Charles Auchester Volume II Part 1

Charles Auchester.

Volume 2.

by Elizabeth Sheppard.

CHAPTER I.

Well, as if but yesterday, do I remember the morning I set out from Lorbeerstadt for Cecilia. I had no friends yet with whom to reconnoitre novel ground; I was quite solitary in my intentions, and rather troubled with a vague melancholy, the sun being under cloud, and I not having wished Aronach good-day. He was out in the town fulfilling the duties of his scholastic pre-eminence, and I had vainly sought him for an audience. He had surrendered me my violin when he gave me the paper in his writing, and I also carried my certificate in my hand. Of all my personal effects I took these only,--my bed and bedding, my clothes and books having preceded me; or, at least, having taken another form of flight. Iskar was to come also that time, but did not intend to present himself until the evening. Aronach had also forewarned me to take a coach, but I rather chose to walk, having divine reminiscences upon that earthly road.

With Starwood I had a grievous parting, not unallayed by hope on my part, and I left him wiping his eyes,--an attention which deeply affected me, though I did not cry myself.

I shall never forget the singularly material aspect of things when I arrived. Conventionalism is not so rampant in Germany as in England, and courtesy is taught another creed. I think it would be impossible to be anywhere more free, and yet this sudden liberty (like a sudden light) did but at first serve to dazzle and distress me. Only half the students had returned, and they, all knowing each other, or seeming to do so, were standing in self-interested fraternities, broken by groups and greeters, in one immense hall, or what appeared to me immense, and therefore desolate. I came in through the open gates to the open court; through the open court into the open entry and from that region was drawn to the door of that very hall by the hollow mult.i.tudinous echo that crept upon the stony solitude. It was as real to me a solitude to enter that n.o.ble s.p.a.ce; and I was more abashed than ever, when, on looking round, I perceived none but males in all the company.

There was not even a picture of the patron saintess; but there _was_ a picture, a dark empannelled portrait, high over the long dining-tables. I concluded from the style that it was a representation of one Gratianos, the Bachist, of whom I had once heard speak.

The gentlemen in the hall were none of them full grown, and none wonderfully handsome at first sight. But the manner of their entertainment was truly edifying to me, who had not long been "out" in any sense. They every one either had been smoking, were smoking, or were about to smoke,--that is, most of them had pipes in their mouths, or those who had them not in their mouths had just plucked them therefrom, and were holding them in their hands, or those who had not yet begun were preparing the apparatus.

In a corner of the hall, which looked dismally devoid of furniture to an English eye, there was a great exhibition of benches. There were some upright, others kicking their feet in the air, but all packed so as to take little s.p.a.ce, and these were over and above the benches that ran all round the hall. In this corner a cl.u.s.ter of individuals had collected after a fas.h.i.+on that took my fancy in an instant, for they had established themselves without reference to the primary use and endowment of benches at all. Some sat on the legs thereof, upturned, with their own feet at the reversed bottoms, and more than a few were lying inside those reversed bottoms, with distended veins and excited complexions, suggesting the notion that they were in the enjoyment of plethoric slumber. To make a still further variation, one bench was set on end and supported by the leaning figures of two contemporaneous medalists; and on the summit of this bench, which also rested against the wall, a third medalist was sitting, like an ape upon the ledge of Gibraltar,--unlike an ape in this respect, that he was talking with great solemnity, and also that he wore gloves, which had once on a time been white. The rest were bareheaded, but all were fitted out with mustachios, either real or fict.i.tious, for I had my doubts of the soft, dark ta.s.sels of the Stylites, as his own pate was covered with hemp,--it cannot have been hair. Despite its grotesqueness, this group, as I have said, attracted me, for there was something in every one of the faces that set me at my ease, because they appeared in earnest at their fun.

I came up to them as I made out their composition, and they one and all regarded me with calm, not malicious, indifference. They were very boyish for young men, and very manly for young boys, certainly; and remained, as to their respective ages, a mystery. The gentleman on the pedestal did not even pause until he came to a proper climax,--for he was delivering an oration,--and I arrived in time to hear the sentence so significant: "So that all who in verity apply themselves to science will find themselves as much at a loss without a body as without a soul, for the animal property nourisheth and ill.u.s.trateth the spiritual, and the spiritual would be of no service without the animal, any more than should the flame that eateth the wood burn in an empty stove, or than the soup we have eaten for dinner should be soup without the water that dissolved the component nutritives."

Here he came to a full stop, and gazed upon me through sharp-shaped orbs. Meantime I had drawn out my certificate and handed it up to him.

He took it between those streaky gloves, and having fixed a horn-set gla.s.s into his one eye, shut up the other and perused the paper. I don't know why I gave it to him in particular, except that he was very high up, and had been speaking. But I had not done wrong, for he finished by bowing to me with exceeding patronage.

"One of us, I presume?"

"Credentials!" groaned one who was, as I had supposed, asleep. But my patron handed me very politely my envelope, and gravely returned to the treatment of his theme,--whatever that might have been. n.o.body appeared to listen except his twain supporters, and they only seemed attentive because they were thoroughly fumigated, and had their senses under a spell. The rest began to yawn, to sneer, and to lift their eyes, or rather the lids of them. I need scarcely say I felt very absurd, and at last, on the utterance of an exceedingly ridiculous peroration from the orator, I yielded at once to the impulse of timidity, and began to laugh. The effect was of sympathetic magnetism.

Everybody whose lips were disengaged began to laugh too; and finally, those very somnolent machines, that the benches propped, began to stir, to open misty glances, and to grin like purgatorial saints. This laugh grew a murmur, the murmur a roar, and finally the supporters themselves, fairly shaking, became exhausted, staggered, and let the pedestal glide slowly forwards. The theorist must certainly have antic.i.p.ated such a crisis, for he spread his arms and took a flying jump from that summit, descending elegantly and conveniently as a cat from a wall upon the boarded floor.

"Schurke!"[1] said he to me, and held me up a threatening hand; but, seized with a gleeful intention, I caught at it, and with one pull dragged off his glove. The member thus exposed was evidently petted by its head, for it was dainty and sleek, and also garnished with a blazing ring; and he solemnly held it up to contemplate it, concluding such performance by giving one fixed stare to each nail in particular.

Then he flew at me in a paroxysm of feigned fierceness; but I had already flung the glove to the other end of the hall. The whole set broke into a fresh laugh, and one said, "Thou mightest have sent it up to the beard there, if thou hadst only thought of it."

"Never too late, Mareschal!" cried another, as he made a stride to fetch the glove, which, however, lay three or four strides off. He gathered it up at last, crumpled it in his hand, and threw it high against the wall. It just missed the picture though, and fell at the feet of two perambulators arm-in-arm, one of whom stood upon the glove till the other pushed him off, and gave the forlorn kidling a tremendous kick that sent it farther than ever from the extempore target. There was now a gathering and rush of a dozen towards it.

They tore it one from the other again; and, once more flinging it high,--this time successfully,--it hit that panelled portrait just upon the nose. A shout, half revengeful, half triumphant, echoed through the hall; but the game was not at its height.

"Gloves out, everybody!" cried several; and from all the pockets present, as it seemed, issued a miscellaneous supply. Very innocently, I gave up a pair of old wool ones that I happened to have with me; and soon, very soon, a regular systematized pelting commenced of that reverend representation in its recess.

I am very sure I thought it all fun at first; and as there is nothing I like so well as fun after music, I lent myself quite freely to the sport. About fifty pairs of gloves were knotted and crumpled, pair by pair, into b.a.l.l.s, and whoever scrambled fastest secured the most. As the unsuccessful shots fell back, they were caught by uplifted hands and banged upwards with tenfold ardor, and no one was so ardent and risibly dignified as the worthy of the pedestal. He behaved as if some valuable stake were upon his every throw; and further, I observed that after the game once began, n.o.body, except myself, laughed. It was, at least, for half an hour that the banging, accompanied by a tremulous hissing, continued. I myself laughed so much that I could not throw, but I stood to watch the others. So high was the picture placed that very few were the missiles to reach it; and such as touched the time-seared canvas elicited an excitement I could neither realize nor respond to. All at once it struck me as very singular they should pelt that particular spot on the wall, and I instantly conjectured them to be inimical to the subject of the delineation. I was just making up my mind to inquire, when the great door hoa.r.s.ely creaked, and a voice was heard, quite in another key from the murmurous shout, to penetrate my ear at that distance, so that I immediately responded,--"Has Carl Auchester arrived?"

There was no reply, nor any suspension of the performance on hand, except on my part. But for me I turned, gladly, yet timorously, and joined the speaker in a moment. He greeted me with what appeared to me an overawing polish, though, in fact, it was but the result of temperament not easily aroused. He was very slim and fair, and though not tall, gave me the impression of one very much more my senior than he really was. He held his arm as a kind of barrier between me and the door until I was safely out of the hall; then said to me, in a tone of chill but still remonstrance,--

"Why did you go in there? That was not a good beginning."

"Sir," I replied, not stammered, for I felt my cause was good, "how was I to know I ought not to go in there? It seemed quite the proper place, with all those Cecilians about; and, besides, no one told me where else to go. But if I did wrong, I won't go in there again, and I certainly have not been harmed yet."

"You must go there at times; it is there you will have to eat. But a few who are really students hold aloof from the rest, who idle whenever they are not strictly employed, as you have had reason to notice. I was induced to come and look for you, of whom I should otherwise have no knowledge, in obedience to the Chevalier Seraphael's request that I should do so."

"Did he really remember me in that manner? How good, how angelic!" I cried. And yet I did not quite find my new companion charming; his irresistible quiescence piqued me too much, though he was anything but haughty.

"Yes, he is good, and was certainly very good to bear in mind one so young as you are; I hope you will reward his kindness. He gives us great hopes of you."

"Are you a professor, sir?" I asked, half afraid of my own impulse.

"I am _your_ professor," he announced, with that same distance. "I am first violin."

I did not know whether I was pleased or sorry at that instant, for I could detect no magnetic power that he possessed, and rather shrank from contact with him at present. He led me up many stairs,--a side staircase, quite new, built steeper and narrower than the princ.i.p.al flight. He led me along thwart pa.s.sages, and I beheld many doors and windows too; for light and air both reigned in these regions, which were fresh, and smelled of health. He led me into a chamber so lengthened that it was almost a gallery, for it was very high besides.

Here he paused to exhibit a suite of prophets' chambers, one after the other completely to the end; for in every division was a little bed, a bench, and was.h.i.+ng-table, with a closet closed by hasps of wood. The uniform arrangement struck me as monotonous, but academical. My guide, for the first time, smiled, but very slightly, and explained,--

"This is my division,--_les pet.i.ts violons_, you know, Auchester; you may see the numbers on every alcove. And here you practise, except when met in cla.s.s or at lecture. Your number is 13, and you are very nearly in the middle. See, you have a curtain to draw before your bed, and in this closet there is a box for books, as well as a niche for your instrument, and abundant room for clothes, unless you bring more than you can possibly want. The portmanteau and chest, which were brought this morning, you may keep here, if you please, as well."

I did not thank him, for I was pre-occupied with an infernal suggestion to my brain, which I revealed in my utter terror.

"Oh, sir, do we all practise together, then? What a horrible noise!

and how impossible to do anything so! I can't, I know!"

Another half-smile curled the slender brown moustache.

"It was indeed so in the times I can still remember. But see how much more than you can own you are indebted to this Chevalier Seraphael!"

He walked to the wall opposite the alcove, and laying hold of a bra.s.s ring I had not noticed, drew out a long slide of wood, very thick and strong, which shut one in from side to side.

"There is such a one to every bed," continued he; "and if you draw them on either hand, you will hear nothing, at least nothing to disturb you. Come away now; I have not much time to spare, and must leave you elsewhere."

He led me from the chambers, and down the stairs again, and here and there, so that I heard an organ playing in one region, and voices that blended again to another idea; and then all was stillness, except the rustle of his gown. But before I could make up my mind to approve or criticise the arrangements which struck me on every hand, I found myself in another room,--this vaulted, and inspiring as nothing I had met with in that place. How exquisite was the radiant gloom that here pervaded within, as within a temple; for the suns.h.i.+ne pierced through little windows of brown and amber, and came down in wavering dusky brightness on parchment hues and vellum, morocco, and ruddy gold. Here a thick matting returned no footfall; and although the s.p.a.ce was small, and very crowded too, yet it had an air of vastness, from the elevated concave of the roof. Benches were before each bookcase, that presented its treasury of dread tomes and gigantic scores; also reading-desks; and besides such furniture, there were the quaintest little stalls between each set of shelves,--shrine-like niches one could just sit in, or even at pleasure lie along; for seats were in them of darkest polished wood. Some were already occupied, and their occupants were profoundly quiet,--perhaps studying, perhaps asleep.

"Here," observed my guide, "you are only allowed to come and remain in silence. If one word be spoken in the library, expulsion of the speaker follows. The book-keeper sits out there," pointing to an erection like a watch-box, "and hears, and is to observe all. You may use any book in this place, but never carry it away; and if required for quotation as well as for reference, you may here make your extracts, but never elsewhere. There are ink-bottles in every desk.

And if you take my advice, you will remain here until the supper-bell; for while here, you will at least be out of mischief. We are not to-day in full routine; but that makes it the more dangerous to be at large."

"Will you set me some task, then, sir? I do want something to be at."

He seemed only to sneer at such a desire. "Nonsense! there is enough for to-day in mastering all those names;" and he took down a catalogue and handed it to me.

I ran into one of those dear, dark recesses, and there he left me.

When he had gone, I did not open my book for a time. I was in a highly wrought mood, which was induced by that sombre-tinted, struggling suns.h.i.+ne, whose beams played high in the ceiling, like fireflies in a cedar shade, so fretted and so far. It was delicious as a dream to be safe and solitary in that dim palace of futurity, whose vistas stretched before me into everlasting lengths of light. I read not for a long, long hour; and when I did open my book (itself no mean volume as to size), I was bewildered and bedimmed by a swarm of names, both of works and authors, I had never heard of,--Huygens, Martini, Euler, Pfeiffer, and Marpurg alone meeting me as distant acquaintances, and Cherubini as a dear old friend.

This was, in fact, a _catalogue raisonne_, and I was not in a very rational mood. I therefore shut the book, and began to pace the library. It is extraordinary how intense is the power of application in the case of those who are apprenticed to a master they can wors.h.i.+p as well as serve. I thought so then. Nothing could divert the attention of those supine students in the recesses, nor of the scribes at the desks. I went quite close to many of them, and could have looked into their eyes, but that they were, for the most part, closed; and I should have accused them of being asleep but that their lips were moving, and I knew they were learning by heart. Great black-letter was the characteristic of one huge volume I stayed to examine as it lay upon a desk, and he who sat before it had a face sweeter than any present, sensible as interesting; and I did not fear him, though his eyes were wide open and alert. He was making copious extracts, and as I peeped between the pages he held by his thumb and a slight forefinger, he observed me and gave me a smile, at the same time turning back the t.i.tle-page for my inspection. That was encircled by a wreath of cherubs' faces for flowers, and musical instruments for leaves, old and droll as the t.i.tle, "Caspar Bartholin, his Treatise on the Wind Music of the Ancients."

I smiled then, and nodded, to express my thanks; but a moment afterwards he wrote for me, on a sheet in his blotting-case, which he carried with him,--

"We may write, though we may not speak. Are you just arrived?"

He handed me the pen to answer, and I wrote: "Only an hour or two ago; and I got into a sc.r.a.pe directly. I am Carl Auchester, from England; but I am not English. What is your name?"

He smiled warmly as he read, and thus our correspondence proceeded: "Franz Delemann. What was your sc.r.a.pe? I wonder you had one, now I know your name."

"Why?" I replied. "There is no reason why I should keep clear any more than another; but I went into the great hall, where so many of them were about, and they made a great noise, for they were pelting the picture that is on the wall; and while I was helping them, just for fun, the gentleman who brought me in here fetched me out, and said it was a bad beginning."