The First Violin. Fothergill Jessie

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СКАЧАТЬ with the wonder, the gratitude, the love, and alas! the weakness in her eyes! The astonished Brabantine men and women. They could not have been more astonished than I was. It was all perfectly real to me. What did I know about the stage? To me, yonder figure in blue mantle and glittering armor was Lohengrin, the son of Percivale, not Herr Siegel, the first tenor of the company, who acted stiffly, and did not know what to do with his legs. The lady in black velvet and spangles, who gesticulated in a corner, was an “Edelfrau” to me, as the programme called her, not the chorus leader, with two front teeth missing, an inartistically made-up countenance, and large feet. I sat through the first act with my eyes riveted upon the stage. What a thrill shot through me as the tenor embraced the soprano, and warbled melodiously, “Elsa, ich liebe Dich!” My mouth and eyes were wide open, I have no doubt, till at last the curtain fell. With a long sigh I slowly brought my eyes down and “Lohengrin” vanished like a dream. There was Eugen Courvoisier standing up – he had resumed the old attitude – was twirling his mustache and surveying the company. Some of the other performers were leaving the orchestra by two little doors. If only he would go too! As I nervously contemplated a graceful indifferent remark to Herr Brinks, who sat next to me, I saw Courvoisier step forward. Was he, could he be going to speak to me? I should have deserved it, I knew, but I felt as if I should die under the ordeal. I sat preternaturally still, and watched, as if mesmerized, the approach of the musician. He spoke again to the young man whom I had seen before, and they both laughed. Perhaps he had confided the whole story to him, and was telling him to observe what he was going to do. Then Herr Courvoisier tapped the young man on the shoulder and laughed again, and then he came on. He was not looking at me; he came up to the boarding, leaned his elbow upon it, and said to Eustace Vincent:

      “Good-evening: wie geht’s Ihnen?”

      Vincent held out his hand. “Very well, thanks. And you? I haven’t seen you lately.”

      “Then you haven’t been at the theater lately,” he laughed. He never testified to me by word or look that he had ever seen me before. At last I got to understand as his eyes repeatedly fell upon me without the slightest sign of recognition, that he did not intend to claim my acquaintance. I do not know whether I was most wretched or most relieved at the discovery. It spared me a great deal of embarrassment; it filled me, too, with inward shame beyond all description. And then, too, I was dismayed to find how totally I had mistaken the position of the musician. Vincent was talking eagerly to him. They had moved a little nearer the other end of the orchestra. The young man, Helfen, had come up, others had joined them. I, meanwhile, sat still – heard every tone of his voice, and took in every gesture of his head or his hand, and I felt as I trust never to feel again – and yet I lived in some such feeling as that for what at least seemed to me a long time. What was the feeling that clutched me – held me fast – seemed to burn me? And what was that I heard? Vincent speaking:

      “Last Thursday week, Courvoisier – why didn’t you come? We were waiting for you?”

      “I missed the train.”

      Until now he had been speaking German, but he said this distinctly in English and I heard every word.

      “Missed the train?” cried Vincent in his cracked voice.

      “Nonsense, man! Helfen, here, and Alekotte were in time and they had been at the probe as much as you.”

      “I was detained in Köln and couldn’t get back till evening,” said he. “Come along, Friedel; there’s the call-bell.”

      I raised my eyes – met his. I do not know what expression was in mine. His never wavered, though he looked at me long and steadily – no glance of recognition – no sign still. I would have risked the astonishment of every one of them now, for a sign that he remembered me. None was given.

      “Lohengrin” had no more attraction for me. I felt in pain that was almost physical, and weak with excitement as at last the curtain fell and we left our places.

      “You were very quiet,” said Vincent, as we walked home. “Did you not enjoy it?”

      “Very much, thank you. It was very beautiful,” said I, faintly.

      “So Herr Courvoisier was not at the soirée,” said the loud, rough voice of Anna Sartorius.

      “No,” was all Vincent said.

      “Did you have anything new? Was Herr von Francius there too?”

      “Yes; he was there too.”

      I pondered. Brinks whistled loudly the air of Elsa’s “Brautzug,” as we paced across the Lindenallée. We had not many paces to go. The lamps were lighted, the people were thronging thick as in the daytime. The air was full of laughter, talk, whistling and humming of the airs from the opera. My ear strained eagerly through the confusion. I could have caught the faintest sound of Courvoisier’s voice had it been there, but it was not. And we came home; Vincent opened the door with his latch-key, said, “It has not been very brilliant, has it? That tenor is a stick,” and we all went to our different rooms. It was in such wise that I met Eugen Courvoisier for the second time.

      CHAPTER XI

      “Will you sing?”

      The theater season closed with that evening on which “Lohengrin” was performed. I ran no risk of meeting Courvoisier face to face again in that alarming, sudden manner. But the subject had assumed diseased proportions in my mind. I found myself confronted with him yet, and week after week. My business in Elberthal was music – to learn as much music and hear as much music as I could: wherever there was music there was also Eugen Courvoisier – naturally. There was only one städtische Kapelle in Elberthal. Once a week at least – each Saturday – I saw him, and he saw me at the unfailing instrumental concert to which every one in the house went, and to absent myself from which would instantly set every one wondering what could be my motive for it. My usual companions were Clara Steinmann, Vincent, the Englishman, and often Frau Steinmann herself. Anna Sartorius and some other girl students of art usually brought sketch-books, and were far too much occupied in making studies or caricatures of the audience to pay much attention to the music. The audience were, however, hardened; they were used to it. Anna and her friends were not alone in the practice. There were a dozen or more artists or soi-disant artists busily engaged with their sketch-books. The concert-room offered a rich field to them. One could at least be sure of one thing – that they were not taking off the persons at whom they looked most intently. There must be quite a gallery hidden away in some old sketch-books – of portraits or wicked caricatures of the audience that frequented the concerts of the Instrumental Musik Verein. I wonder where they all are? Who has them? What has become of the light-hearted sketchers? I often recall those homely Saturday evening concerts; the long, shabby saal with its faded out-of-date decorations; its rows of small tables with the well-known groups around them; the mixed and motley audience. How easy, after a little while, to pick out the English, by their look of complacent pleasure at the delightful ease and unceremoniousness of the whole affair; their gladness at finding a public entertainment where one’s clothes were not obliged to be selected with a view to outshining those of every one else in the room; the students shrouded in a mystery, secret and impenetrable, of tobacco smoke. The spruce-looking school-boys from the Gymnasium and Realschule, the old captains and generals, the Fräulein their daughters, the gnädigen Frauen their wives; dressed in the disastrous plaids, checks, and stripes, which somehow none but German women ever got hold of. Shades of Le Follet! What costumes there were on young and old for an observing eye! What bonnets, what boots, what stupendously daring accumulation of colors and styles and periods of dress crammed and piled on the person of one substantial Frau Generalin, or Doctorin or Professorin! The low orchestra – the tall, slight, yet commanding figure of von Francius on the estrade; his dark face with its indescribable mixture of pride, impenetrability СКАЧАТЬ