“Now,” he cried, “The D again all together! Pia no!”

Kaya stole across the stage swiftly on tiptoe, threading her way through the scenery that was standing in rows, one behind the other, in readiness for the performance that night, and disappeared into the wings. It was dusty there and deserted. An occasional stage-hand hurried by in the distance bent on some errand, and from the back came the sound of hammering. The chorus was singing forte now, and the sound filled the uttermost corner, drowning the noise of the hammer. Kaya stood still for a moment, clinching her hands: “My God,” she said, “I have tried the last and it has failed! The end of the week!” she laughed to herself bitterly. “I know what that means. Helmanoff used to get rid of new pupils that way: ‘You will hear,’ he would say; but they never heard.”

She took a coin out of her dress and looked at it. “The gypsies’ wages are gone,” she said, “Only this left to pay for my roof and my bed!” She laughed again and glanced about her stealthily as if fearful of being seen, or tracked. Then she began to breathe quickly:

Without weakness,” she said, “without hesitation, or mercy, by mine own hands if needs be. I have done it to another: I will do it again to myself. Atone, atone wipe out the stain! A life for a life! That is right.” She swayed and caught one of the scenes for support. “That is just! God, how my throat burns, and my head, it is dizzy and my eyes have gone blind! Ah, it is passing passing! Now I can see. I can walk!”

She clung to the scenery for another second, and then pushed it away and moved to the door, staggering a little like one who is drugged.

It was evening. The rain had ceased, and the moon rose full and pale with a halo about it. In the distance clouds were gathering, and the waters under the mill were speckled with light.

Kaya sat by the window, leaning on the sill with her arms and gazing down at the wheel: “It is deep there,” she said, “A moment of falling through the air a splash, and it will be over. I am not afraid.”

She shuddered a little, and her eyes were fixed on the flashes of silver as if fascinated. She could not tear them away. “How black it is under the wheel!” she murmured, “If I fell on the spokes ” Then she shuddered again.

“Perhaps I shall not die,” she said, “Perhaps I shall live and be crippled, with my body broken. Oh, God to live like that! I must I must aim for the pool beyond, where the water lies deep and the moonlight freckles the surface.”

Then she dropped her head on her arms and the words came again: “I have tried my best, Velasco, but the heart is gone out of me. Don’t be angry and call me a coward. I tried but I am weak now and I am afraid. My voice is gone, and there is so little for a woman to do. I tried everything, Velasco, but my strength is failing. If I could walk, I would go to you and say good-bye; but I don’t know where you are. They say you have gone and I don’t know where.”

She leaned a little further forward on the sill, still hiding her eyes. “He won’t know,” she whispered under her breath, “He will never know. Velasco! Velasco good-bye.”

Her body lay across the sill now, and she opened her heavy lids and gazed downwards, half eagerly, half fearfully. The water was dark and the moon-light on the surface glittered. The wheel was below, huge and gaunt like a spectre; silent, with its spokes dipping into the pool.