The Complete Works of George Bernard Shaw. GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

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СКАЧАТЬ is no moon to distract attention from them. And yet a great artist, with a miserable yard of canvas, can move us as much as that vast expanse of air and fire.”

      “Yes. — I am very uncomfortable about Mr Jack, Adrian. If he is to be sent away, it must be done before Charlie returns, or else there will be a quarrel about it. But then, who is to speak to him? He is a very hard person to find fault with; and very likely papa will make excuses for him sooner than face him with a dismissal. Or, worse again, he might give him some false reason for sending him away, in order to avoid an explosion; and somehow I would rather do anything than condescend to tell Mr Jack a story. If he were anyone else I should not mind so much.”

      “There is no occasion to resort to untruth, which is equally odious, no matter to whom it is addressed. It was agreed that his employment should be terminable by a month’s notice on either side. Let Mr. Sutherland write him a letter giving that notice. No reason need be mentioned; and the letter can be courteously worded, thanking him for his past services, and simply saying that Charlie is to be placed in other hands.”

      “But it will be so unpleasant to have him with us for a month under a sentence of dismissal.”

      “Well, it cannot be helped. There is no alternative but to turn him out of the house for misconduct.”

      “That is impossible. A letter will be the best. I wish we had never Been him, or that he were gone already. Hush. Listen a moment.”

      They stopped. The sound of a pianoforte came to their ears.

      “He is playing still,” said Mary. “Let us go back for Colonel Beatty. He will know how to deal with the soldier.”

      “The soldier must have left long ago,” said Adrian. “I can hear nothing but the piano. Let us go in. He is within his bargain as far as his own playing goes. He stipulated for that when we engaged him.”

      They went on. As they neared the house, grotesque noises mingled with the notes of the pianoforte. Mary hesitated, and would have stopped again ; but Adrian, with a stern face, walked quickly ahead. Mary had a key of the shrubbery; and they went round that way, the noise becoming deafening as they approached. The player was not only pounding the keyboard so that the window rattled in its frame, but was making an extraordinary variety of sounds with his own larynx. Mary caught Adrian’s arm as they advanced to the window and looked in. Jack was alone, seated at the pianoforte, his brows knitted, his eyes glistening under them, his wrists bounding and rebounding upon the keys, his rugged countenance transfigured by an expression of extreme energy and exaltation. He was playing from a manuscript score, and was making up for the absence of an orchestra by imitations of the instruments. He was grunting and buzzing the bassoon parts, humming when the violoncello had the melody, whistling for the flutes, singing hoarsely for the horns, barking for the trumpets, squealing for the oboes, making indescribable sounds in imitation of clarionets and drums, and marking each sforzando by a toss of his head and a gnash of his teeth. At last, abandoning this eccentric orchestration, he chanted with the full strength of his formidable voice until he came to the final chord, which he struck violently, and repeated in every possible inversion from one end of the keyboard to the other. Then he sprang up, and strode excitedly to and fro in the room. At the second turn he saw Herbert and Mary, who had just entered, staring at him. He started, and stared back at them, quite disconcerted.

      “I fear I have had the misfortune to disturb you a second time,” said Herbert, with suppressed anger.

      “No,” said Jack, in a voice strained by his recent abuse of it, “I was playing by myself. The soldier whom you saw here has gone to his quarters.” As he mentioned the soldier, he looked at Mary.

      “It was hardly necessary to mention that you were playing,” said Adriaa. “We heard you at a considerable distance.”

      Jack’s cheek glowed like a sooty copper kettle, and he looked darkly at Herbert for a moment. Then, with some humor in his eye, he said, “Did you hear much of my performance?”

      “We heard quite enough, Mr. Jack.” said Mary, approaching the piano to place her hat on it. Jack quickly took his manuscript away as she did so. “I am afraid you have not improved my poor spinet,” she added, looking ruefully at the keys.

      “That is what a pianoforte is for,” said Jack gravely. “It may have suffered; but when next you touch it you will feel that the hands of a musician have been on it, and that its heart has beaten at last.” He looked hard at her for a moment after saying this, and then turned to Herbert, and continued, “Miss Sutherland was complaining some time ago that she had never heard me play. Neither had she, because she usually sits here when she is at home; and I do not care to disturb her then. I am glad she has been gratified at last by a performance which is, I assure you, very characteristic of me. Perhaps you thought it rather odd”’

      “I did think so,” said Herbert, severely.

      “Then,” said Jack, with a perceptible surge of his subsiding excitement, “I am fortunate in having escaped all observation except that of a gentleman who understands so well what an artist is. If I cannot compose as you paint, believe that it is because the art which I profess lies nearer to a strong man’s soul than one which nature has endowed you with the power of appreciating. Goodnight.” He looked for a moment at the two; turned on his heel; and left the room. They stared after him in silence, and heard him laugh subduedly as he ascended the stairs.

      “I will make papa write to him tomorrow,” said Mary, when she recovered herself. “No one shall have a second chance of addressing a sarcasm to you, Adrian, in my father’s house, whilst I am mistress of it.”

      “Do not let that influence you, Mary. I am not disposed to complain of the man’s conceited ignorance. But he was impertinent to you.”

      “I do not mind that.”

      “But I do. Nothing could be more grossly insolent than what he said about your piano. Many of his former remarks have passed with us as the effect of a natural brusquerie, which he could not help. I believe now that he is simply ill-mannered and ill-conditioned. That sort of thing is not to be tolerated for one moment.”

      “I have always tried to put the best construction on his actions, and to defend him from Aunt Jane,” said Mary. “I am very sorry now that I did so. The idea of his calling himself an artist!”

      “Musicians often arrogate that title to themselves,” said Herbert; “and he does not seem overburdened with modesty. I think I hear Mr Sutherland letting himself in at the hall door. If so, I need not stay any longer, unless you wish me to speak to him about what has occurred.

      “Oh no, not tonight: it would only spoil his rest. I will tell him in the morning.”

      Herbert waited only to bid Mr. Sutherland good night Then he kissed his betrothed, and went to his lodging.

      CHAPTER IV

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      Two days later, Mary was finishing the sketch which Mrs Herbert had interrupted. Something was wrong with her: at every sound in the house she changed color and stopped to listen. Suddenly the door was opened; and a housemaid entered, rigid with indignation.

      “Oh Clara, you frightened me. What is it?”

      “If you please, Miss, is it my place to be called names and swore at by the СКАЧАТЬ