Charles Auchester Volume I Part 5

Swift as a beam of morning he sprang up the steps, and with one hand upon the bal.u.s.trade bowed to the audience. In a moment silence seemed to mantle upon the hall.

He stood before the score, and as he closed upon the time-stick those pointed fingers, he raised his eyes to the chorus, and then let them fall upon the band. Those piercing eyes recalled us. Every hand was on the bow, every mouthpiece lifted. There was still silence, but we "heard" no "voice." He raised his thin arm: the overture began. The curiosity of the audience had dilated with such intensity that all who had been standing, still stood, and not a creature stirred. The calm was perfect upon which the "Grave" broke. It was not interpretation alone, it was inspiration. All knew that "Grave," but few had heard it as it had been spoken that day. It was _then_ a heard voice,--"a voice from heaven." There seemed not a string that was not touched by fire.

The tranquil echo of the repeat enabled me to bear it sufficiently to look up and form some notion of him on whom so much depended. He was slight, so slight that he seemed to have grown out of the air. He was young, so young that he could not have numbered twenty summers; but the heights of eternity were far-shadowed in the forehead's marble dream.

A strange transparency took the place of bloom upon that face of youth, as if from temperament too tender, or blood too rarefied; but the hair betrayed a wondrous strength, cl.u.s.tering in dark curls of excessive richness. The pointed fingers were pale, but they grasped the time-stick with an energy like naked nerve.

But not until the violins woke up, announcing the subject of the allegro, did I feel fully conscious of that countenance absolved from its repose of perfection by an excitement itself divine.

It would exhaust thought no less than words to describe the aspect of music, thus revealed, thus presented. I was a little child then, my brain was unused to strong sensation, and I can only say I remembered not how he looked after all was over. The intense impression annihilated itself, as a white, dazzling fire struck from a smith's anvil dies without ashy sign. I have since learned to discover, to adore, every express lineament of that matchless face; but then I was lost in gazing, in a spiritual, ebbless excitement,--then I was conscious of the composition that he had made one with himself, that became one with him.

The fire with which he led, the energy, the speed, could only have been communicated to an English orchestra by such accurate force. The perfection with which the conductor was endued must surely have pa.s.sed electrically into every player,--there fell not a note to the ground.

Such precision was wellnigh oppressive; one felt some hand must drop.

From beginning to end of the allegro not a disturbing sound arose throughout the hall; but on the closing chord of the overture there burst one deep toll of wonderful applause. I can only call it a "toll;" it was simultaneous. The conductor looked over his shoulder, and slightly shook his head. It was enough, and silence reigned as the heavenly sympathy of the recitative trembled from the strings surcharged with fire. Here it was as if he whispered "Hus.h.!.+" for the sobbing staccato of the accompaniment I never heard so low,--it was silvery, almost awful. The baton stirred languidly, as the stem of a wind-swept lily, in those pointed fingers.

Nor would he suffer any violence to be done to the solemn brightness of the aria. It was not until we all arose that he raised his arm, and impetuously, almost imperiously, fixed upon us his eyes. He glanced not _a moment_ at the score, he never turned a leaf, but he urged the time majestically, and his rapturous beauty brightened as the voices firmly, safely, swelled over the sustaining chords, launched in glory upon those waves of sound.

I almost forgot the festival. I am not certain that I remember who I was, or where I was, but I seemed to be singing at every pore. I seemed pouring out my life instead of my voice; but the feeling I had of being irresistibly borne along was so transporting that I can conceive of nothing else like it, until after death.

CHAPTER IX.

The chorus, I learned afterwards, was never recalled, so proudly true, so perfect, so flexible; but it was not only not difficult to keep in, it was impossible to get out. So every one said among my choral contemporaries afterwards.

I might recall how the arias told, invested with that same charm of subdued and softened fulness; I might name each chorus, bent to such strength by a might scarcely mortal: but I dare not antic.i.p.ate my after acquaintance with a musician who, himself supreme, has alone known how to interpret the works of others. I will merely advert to the extraordinary calm that pervaded the audience during the first part.

Tremendous in revenge, perfectly tremendous, was the uproar between the parts, for there was a pause and clearance for a quarter of an hour. I could not have moved for some moments if I had wished it; as it was, I was nearly pressed to death. Everybody was talking; a clamor filled the air. I saw Lenhart Davy afar off, but he could not get to me. He looked quite white, and his eyes sparkled. As for me, I could not help thinking the world was coming to an end, so thirsty I felt, so dry, so shaken from head to foot. I could scarcely feel the ground, and I could not lift my knees, they were so stiff.

But still with infatuation I watched the conductor, though I suffered not my eyes to wander to his face; I dared not look at him, I felt too awful. He was suddenly surrounded by gentlemen, the members of the committee. I knew they were there, bustling, skurrying, and I listened to their intrusive tones. As the chorus pressed by me I was obliged to advance a little, and I heard, in a quiet foreign accent, delicate as clear, these words: "Nothing, thank you, but a gla.s.s of pure water."

Trembling, hot, and dizzy, almost mad with impatience, I pushed through the crowd; it was rather thinner now, but I had to drive my head against many a knot, and when I could not divide the groups I dived underneath their arms. I cannot tell how I got out, but I literally leaped the stairs; in two or three steps I cleared the gallery. Once in the refreshment room, I s.n.a.t.c.hed a gla.s.s jug that stood in a pail filled with lumps of ice, and a tumbler, and made away with them before the lady who was superintending that table had turned her head. I had never a stumbling footstep, and though I sprang back again, I did not spill a drop. I knew the hall was half empty, so taking a short way that led me into it, I came to the bottom of the orchestra. I stood the tumbler upon a form, and filling it to the brim, left the beaker behind me and rushed up the orchestra stairs.

He was still there, leaning upon the score, with his hands upon his face, and his eyes hidden. I advanced very quietly, but he heard me, and without raising himself from the desk, let his hands fall, elevated his countenance, and watched me as I approached him.

I trembled so violently then, taken with a fresh shudder of excitement, that I could not lift the tumbler to present it. I saw a person from the other side advancing with a tray, and dreading to be supplanted, I looked up with desperate entreaty. The unknown stretched his arm and raised the gla.s.s, taking it from me, to his lips. Around those lips a shadowy half-smile was playing, but they were white with fatigue or excitement, and he drank the water instantly, as if athirst.

Then he returned to me the gla.s.s, empty, with a gentle but absent air, paused one moment, and now, as if restored to himself, fully regarded me, and fully smiled.

Down-gazing, those deep-colored eyes upon me seemed distant as the stars of heaven; but there was an almost pitying sweetness in his tone as he addressed me. I shall never forget that tone, nor how my eyelids quivered with the longing want to weep.

"It was very refres.h.i.+ng," he said. "How much more strengthening is water than wine! Thank you for the trouble you took to fetch it. And you, you sang also in the chorus. It was beautifully done."

"May I tell them so, sir?" I asked him, eagerly, without being able to help speaking in _some_ reply.

"Yes, every one; but above all, the little ones;" and again he faintly smiled.

Then he turned to the score, and drooping over the desk, seemed to pa.s.s back into himself, alone, by himself companioned. And in an agony of fear lest I should intrude for a moment even, I sped as fast as I had entered from his mysterious presence.

To this hour I cannot find in my memory the tone in which he spoke that day. Though I have heard that voice so often since, have listened to it in a trance of life, I can never realize _it_,--it was too unearthly, and became part of what I shall be, having distilled from the essence of my being, as I am.

Well, I came upon Lenhart Davy in one of the pa.s.sages as I was running back. I fell, in fact, against him, and he caught me in his arms.

"Charles Auchester, where have you been? You have frightened me sorely. I thought I had lost you, I did indeed, and have been looking for you ever since we came out of the hall."

As soon as I could collect enough of myself to put into words, I exclaimed ecstatically, "Oh, Mr. Davy! I have been talking to the man in the orchestra!"

"You have, indeed, you presumptuous atomy!" and he laughed in his own way, adding, "I did not expect you would blow into an hero quite so soon. And is our hero up there still? My dear Charles, you must have been mistaken, he must be in the committee-room."

"No, I was not. The idea of my mistaking! as if anybody else could be like him! He is up there now, and he would not come down, though they asked him; and he said he would only drink a gla.s.s of water, and I heard him, for I waited to see, and I fetched it, and he drank it--there!" and I flung myself round Davy again, almost exhausted with joy.

"And he spoke to you, did he, Charles? My own little boy, be still, or I shall have to fetch _you_ a gla.s.s of water. I am really afraid of all this excitement, for which you seem to come in naturally."

"So I do, Mr. Davy; but do tell me who is that man?"

"I cannot tell," said Davy, himself so flushed now that I could hardly think him the same person, "unless, by some extraordinary chance, it may be Milans-Andre."

"No, no!" exclaimed one of our contemporaries, who, in returning to the orchestra, overheard the remark. "No, no! it is not Milans-Andre.

Mr. Hermann, the leader, has seen Milans-Andre in Paris. No, it is some n.o.bleman, they say,--a German prince. They all know Handel in Germany."

"Nonsense!" replied Davy, "they don't know Handel better in Germany than we do in England;" but he spoke as if to me, having turned from the person who addressed him.

"Don't they, Mr. Davy? But he does look like a prince."

"Not a _German_ prince, my Charles. He is more like one of your favorite Jews,--and that is where it is, no doubt."

"Davy, Davy!" exclaimed again another, one of the professors in the town, "can it be Milans-Andre?"

"They say not, Mr. Westley. I do not know myself, but I should have thought Monsieur Andre must be older than this gentleman, who does not look twenty."

"Oh! he is more than twenty."

"As you please," muttered Davy, merrily, as he turned again to me. "My boy, we must not stand here; we shall lose our old places. Do not forget to remain in yours, when it is over, till I come to fetch you."

When it is over! Oh, cruel Lenhart Davy! to remind me that it would ever end. I felt it cruel then, but perhaps I felt too much,--I always do, and I hope I always shall.

Again marshalled in our places (I having crept to mine), and again fitted in very tightly, we all arose. I suppose it was the oppression of so many round me standing, superadded to the strong excitement, but the whole time the chorus lasted, "Behold the Lamb of G.o.d!" I could not sing. I stood and sobbed; but even then I had respect to Davy's neatly copied alto sheet, and I only shaded my eyes with that, and wept upon the floor. n.o.body near observed me; they were all singing with all their might; I alone dared to look down, ever down, and weep upon the floor.

Such tears I never shed before; they were as necessary as dew after a cloudless day, and, to pursue my figure, I awoke again at the conclusion of the chorus to a deep, rapturous serenity, pure as twilight, and gazed upwards at the stars, whose "smile was Paradise,"

with my heart again all voice.

I believe the chorus, "Lift up your heads!" will never again be heard in England as it was heard then, and I am quite certain of the "Hallelujah." It was as close, as clear, and the power that bound the band alike constrained the chorus; both seemed freed from all responsibility, and alone to depend upon the will that swayed, that stirred, with a spell real as supernatural, and sweet as strange.

Perhaps the most immediate consequence of such faultless interpretation was the remarkable stillness of the audience. Doubtless a few there were who were calm in critical pique, but I believe the majority dared not applaud, so decided had been the negative of that graceful sign at the commencement of the performance; besides, a breathless curiosity brooded, as distinctly to be traced in the countenance of the crowd as in their thrilling quietude,--for thrilling it was indeed, though not so thrilling as the outbreak, the tempest out-rolling of pent-up satisfaction at the end of the final chorus. That chorus (it was well indeed it was the last) seemed alone to have exhausted the strength of the conductor; his arm suddenly seemed to tire, he entirely relaxed, and the delicate but burning hectic on each cheek alone remained, the seal of his celestial pa.s.sion.

He turned as soon as the applause, instead of decreasing, persisted; for at first he had remained with his face towards the choir. As the shouts still reached him, and the sea of heads began to fluctuate, he bent a little in acknowledgment, but nevertheless preserved the same air of indifference and abstraction from all about, beneath him.