The Friedrichs-Halle was old and shabby
and had originally been a market. The entrance
was under an arcade, and there was an underground
passage, connecting the green-room with the stage-door
of the Opera House; a passage narrow and ill-smelling,
without windows or light; but dear to the hearts of
musicians by reason of its associations.
Mendelssohn had walked there, and
Schumann, and Brahms; and the air, as it could not
be changed, was the same. The very microbes were
musical, and the walls were smudged with snatches
of motives, jotted down for remembrance.
“Is there a seat left in the top gallery just
one?”
“Standing room only, Madame.”
The ticket-seller, who sat in a box-like
room under the arcade, handed out a slip of green
paste-board, and then shut the window with a slam.
The gesture of his hand expressed the fact that his
business was now over. Standing room also had
ceased, and the long line of people waiting turned
away with muttered exclamations.
The foyer was like an ant-hill in
commotion; people running forwards and backwards,
trying vainly to bribe an entrance, until the noise
was like hornets buzzing; while from behind came the
sound of the orchestra tuning, faint raspings of the
cellos, and the wails of the wood-winds, and above
them the cry of a trumpet muffled.
Kaya took the green paste-board hastily
in her hand, clasping it, as if afraid it might in
some way be snatched from her, and sped up the narrow
stone stairway to the right, running fast until her
breath failed her. Still another turn, and another
flight, and she stood in the Concert Hall, high up
under the roof, where the students go, and the air
is warm and heavy, and the stage looks far away.
The gallery was crowded.
On the stage the orchestra were assembling,
still tuning occasionally here and there where an
instrument was refractory. The scores lay open
and ready on the desks. A hum of excitement was
over the House, and one name was on every lip:
“Velasco!” the Polish violinist,
the virtuoso, the artist, whose fame had spread over
all Europe.
In Berlin he had had a furore; in
Dresden the orchestra had carried him on their shoulders,
shouting and hurrahing; in Leipzig, even Leipzig,
where the critics are cold, and they have been fed
music from their cradles, the glory of him had taken
them all by storm.
“Velasco!”
The orchestra stood quietly now, expectant,
each behind his desk. A hush crept over the
House. The people leaned forward watching.
It was past the hour.
Kaya stood wrapped in her cloak, leaning
against the wall. Her head was bare, and her
hair was like a boy’s, curling in rings and shining
in the light. Her eyes were fixed on the little
door at the end of the stage. Every time it
opened slightly she started, and her heart gave a
throb. The air grew heavier.
When it finally opened, it was Ritter
who came out. He strode hastily across the Stage,
nodding shortly as if aware that the ripple of applause
was not for him; then he took his place on the Conductor’s
stand with his back to the House, and waited, the baton
between his fingers. The door opened again.
Kaya covered her eyes for a moment,
and a little thrill went through her veins.
She swayed and leaned heavily against the wall.
God! It was seven months and
a day since that night in the inn. She was in
his arms again, and he was bending over her, whispering
hoarsely, his voice full of repressed anger and emotion:
“Lie still, Kaya, lie still
in my arms! The gods only know why you said
it, but it isn’t the truth! You love me say
you love me; say it, Kaya! Let me hear you,
my beloved!”
He was pressing his lips to hers.
“Take away your lips Velasco!”
Then she recovered herself with a
start, and took her hand from her eyes.
The door was ajar. Velasco was
coming through it carelessly, gracefully, with his
violin under his arm; and as he came, he bowed with
a half smile on his lips, tossing his hair from his
brow.
The audience was nothing to him; they
were mere puppets, and as they shouted and clapped,
welcoming him with their lips and their hands, he
bowed again, slightly, indifferently, and laid the
Stradivarius to his shoulder, caressing the bow with
his fingers.
Ritter struck the desk sharply with
his baton and the orchestra began to play, drowning
the applause; and it ceased gradually, dying away
into silence.
Then Velasco raised his bow.
There was a hush, a stillness in the
air, and he drew it over the strings one
tone, deep and pure with a rainbow of colours, shading
from fortissimo, filling the House, to the faintest
piano pianissimo, delicate, elusive; breathing
it out, and pressing on the string with his finger
until it penetrated the air like an echo, and the bow
was still drawing slowly, quiveringly.
He swayed as he played, laying his
cheek to the violin; the waves of dark hair falling
over his brows. His fingers danced over the strings,
and his bow began to leap and sparkle. The audience
listened spellbound, without a whisper or movement.
The orchestra accompanied, but the sound of the violins
in unison was as nothing to the single cry of the
Stradivarius.
It sang and soared, it was deep and
soft; it was like the sighing of the wind through
the forest, and the tones were like a voice.
From his instrument, his bow, his fingers, himself,
went out a strange, mesmeric influence that seemed
to stretch over the House, the audience, bending it,
forcing it to his will; compelling it to his mood.
As he played on and on, the influence
grew stronger, more pervading, until his personality
was as a giant and the audience pigmies at his feet,
sobbing as his Stradivarius sobbed; laughing when it
laughed; crying out with joy, or with pain, with frenzy
or delight, as his bow rent the strings. He
scarcely heeded them. His eyes were closed and
he rocked the violin in his arms, swaying as in a trance.
Kaya crouched against the wall; and
as she listened, she gazed until it seemed as if her
eyes were blinded, and she could no longer make out
the slim lines of his figure, the dark head, and the
bow leaping.
The tones struck against her brain
with a thrill of concussion like hail against a roof.
It was as if he were calling to her, pleading with
her, embracing her.
She stretched out her arms to him
and the tears ran down her face. “Velasco!”
she murmured, “Velasco come back!
Put your arms around me! Don’t look at
me like that! I love you come back!”
But no sound left her throat, and
the cloak pinioned her arms. She was crouching
against the wall, and gazing and trembling: “Velasco !”
How different he was! When he
had played at the Mariinski, and she had tossed the
violets from her loggia, he was a boy, a virtuoso.
Life and fame were before him; and he sprang out
on the stage like a young Apollo, eager and daring.
And now She searched his face.
There were lines there; shadows under
his eyes, and his cheeks were thin. The lower
part of his face was like a rock, firm and harsh; and
his brows were heavy and swollen. Before, he
had played with his fingers, and toyed with his art;
now he played with his heart and his soul. His
youth was gone; he was a man. He had known life
and suffered.
She stared at him, and her hands were
convulsed, clasping one another under the cloak.
An impulse came over her to throw herself from the
gallery at his feet, as she had flung the violets;
and she crouched closer against the wall, clinging
to it.
“Velasco! Velasco!”
A roar went up from the House.
The sound of the clapping was like
rain falling; a mighty volume of sound, deafening,
frightening.
Kaya crouched still lower. He
had taken the violin from his cheek and was bowing;
his eyes scanned the House with a nonchalant air.
“Bravo Velasco!”
The people were standing now and stamping,
and screaming his name. They hid him, and she
could not see. Kaya leaned forward, her gold
hair gleaming in the light, her eyes fixed.
“Velasco Velasco!”
Suddenly he started.
He looked up at the gallery and his
bow slipped from his hand. He stared motionless.
The first violin stooped and picked up the bow.
“Monsieur ” he whispered, “Monsieur
Velasco, are you ill?”
“No no!” The
Violinist passed his hand over his eyes. “No I
am not ill! It was a vision an illusion!
A trick of the senses! It is gone now!”
He bowed again mechanically, taking
the bow, lifting the violin again to his cheek.
“An illusion!” he muttered: “A
trick of the senses! God, how it haunts me!”
He nodded to the Kapellmeister.
They went on.
“Let me out!” said Kaya,
“I am faint let me out! Let
me out!” She struggled to the door,
through the crowd, pressing her way slowly, painfully.
Her cheeks were white and she was panting.
“Ah for God’s sake! Let
me out!”
“Come this way, Velasco, this
way through the passage. The din in the House
is terrific you have driven them mad!
Hark to your name, how they shout it and stamp!
They will be rushing to the stage door presently,
as soon as the ushers have turned out the lights and
the hope of your reappearance is gone. No wonder,
man you played like a god! You were
like one inspired! Shall you risk it; or will
you come through to my room in the Opera House, where
we can wait and smoke quietly until the clamour is
past?”
“Anywhere, Ritter, only to get
away from that horrible noise!” The Musician
covered his ears with his hands and shuddered:
“That is the worst of being an artist there
is no peace, no privacy! The people consider
one a music-box to wind up at their pleasure!
A pest on it all!”
The two men quickened their footsteps,
hurrying down the long corridor, and presently a door
shut behind them.
“There thank heaven!”
cried Ritter, “Around to the left now, Velasco,
and then at the top of the stairs is my den.
Let me go first and open the door.”
The room was a small one, half filled
with the bulk of a grand piano. About the walls
ran shelf after shelf of music; opera scores and presentation
copies in manuscript. A bust of Wagner stood
in the corner, and on the wall behind the pianoforte
was a large painting in sepia, dim, with strong lights
and shadows.
The window was open, and below it
lay the street, still in the darkness; above, the
heavens were clear and the stars were shining.
Ritter pulled forward an arm-chair and motioned the
Musician towards it:
“Sit down, Velasco. Will
you have a pipe, or cigar? You look exhausted,
man! This fasting before is too much for you;
you are pale as death. Shall I send out the
watchman for food, or shall we wait and go to the
Keller together?”
Velasco nodded and sank back in the
chair, covering his eyes with his hand:
“Is it usual for musicians to go mad?”
he said.
“Heavens!” exclaimed the
Kapellmeister, “What are you talking about?
Usual? Of course not! Some do. What
is the matter with you, Velasco? You are overwrought
to-night.”
“No,” he said, “No.
When you hear themes in your head, and rhythms throbbing
in your pulses is that a sign?”
“Behuete! We all have
that. After an opera my head goes round like
a buzz-saw, and the motives spring about inside like
demons. If that is all, Velasco, you are not
mad. Take a cigarette.”
“Thank you, Ritter. Tell
me when you conduct, is it as if force and
power were going from you, oozing away with the music;
and you were in a trance and someone else were wielding
the baton, interpreting, playing on the instruments,
not yourself?”
The Kapellmeister shook his head grimly:
“Sometimes, Velasco, but not often; we are
not all like you. That is Genius speaking through
you.”
“Afterwards,” continued
the Violinist, “it is as if one had had an illness.
To-night I am weary Bozhe moi!
My body is numb, I can scarcely lift my feet, or
my hands; only my nerves are alive, and they are like
electric wires scintillating, jumping. The liquid
runs through my veins like fire! Is that a ?”
“Bewahre bewahre!
You throw yourself into your playing headlong, body
and soul. It wrecks one mentally and physically
to listen; how much more then to play! If you
were like others, Velasco, you would drink yourself
to drowsiness and drown those sensations; or else you
would seek pleasure, distraction. When Genius
has been with you, guiding your brain and your fingers,
and you are left suddenly with an empty void, what
else can you expect but reaction, nausea of life and
of art? Bewahre, man! That is no madness!
It is sanity normal conditions returning.
You are mad when the Genius is with you, you are mad
when you play; but now now you are sane;
you are like other men, Velasco, and you don’t
recognize yourself!”
The Kapellmeister laughed, drawing whiffs from his
cigar.
Velasco uncovered his eyes: “You
don’t understand,” he said slowly:
“I see things I have illusions!
It is something that comes and dances before me as
I play, the same thing always. I saw it to-night.”
“What sort of thing?”
Velasco stared suddenly at the opposite
wall. “What is that painting there, Ritter?”
“The one over the piano?
I bought it in St. Petersburg years ago, when I was
touring: a copy of the Rembrandt in the ‘Hermitage.’
Don’t you know it?”
“What is it?”
“The Knight with the Golden
Helmet’ I call it; but it is really a ‘Pallas
Athene.’”
“The Knight the Knight
with the Golden Helmet! That is no knight it
is the head of a woman, a girl; look at the oval of
the cheek, the lips, the eyes! That is no knight,
nor is it a ’Pallas Athene’!
My God! I am going mad, I tell you! Wherever
I look, I see it before me an illusion,
a trick of the senses! It is madness!”
Velasco sprang to his feet with a
cry. “I can’t bear it,” he
cried, “open the door! Damn you, Ritter,
get out of the way!”
Velasco sprang forward, struggling
for a moment with the Kapellmeister, and then Ritter
fell back. The clutch on his shoulder was like
iron. He fell back, and the door slammed.
“Potztausend!” he cried,
“What is there in my painting to start him like
that? These musicians have nerves like live wires!
It is true what he said he is mad!”
The Kapellmeister went over to the
painting on the wall and looked at it. “A
girl’s head,” he murmured, “he is
right. It is more like a ‘Pallas Athene’
than a knight; but if it were not for the helmet glittering,
and the spear ”
Suddenly a remembrance came to him,
and he struck his breast with his hand, crying out:
“It is no knight! It is Bruennhilde, young
and fair, with her eyes downcast! The light
has fallen full on her face. She is standing
there, and the stage is dim; her voice is still in
her throat, dying away!”
Memory caught him then and he came
nearer, shading his eyes with his hand, staring.
“She has hung on my wall for years and I never
knew it! It is she it is her living
image her eyes and her brow her
lips arched and quivering! It is herself!”
“Bruennhild’!” He lifted his arms:
“Bruennhild’!”