“Fraeulein, Fraeulein open
the door! There is a gentleman here who would
speak with you! Fraeulein!”
The blows redoubled on the stout oak,
growing louder and more persistent. “Fraeulein!
It is very strange, Herr Kapellmeister. I saw
her go in with my own eyes, some two hours back, and
she has not come out, for I was below in the mill
with my pipe and my beer, sitting in the very doorway
itself, and no flutter of petticoats passed me, or
I should have heard.”
The old miller rubbed his wizen cheeks
and smoothed the wisps of hair on his chin, nervously
as a young man does his mustache.
“Na !” said the
Kapellmeister. “It is late and she may
be asleep. I came after rehearsal and it must
be nine, or past. Knock louder!”
The miller struck the oak again with
his fist, calling out; and then they both listened.
“There is no light through the key-hole,”
said the miller, peeping, “only the moon-rays
which lie on the floor, and when I hark with my hand
to my ear, I hear no sound but the water splashing.”
The Kapellmeister paced the narrow
corridor impatiently. “Donnerwetter!”
he exclaimed, “The matter is important, or I
shouldn’t have come. I must have an answer
to-night. Try the door, and if it is unlocked,
open it and shout. You have a voice like a saw;
it would raise the dead.”
The miller put his hand to the latch
and it yielded: “Fraeulein !”
The garret was in shadow, and across the floor lay
the moonbeams glittering; the casement was open, and
the geraniums were outlined dark against the sky,
their colour dimmed.
“There is something in the window!”
said the miller, peering; and the door opened wider.
“There is something black across the sill; it
is lying over the geraniums and crushing them, and
it looks like a woman! Jesus Maria!”
He took a step forward, staring:
“It is the Fraeulein, and she is ”
“Get out of the way, you fool!”
cried the Kapellmeister sharply, and he pushed the
man back and strode forward: “The child
has fainted! She lies here with her head on
her arms, and her cheek is white as the moon itself.”
He lifted her gently and put his arm
under her shoulders, supporting her: “Get
some Kirsch at once,” he cried to the miller,
“Stop gaping, man! She’s not dead
I tell you her heart flutters and the pulse
in her wrist is throbbing!” He slipped his
hand in his pocket, and tossed the miller a gulden.
“Now run,” he said, “run as if the
devil were after you. The Rathskeller is only
a square away! Brandy and food food,
do you hear?”
The old man caught the gulden greedily
between his fingers, and examined it for a moment,
weighing it. “I will go,” he mumbled,
“certainly I will go. Kirsch you
say, sir, and bread perhaps?”
“Be off, you fool!”
The Kapellmeister watched the door
grimly as it shut behind the miller, and then he glanced
about the garret. “Poor,” he said,
“Humph! A place for a beggar!”
His eyes roved from the pallet in the corner to the
pitcher and the basin, the clothes on the pegs, the
cobwebs hanging, the geraniums crushed on the sill.
Then he lifted the girl’s head
and held it between his hands, looking down at her
face, supporting her in his arms. The lashes
lay heavy on her cheeks and the tendrils of hair,
curly and golden, lay on her neck and her forehead.
Her throat was bare; it was white and full.
The Kapellmeister held her gently and a film came
over his eyes as he gazed:
“How young she is!” he
murmured, “like some beautiful boy. Her
chin is firm there is will power there.
Her brows are intelligent; her whole personality
is one of feeling and temperament. It is a face
in a thousand. What is her name, her history?
How has she suffered? Why is she alone?
There are lines of pain about the mouth the
eyes!”
He raised her suddenly in his arms
and started to his feet; and as he did so, she opened
her lids slowly and gazed at him. “Velasco ”
she murmured.
Her voice was low and feeble, and
the Kapellmeister bent his head lower: “What
is it, child?” he said, “I can’t
hear you. In a moment you will have some brandy
in your throat and that will rouse you. I will
carry you now to that pallet over yonder, a poor place,
no doubt, and hard as a board.”
He strode across the floor and laid
the girl gently on the bed, smoothing the pillow,
and covering her lightly with the blanket. Kaya
opened her eyes again, and put out her hands as if
seeking someone.
“I was falling,” she said, “Why
did you bring me back?”
The Kapellmeister sat down by the
edge of the bed and began to whistle softly; he whistled
a theme once, and then he repeated it a semi-tone
higher. “I suspected as much,” he
said, “Was it because you had no money?”
Kaya turned her face away.
“Were you starving? Tschut!
You needn’t answer. Your eyes show it.
I might have seen for myself this morning, if I had
not been in a temper with the chorus, and my mind
absorbed in other matters. Be still now, here
is the miller the dotard!”
The Kapellmeister went over to the
door, and took from the old man a small flask and
a newspaper wrapping some rolls. “So,”
he said grimly, “Now go, and keep the rest of
the gulden for yourself. No thanks! Pischt be
off! Go back to your doorway and finish your
beer, do you hear me? I will look after the
Fraeulein; she is conscious now, and I have business
with her.” He motioned the old man back
from the door and closed it behind him; then he returned
to the pallet. “I’m not much of
a nurse,” he said, “You will have to put
up with some awkwardness, child; but there raise
your head a little, so and lean on my shoulder!
Now drink!”
Kaya swallowed a few drops of the
brandy. “That is enough,” she said
faintly.
“No. Drink!”
He held the glass to her lips, and
she obeyed him, for his hands were strong and his
eyes compelled her. Then he broke the roll, and
dipped it into the brandy, and fed her piece by piece.
When she tried to resist him, he said “Eat,
child eat! Do as I tell you eat!”
and held it to her mouth until she yielded.
She thought of Velasco and how he
had fed her in the studio, and the pulse in her wrist
beat quicker. When she had finished the roll,
he put down the glass and the newspaper, and she felt
his eyes searching hers, keen and sharp, two daggers,
as if they would pierce through her secret.
“Don’t speak,” he
said curtly, “Listen to me and answer my questions:
Why were you discouraged? I told you this morning
you would hear from me; why didn’t you wait?”
The tears rose slowly into Kaya’s
eyes, and she hid her face in the pillow.
“You didn’t believe me,”
said the Kapellmeister, “but you see I was better
than my word I have come myself. Why
do you suppose I have come?”
She lay silent.
“If I hadn’t come,”
he said grimly, “You would be lying in that pool
yonder, by now, broken to pieces against the wheel;
and I should have sought for my bird in vain.”
He saw how the pillow rose and fell with her breath,
and how she listened.
“I wanted a bird for my Siegfried
on Saturday,” he went on, “Some one to
sit far aloft in the flies and sing, as you sang this
morning, high and pure, in the middle of the tone.
Helmanoff has trained you well, child, you take the
notes as if nature herself had been your teacher.
Neumann is gone; she screeches like an owl! Elle
a son congé!” He continued to look
at the pillow and the gold curls spread across it.
“Will you come and be my bird,
child? I suppose you can’t act as yet;
but up in the flies you will be hidden, and only your
prototype will flutter across the stage on its wires.
When I heard you this morning, I said to myself:
‘Ha my bird at last! Siegfried’s
bird!’”
He laughed softly, and bent over and
stroked the curls: “I came to-night because
the Neumann went off in a huff. She made a scene
at rehearsal, or rather I did. I told her to
go and darn stockings for a living, and she seemed
to resent it!” He paused for a moment.
“Saturday is only day after to-morrow and
we have no bird!”
The girl lay motionless, and the Kapellmeister
went on stroking her curls. “If you sing,
you will be paid, you know!” he said, “and
then you need not try to kill the poor bird for lack
of a crumb. Why didn’t you tell me this
morning, little one?”
Kaya raised her head feebly and gazed
at him: “My voice is gone!” she said,
“My voice is gone!”
“Bah!” said the Kapellmeister,
“With a throat like that! It is only beginning
to come. The Lehmann’s voice was as yours
in her youth, light at first and colorature; and it
grew! Mein Gott, how it grew and deepened, and
swelled, and soared! Get strong, child,
and your voice will ripen like fruit in the sun.”
He stooped over the pillow and looked
into her eyes: “Come, child,” he
said, “Will you be my bird? Promise me!
You won’t think of that again I
can trust you? If I leave you now ”
Kaya put out her hands and clung to
him suddenly, clasping his arm with her fingers.
“I won’t,” she said, “I will
live, and study, and do my best and some
day you think I shall be a singer? Oh, tell me
truly! That is just what Helmanoff said, but
when I asked them to hear me I went to
so many, so many! they were always engaged,
or ” She caught her breath a little,
stumbling over the words: “You think so truly?”
“I think so truly,” said
the Kapellmeister, “You must come to see me at
the Opera-House to-morrow and rehearse your part, and
I will teach you. You shall have your honorarium
to-night in advance; and you must eat and grow strong.”
“I will,” said Kaya.
There was a new resolve in her tone,
fresh hope, and she put her hand to her throat instinctively,
as if to imprison the voice inside and keep it from
escaping.
“Has the miller gone?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Ritter, “He is gone
and the door is closed; we are alone.”
“Then put your head lower,”
whispered the girl, “and I will tell you.
Perhaps, when you know!”
“Go on,” said the Kapellmeister,
“I am here, child, close to you, and no one
shall hurt you. Don’t tremble.”
“Do you see my hands?”
said the girl, “Look at them. They are
stained with blood stained with
Ah, you draw away!”
“Go on,” said Ritter,
“You drew away yourself, child. What do
you mean? What could you do with a hand like
that, a rose leaf? Ha!” He laughed and
clasped it with his own to give her courage: “Go
on.”
“You are not Russian,”
said the girl, “so you can’t understand.
When one is not Russian to be an anarchist,
to kill that is terrible, unpardonable!
But with us My father is Mezkarpin,”
she whispered, “You have heard of him yes?
The great General, the friend of the Tsar!
And I am the Countess Kaya, his his daughter!”
Her voice broke, and she was silent
for a moment, leaning against the pillow. Then
she went on:
“There is a society,”
she whispered, “in St. Petersburg. It is
called ‘The Black Cross’; and whosoever
is a member of that order must obey the will of the
order; and when they pass judgment, the sentence must
be fulfilled. They are just and fair. When
a man, an official, has sinned only once, they pass
him by; but when he has committed crime after crime,
they take up his case and deliberate together, and
he is judged and condemned. Sometimes it is
the sentence of death, and then ”
she hesitated, “and then we draw lots.
The lot fell to me.”
She shut her eyes, and as the Kapellmeister
watched her face, he saw that it was convulsed in
agony, and the boyish look was gone.
“He was warned,” she whispered,
“three times he was warned, according to rule,
and I I killed him.” The lines
deepened in her face, and she half rose, leaning on
her elbow, staring straight ahead of her as though
at a vision, her lips moving:
“In the name of the Black
Cross I do now pledge myself an instrument in the
service of Justice and Retribution. On whomsoever
the choice of Fate shall fall, I vow the sentence
of death shall be fulfilled, by mine own hands if
needs be, without weakness, or hesitation, or mercy;
and if by any untoward chance this hand should fall,
I swear I swear, before the third night
shall have passed, to die instead to die instead.”
She struggled up on the bed, kneeling.
“I killed him!” she cried
in a whisper, “I killed him! I see him
lying on the floor there on his face!
There there! Look! With his
arms outstretched and the blood in a pool!”
She was leaning forward over the edge
of the bed, staring with her eyes dilated, pointing
into the shadows and shuddering:
“Don’t you see him there?”
The Kapellmeister was white and his
hands shook. He took her strongly by the shoulders.
“Lie down,” he said, “You are dreaming.
There is nothing there. Look me in the eyes!
I tell you there is nothing there, and your hands
are not stained. Lie down.”
Kaya gazed at him for a moment in
bewilderment: “Where am I?” she said,
passing her hand over her eyes. “Who are
you? I thought you were Why no,
I must have been dreaming as you say.”
“The hunger has made you delirious,”
said the Kapellmeister: “Look me in the
eyes as I tell you, and I will smooth away those lines
from your forehead. Sleep now sleep!”
The girl sank reluctantly back on
the pillows and the Kapellmeister sat beside her,
his gaze fixed on hers with a strained attention,
unblinking. He was passing his hand over her
forehead slowly and lightly, scarcely touching her:
“Sleep ” he said, “Sleep.”
Her lids wavered and drooped slowly,
and she sighed and stirred against the pillows, turning
on her side.
“Sleep ” he said.
The garret was still, and only the
moonbeams danced on the floor. The doves in
the eaves slept with their heads tucked under their
wings, and the spiders were motionless in the midst
of the webs; only the water was splashing below.
The Kapellmeister watched the girl
on the pallet. He sat leaning back with his
arms folded, his head in the shadow, and his face was
grim. “She will sleep now,” he said
to himself, “sleep until I wake her. She
is young and strong, and there is no harm done; but
she has had some fearful shock, and it has shaken
her like a slender birch struck by a storm.
I will send my old Marta, and she will look after her poor
little bird!”
Kaya lay on her side with her face
half turned to the pillow; her cheek was flushed and
her breath came gently through the arch of her lips.
Her curls were like a halo about her, and her right
hand lay on the blanket limp, small and white with
the fingers relaxed.
“I am getting to be an old man,”
said the Kapellmeister to himself, “and my heart
is seared; but if I had a daughter, and she looked
like that I would throw over the Tsar and
all his kingdom. The great Juggernaut of Autocracy
has gone over her, and her wings are bruised.
It is only her voice that can save her now.”
He rose to his feet slowly, and in
the dim light of the moon his hair was silvered, and
he seemed weary and worn. He stood by the pallet,
looking down at the slim, still figure for a moment;
and his hand stole out and touched a strand of her
hair. Then he covered her gently. “Sleep,”
he said, “Sleep!” And he turned and went
out, closing the door.