“Is it only a week that I have
been ill, Marta? It seems like a month.”
“A week and a day, Fraeulein;
but you are better now, and to-morrow, the Doctor
says you shall go out on the promenade and smell of
the rose buds.”
Kaya was half lying, half seated on
the pallet, with her hands clasped behind her head;
she was dressed in a blue gown, worn and shabby but
spotlessly neat, and her throat and her arms were bare.
“But how soon can I sing, Marta? Did
he say when? Did you hear him?”
The old nurse sat by the bed-side,
knitting and counting her stitches aloud to herself
from time to time.
“One two four seven!”
she mumbled, “Sing, Fraeulein? Ah, who
can tell! You are weak yet.”
“No,” said Kaya, “I
am strong; see my arms. I can stand up quite
well and walk about the room with the help of your
shoulder; you know I can, Marta.”
The old woman gave her a glance over
her spectacles: “Seven ten!”
she repeated, “If it were your spirit, Fraeulein,
you would be Samson himself; but your body ”
She shook her head: “Na, when the master
comes, ask him yourself. It is he who has talked
with the Doctor, not I.”
“He is coming now,” said
Kaya. “I hear his step on the stairs, quick
and firm like his beat. Don’t you hear
it, Marta? Now he has stopped and is talking
with the miller.” She leaned back on the
pillows and her eyes watched the door.
“Eh, Fraeulein! Nein,
I hear nothing! What an ear you have keen
as a doe’s when the wind is towards her!
At home, in the forest, where the deer run wild and
they come in the dawn to the Schneide to graze whischt!
The crackle of a leaf and they are off flying, with
their muzzles high and their eyes wild. Na!
I hear nothing but the wheel below grinding and squeaking,
and the splash of the water.”
“He is coming up the stairs,”
cried Kaya, “Open the door for him, Marta, and
let the Kapellmeister in.”
The old woman rolled up her knitting
slowly: “It was just at the turn of the
chain,” she grumbled, “and I have lost
a stitch in the counting. The master can come
in by himself.”
Kaya gave a gleeful laugh like a child,
and slipped her feet to the floor: “Oh,
you cross Marta, you dear humbug!” she cried,
“As if you wouldn’t let the master walk
over you and never complain! Go on with that
wonderful muffler of his, and I will let him in myself.
No, don’t touch me! Let me go alone and
surprise him.”
She steadied herself with her hand
to the bed-post, then caught at the chair: “Don’t
touch me Marta! I am quite strong now,
and able to walk!”
A knock came on the door, and she
made a little run forward and opened it, clinging
to the handle.
“Du himmlische Guete!”
exclaimed the Kapellmeister, “If the bird isn’t
trying its wings! Behuete, child!” He
put a strong arm about her, looking down at her sternly
and shaking his head: “Do you call this
obedience?” he said grimly, “I thought
I told you not to leave that couch alone eh?”
“Don’t scold me,”
said Kaya, “I feel so well to-day, and there
is something leaping in my throat. Herr Kapellmeister it
is begging to come out; let me try to sing, won’t
you?” She clung to his arm and her eyes plead
with him: “Don’t scold me. You
have put ‘Siegfried’ off twice now because
you had no bird. Let me try to-day.”
The Kapellmeister frowned. Her
form was like a lily swaying against the trunk of
an oak.
“Tschut ” he
said, “Bewahre! Marta, go down and bring
up her soup. When your cheeks are red, child,
and the shadows are gone from under your eyes, then
we will see.”
Kaya pushed away his arm gently, and
there was a firmness about her chin as of a purpose
new-born. “You have paid for my lodging
and my food, Herr Kapellmeister,” she said proudly,
“You have sent me your own servant, and she
has been to me like a foster mother. You have
cared for me, and the Doctor and the medicines are
all at your cost.” She steadied herself,
still rejecting his hand, “And I ”
she said, “I have earned nothing; I have been
like a beggar. If you will not let me sing,
Herr Kapellmeister, then ”
He looked at her for a moment in a
wounded way and his brow darkened: “Well ?”
he said.
“Then you must take away your
servant and the Doctor, and and your kindness,”
said Kaya bravely, “and let me starve again.”
“You are proud eh?
You remember that you are a Countess?” The
Kapellmeister laughed harshly.
“I am not a Countess any more,”
said Kaya, “but I am proud. Will you let
me sing?”
“When you are strong again and
your voice has come back,” he returned dryly,
“you can sing, and not before. As for paying
your debts There is time enough for that.
Now will you have the goodness to return to the couch,
Fraeulein, or do you prefer to faint on the floor?”
Kaya glanced at the stern face above
her, and her lip quivered: “You are angry,”
she said, “I have hurt you. I didn’t
mean to hurt you.”
“The Doctor will be in presently,”
continued Ritter coldly, “I daresay he can restore
you, if you faint, better than I. Perhaps you will
obey his orders as you reject mine.” There
was something brutal in the tone of his voice that
stung the girl like a lash. She turned and tottered
back to the couch, the Kapellmeister following, his
arms half extended as if to catch her if she fell;
but she did not fall. He was still frowning,
and he seemed moody, distraught. “Shall
I cover you?” he said.
Kaya put out her hand timidly and
touched his: “You have been so kind to
me,” she whispered, “Every day you have
come, and when I was delirious I heard your voice;
and Marta told me afterwards how you sat by the bed
and quieted me, and put me to sleep. Don’t
be angry.” All of a sudden she stooped
and put her lips to his sleeve.
He snatched his hand away roughly.
“You have nothing to be grateful for,”
he cried, “Pah! If a man picks up a bird
with a broken wing and nurses it to life again for
the sake of its voice, is that cause for gratitude?
I do it for my own ends, child. Tschut!”
He turned his back on her and went over to the window.
“If you want to know when you can sing, ask
the Doctor. If he says you may ”
“You are still angry,”
said Kaya, “Don’t be angry. If you
don’t want me to sing, I will lie here as you
tell me and try to get stronger.”
She moved her head restlessly on the pillow, “Yes I
will!”
Ritter began to strum on the window-panes
with his strong fingers: “The Doctor is
here,” he said, “ask him. I don’t
want you breaking down and spoiling the opera, that
is all. The rest is nothing to me. Come
in!” There was a certain savageness in his tone,
and he went on strumming the motive on the panes.
“Come in, Doctor.”
The door opened and a young man came
forward. He was short of stature, and slight,
with spectacles, and he stooped as if from much bending
over folios.
“My patient is up?” he said.
“Walking about the room!” interrupted
the Kapellmeister curtly.
The Doctor sat down by the pallet
and took the girl’s wrist between his fingers:
“Why does it throb like this?” he said,
“What is troubling you?”
“I want to sing,” persisted
Kaya defiantly, “If I sit in the flies with
cushions behind me, and only a small, small part couldn’t
I do it, Doctor?”
The young man glanced at the Kapellmeister’s
rugged shoulders, and shrugged his own: “Why
should it hurt you?” he said, “You have
a throat like a tunnel, and a sounding board like
the arch of a bridge. Your voice should come
tumbling through it like a stream, without effort.
Don’t tire yourself and let the part be short;
it may do you good.”
Kaya’s eyes began to glisten
and sparkle: “It is only the bird’s
part!” she cried, “and I am hidden in
the flies, so no one can see me. Ah I
am happy! I am well, Doctor you have
made me well!”
Presently the old woman brought in
the soup and the Doctor rose: “Will you
come with me, Herr Kapellmeister?” he said, “We
can smoke below in the mill, while the Fraeulein eats.
I have still a few minutes.”
Then the Kapellmeister left the window,
and the two men went out together.
“Marta!” cried the girl,
“I can sing! Did you hear him say it?
Give me the soup quickly, while it is hot.
I feel so strong so well!”
She began taking the soup with one
hand, and rubbing her cheek with the other: “Now,
isn’t it red, Marta? Look tell
me! Nurse, while you knit, tell me did
you see how angry he was, and how he went out without
a word? It is he himself who asked me to sing,
so why should he be angry now?”
The old woman clicked her knitting
needles: “How do I know!” she said,
“He lives alone so much, and he is crusty and
crabbed, they say. I nursed him when he was
a child, just as I nurse you now. He has a temper Jesus-Maria the
master! But his heart is of gold. His
wife ” she hesitated, “She was
a singer, and she ran away and left him. They
say she ran away with the famous tenor, Brondi, who
used to sing Tristan. Since then the master
has been soured-like!”
“That is strange,” said
Kaya dreamily, “to run away from some one you
love, when you can be with him night and day and never
leave him! Sometimes there is a curse, and you
are torn by your love, whether to go or stay.
But if you love him enough, you go and
that is the best love to save him from
the curse and suffer yourself alone. Perhaps
there was a curse.”
“What are you saying?”
cried the old woman, “When you were delirious,
it was always a curse you raved of, and stains on your
hands. Mein Gott! My blood ran cold just
to hear you, and the Kapellmeister used to come ”
Kaya turned white: “He
came?” she said, “and he heard me?
What did I say, Marta, tell me! Tell me quickly!”
She caught the old woman’s hands and wrung
them between her own.
“Jesus-Maria! My knitting! What
you said, Fraeulein? How do I remember!
Stuff and nonsense mostly! You were crazy with
fever, and your eyes used to shine so, it made me
afraid. Then the Kapellmeister would come and
put you to sleep with his eyes. Let go of
my hands, Fraeulein, you are crushing the wool!
Is it the fever come back? Oh Je!”
“No,” said Kaya, “No.
You don’t remember, Marta, whether I said any
name any particular name? I didn’t did
I?”
The nurse pondered for a moment, then
she went on knitting: “I can’t remember,”
she said, “There was something you used to repeat,
over and over, a single word it might have
been a name. Won’t you finish your soup,
Fraeulein?”
“No,” said Kaya, “I
am tired. Will you go down, Marta, and ask the
Kapellmeister if he will come for a moment? I
have something to ask him.”
The nurse rose: “They
are smoking still,” she said, “Yes, I smell
their cigars! If you have finished the soup,
I will take the tray. Jesus-Maria! You
are flushed, Fraeulein, and before you were so white!
You are sure it is not the fever come back?”
“Feel my hands,” said
Kaya, “Is that fever?” Then she shut her
eyes. She heard clumsy footsteps descending the
stairs, and then a pause; and after a moment or two
steps coming back, but they were firm and quick, and
her heart kept time to them.
“What did I say in my ravings?”
she cried to herself, “What did he hear?”
“Nun?” said the Kapellmeister.
“I see now what hurt you,”
said Kaya, without raising her eyes, “You thought
I wanted to repay your kindness that can never be repaid;
that I was narrow and little, and was too proud to
take from your hands what you gave me. Forgive
me.”
The Kapellmeister crossed the room
and sat down on the chair that the nurse had left.
He said nothing, and Kaya felt through her closed
lids that he was looking at her. “How
shall I ask him?” she was saying to herself,
“How shall I put it into words when perhaps he
understood nothing after all?”
“If you think your voice is
there,” said the Kapellmeister, “fresh,
and not too strained for the high notes, why you can
try it now. If it goes all right, I daresay
we could announce ‘Siegfried’ for the end
of the week.”
“Will you give me the note?”
said Kaya, “Is it F#, or G, I forget?”
“I will hum you the preceding
bars where Siegfried first hears the bird.”
Ritter began softly, half speaking, half singing the
words in his deep voice, taking the tenor notes falsetto.
“Now on the F#. The bird must
be heard far away in the branches, and you must move
your head so as it flutters from leaf to
leaf.”
Kaya lifted herself from the pillows
until she sat upright, supporting herself with one
hand. She began to sing, and then she stopped
and gave a cry. “It is there!” she
said pitifully, “I feel it, but it won’t
come! I can’t make it come!
It is as if there were a gate in my throat and it
was barred!”
Tears sprang to her eyes. She
opened her lips farther, but the sound that came was
strange and muffled; and she listened to it as if it
were some changeling given to her by a mischievous
demon in exchange for her own.
“That isn’t my voice,”
she said, “You know as well as I it
never sounded like that before! What is it?
Tell me ”
The Kapellmeister laughed a little,
mockingly: “I told you, child,” he
said, “I warned you. Don’t look like
that! When you are stronger, it will come with
a burst, and be bigger and fresher than ever before.
Siegfried must wait for his bird, that is all.”
Kaya clasped her throat with both
hands as if to tear away the obstruction: “I
will sing I will!” she cried, “It
is there I feel it! Why won’t
it come out?” She gave a little moan, and threw
herself back on the pillows.
The Kapellmeister stooped suddenly;
a look half fierce, half pitying came in his face.
He bent over her until his eyes were close to hers,
and he forced her to look at him:
“What is that word you say?
When you were raving, you repeated it again and again:
‘Velasco Velasco.’ There
is a violinist by that name, a musician.”
“A musician!”
stammered Kaya. She was staring at him with eyes
wide-open and frightened.
“His name is Velasco.”
“Ve las co?”
The syllables came through her lips
like a breath. “No no!”
she cried suddenly, hoarsely, “I don’t
know him! I I never saw him!”
She struggled with the lie bravely,
turning white to the lips and gazing. “It
was some one I knew in Russia; some one I I
loved.” She sat up suddenly and wrung
her hands together: “You don’t believe
me?”
“No,” said the Kapellmeister,
“You can’t lie with eyes like that.”
Kaya gazed at him desperately:
“Don’t tell him,” she breathed,
“Ah don’t let him know I
implore you!”
Ritter gave a sharp exclamation and
caught the little figure in his arms. “She
has fainted!” he cried, “Potztausend, what
a brute I was!” He laid her back on the pillow
and stood staring down at her, breathing heavily and
clenching his hands.
“If I were Velasco!” he
muttered, “Ah Gott I am mad!
Marta Marta!”