Sons and Fathers. Edwards Harry Stillwell

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ Like a statue the woman stood gazing upon him.

      "My violin," said Edward. She disappeared noiselessly.

      CHAPTER VII

      "BACK! WOULD YOU MURDER HER?"

      When Edward Morgan went to Europe from Columbia college it was in obedience to a mandate of John Morgan through the New York lawyers. He went, began there the life of a bohemian. Introduced by a chance acquaintance, he fell in first with the art circles of Paris, and, having a fancy and decided talent for painting, he betook himself seriously to study. But the same shadow, the same need of an overpowering motive, pursued him. With hope and ambition he might have become known to fame. As it was, his mind drifted into subtleties and the demon change came again. He closed his easel. Rome, Athens, Constantinople, the occident, all knew him, gave him brief welcome and quick farewells.

      The years were passing; as he had gone from idleness to art, from art to history, and from history to archaeology by easy steps, so he passed now, successively to religion, to philosophy, and to its last broad exponent, theosophy.

      The severity of this last creed fitted the crucifixion of his spirit. Its contemplation showed him vacancies in his education and so he went to Jena for additional study. This decision was reached mainly through the suggestion of a chance acquaintance named Abingdon, who had come into his life during his first summer on the continent. They met so often that the face of this man had became familiar, and one day, glad to hear his native tongue, he addressed him and was not repelled.

      Abingdon gave to Edward Morgan his confidence; it was not important; a barrister in an English interior town, he crossed the channel annually for ramble in the by-ways of Europe. It had been his unbroken habit for many years.

      From this time the two men met often and journeyed much together, the elder seeming to find a pleasure in the gravity and earnestness of the young man, and he in turn a relief in the nervous, jerky lawyer, looking always through small, half-closed eyes and full of keen conceptions. And when apart, occasionally he would get a characteristic note from Abingdon and send a letter in reply. He had so much spare time.

      This man had once surprised him with the remark:

      "If I were twenty years younger I would go to Jena and study vibration. It is the greatest force of the universe. It is the secret of creation." The more Edward dwelt upon this remark, in connection with modern results and invention, the more he was struck with it. Why go to Jena to study vibration was something that he could not fathom, nor in all probability could Abingdon. America was really the advanced line of discovery, but nevertheless he went, and with important results; and there in the old town, finding the new hobby so intimately connected with music, to which he was passionately devoted, he took up with renewed energy his neglected violin. With feverish toil he struggled along the border land of study and speculation, until he felt that there was nothing more possible for him – in Jena.

      In Jena his solitary friend had been the eminent Virdow and to him he became an almost inseparable companion.

      The confidence and speculations of Virdow, extending far beyond the limits of a lecture stand, carried Edward into dazzling fields. The intercourse extended through the best part of several years. On leaving Jena he was armed with a knowledge of the possibilities of the vast field he had entered upon, with a knowledge of thorough bass and harmony, and with a technique that might have made him famous had he applied his knowledge. He did not apply it!

      His final stand had been Paris. Abingdon was there. Abingdon had discovered a genius and carried Edward to see him. He had been passing through an obscure quarter when he was attracted by the singular pathos of a violin played in a garret. To use his expression, "the music glorified the miserable street." Everybody there knew Benoni, the blind violinist. And to this man, awed and silent, came Edward, a listener.

      No words can express the meaning that lay in the blind man's improvisations; only music could contain them. And only one man in Paris could answer! When having heard the heart language, the heart history and cravings of the player expressed in the solitude of that half-lighted garret, Edward took the antique instrument and replied, the answer was overwhelming. The blind man understood; he threw his arms about the player and embraced him.

      "Grand!" he cried. "A master plays, but it is incomplete; the final note has not come; the harmony died where it should have become immortal!" And Edward knew it.

      From that meeting sprang a warm friendship, the most complete that Morgan had ever known! It made the old man comfortable, gained him better quarters and broadened the horizon toward which his sun of life was setting. It would go down with some of the colors of its morning.

      It became Edward's custom to take his old friend to hear the best operas and concerts, and one night they heard the immortal Cambia sing. It was a charity concert and her first appearance in many years.

      When the idol of the older Paris came to the footlights for the sixth time to bow her thanks for the ovation given her, she smiled and sang in German a love song, indescribable in its passion and tenderness. It was a burst of melody from the heart of some man, great one moment in his life at least. Edward found himself standing when the tumult ceased. Benoni had sunk from his chair to his knees and was but half-conscious. The excitement had partially paralyzed him. The lithe fingers of the left hand were dead. They would never rest again upon the strings of his great violin – the Cremona to which in sickness and poverty, although its sale would have enriched him, he clung with the faith and instinct of the artist.

      There came the day when Edward was ready to depart to America. He went to say good-bye, and this is what happened: The old man held Edward's hands long in silence, but his lips moved in prayer; then lifting the instrument, he placed it in the young man's arms.

      "Take it," he said. "I may never meet you again. It is the one thing that I have been true to all my life. I will not leave it to the base and heartless." And so Edward, to please him, accepted the trust. He would return some day; many hours should the violin sing for the old man. As he stood he drew the bow and played one strain of Cambia's song and the blind man lifted his face in sudden excitement. As Edward paused he called the notes until it was complete. "Now again," he said, singing:

      If thou couldst love me

      As I do love thee,

      Then wouldst thou come to me,

      Come to me.

      Never forsaking me,

      Never, oh, never

      Forsaking me.

      Oceans may roll between,

      Thine home and thee

      Love, if thou lovest me

      Lovest me,

      What care we, you and I?

      Through all eternity,

      I love thee, darling one,

      Love me; love me.

      "You have found the secret," said Benoni; "the chords on the lower octaves made the song."

      And so they had parted! The blind man to wait for the final summons; the young man to plunge into complications beyond his wildest dreams.

      "A man," said Virdow once, "is a tribe made up of himself, his family and his friends." And this was the history in outline of the man to whom Rita Morgan handed the violin that fateful day when Gerald lay face down among the pillows of his divan.

      Recognizing in the delicate and excitable organism before him the possibilities of emotion and imagination, Edward prepared to play. Without hesitation he drew the bow across the strings and began a solemn prelude to a choral. And as he played he noticed the heaving form below him grow still. Then Gerald lifted his face СКАЧАТЬ