The First Violin. Fothergill Jessie

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СКАЧАТЬ conceal my tears, looking surreptitiously at him in fear lest he should be laughing at me again. But he was not. He held his cap in his hand – was looking with those strange, brilliant eyes fixedly toward the high altar, and there was some expression upon his face which I could not analyze – not the expression of a person for whom such a scene has grown or can grow common by custom – not the expression of a sight-seer who feels that he must admire; not my own first astonishment. At least he felt it – the whole grand scene, and I instinctively and instantly felt more at home with him than I had done before.

      “Oh!” said I, at last, “if one could stay here forever, what would one grow to?”

      He smiled a little.

      “You find it beautiful?”

      “It is the first I have seen. It is much more than beautiful.”

      “The first you have seen? Ah, well, I might have guessed that.”

      “Why? Do I look so countrified?” I inquired, with real interest, as I let him lead me to a little side bench, and place himself beside me. I asked in all good faith. About him there seemed such a cosmopolitan ease, that I felt sure he could tell me correctly how I struck other people – if he would.

      “Countrified – what is that?”

      “Oh, we say it when people are like me – have never seen anything but their own little village, and never had any adventures, and – ”

      “Get lost at railway stations, und so weiter. I don’t know enough of the meaning of ‘countrified’ to be able to say if you are so, but it is easy to see that you – have not had much contention with the powers that be.”

      “Oh, I shall not be stupid long,” said I, comfortably. “I am not going back home again.”

      “So!” He did not ask more, but I saw that he listened, and proceeded communicatively:

      “Never. I have – not quarreled with them exactly, but had a disagreement, because – because – ”

      “Because?”

      “They wanted me to – I mean, an old gentleman – no, I mean – ”

      “An old gentleman wanted you to marry him, and you would not,” said he, with an odd twinkle in his eyes.

      “Why, how can you know?”

      “I think, because you told me. But I will forget it if you wish.”

      “Oh, no! It is quite true. Perhaps I ought to have married him.”

      “Ought!” He looked startled.

      “Yes. Adelaide – my eldest sister – said so. But it was no use. I was very unhappy, and Miss Hallam, who is Sir Peter’s deadly enemy – he is the old gentleman, you know – was very kind to me. She invited me to come with her to Germany, and promised to let me have singing lessons.”

      “Singing lessons?”

      I nodded. “Yes; and then when I know a good deal more about singing, I shall go back again and give lessons. I shall support myself, and then no one will have the right to want to make me marry Sir Peter.”

      “Du lieber Himmel!” he ejaculated, half to himself. “Are you very musical, then?”

      “I can sing,” said I. “Only I want some more training.”

      “And you will go back all alone and try to give lessons?”

      “I shall not only try, I shall do it,” I corrected him.

      “And do you like the prospect?”

      “If I can get enough money to live upon, I shall like it very much. It will be better than living at home and being bothered.”

      “I will tell you what you should do before you begin your career,” said he, looking at me with an expression half wondering, half pitying.

      “What? If you could tell me anything.”

      “Preserve your voice, by all means, and get as much instruction as you can; but change all that waving hair, and make it into unobjectionable smooth bands of no particular color. Get a mask to wear over your face, which is too expressive; do something to your eyes to alter their – ”

      The expression then visible in the said eyes seemed to strike him, for he suddenly stopped, and with a slight laugh, said:

      “Ach, was rede ich für dummes Zeug! Excuse me, mein Fräulein.”

      “But,” I interrupted, earnestly, “what do you mean? Do you think my appearance will be a disadvantage to me?”

      Scarcely had I said the words than I knew how intensely stupid they were, how very much they must appear as if I were openly and impudently fishing for compliments. How grateful I felt when he answered, with a grave directness, which had nothing but the highest compliment in it – that of crediting me with right motives:

      “Mein Fräulein, how can I tell? It is only that I knew some one, rather older than you, and very beautiful, who had such a pursuit. Her name was Corona Heidelberger, and her story was a sad one.”

      “Tell it me,” I besought.

      “Well, no, I think not. But – sometimes I have a little gift of foresight, and that tells me that you will not become what you at present think. You will be much happier and more fortunate.”

      “I wonder if it would be nice to be a great operatic singer,” I speculated.

      “O, behüte! don’t think of it!” he exclaimed, starting up and moving restlessly. “You do not know – you an opera singer – ”

      He was interrupted. There suddenly filled the air a sound of deep, heavenly melody, which swept solemnly adown the aisles, and filled with its melodious thunder every corner of the great building. I listened with my face upraised, my lips parted. It was the organ, and presently, after a wonderful melody, which set my heart beating – a melody full of the most witchingly sweet high notes, and a breadth and grandeur of low ones such as only two composers have ever attained to, a voice – a single woman’s voice – was upraised. She was invisible, and she sung till the very sunshine seemed turned to melody, and all the world was music – the greatest, most glorious of earthly things.

      “Blute nur, liebes Herz!

      Ach, ein Kind das du erzogen,

      Das an deiner Brust gesogen,

      Drohet den Pfleger zu ermorden

      Denn es ist zur Schlange worden.”

      “What is it?” I asked below my breath, as it ceased.

      He had shaded his face with his hand, but turned to me as I spoke, a certain half-suppressed enthusiasm in his eyes.

      “Be thankful for your first introduction to German music,” said he, “and that it was grand old Johann Sebastian Bach whom you heard. That is one of the soprano solos in the Passions-musik– that is music.”

      There was more music. A tenor voice was singing a recitative now, and that exquisite accompaniment, with a sort of joyful solemnity, still continued. Every СКАЧАТЬ