Unfinished Portraits Part 12

She stopped him impatiently.

"You will not go!" she said. He turned his eyes and looked at her. After a moment her own fell. "Why will you go?" she asked.

The face with its dumb look was turned toward her.

"That little song--it calls me," he said softly. "When it is done I will come back again--to you."

She smiled under the lids.

"That little song--is it for me?" she asked sweetly.

"Ja, for you." He looked pleadingly at the downcast face. "The song--it is very sweet; it teases me."

The lids quivered.

"It comes to me so close, so close!" He was silent, a rapt look of listening in his face. It broke with a swift sigh. "Ach! it is gone!"

She glanced at him swiftly.

"I thought the songs came quickly."

He shook his head.

"The others, yes; but not this one. It is not like the others. It is so sweet and gentle--far away--and pure like the snow.... It calls me--"

He broke off, gazing earnestly at the beautiful, high-bred face, with its downcast eyes.

"Nein! I cannot speak it," he said softly. "But the song it will speak it for me--when I come."

She lifted her head, and held out her hand with a gesture half shy and very sweet.

The moonlight veiled her. "I shall wait," she said gently--"for the song."

He held the slender hand for a moment in his own; then it was laid lightly against his lips, and turning, he had disappeared among the shadows.

V

"Hallo, Franz! Hallo--there!"

Two young men, walking rapidly along the low hedge that shuts in the Zum Biersack from the highway, lifted heated faces and glanced toward the enclosure, where a youth seated at one of the tables had half risen from his place, and was gesticulating with the open book in his hand to vacant seats beside him.

"It is Tieze," said Schubert, with a smile. "Come in."

His companion nodded. The next instant a swift waiter had served them, and three round, smiling faces surveyed one another above the foaming mugs.

"Ach!" said Tieze, looking more critically at the shorter man, "but you have grown thin, my friend. You are not so great."

Schubert smiled complacently. He glanced down at his rotund figure.

"Nein, I am little," he a.s.sented affably.

His companions broke into a roar of laughter.

"Drink her down, Franz! drink her down!" said Tieze, lifting the heavy stein.

Schubert wiped the foam from his lips.

"Ja, that is good!" He drew a deep sigh.

He reached out his hand for the open volume that lay by his companion's hand. It was given over in silence, and he dipped into it as he sipped the beer, smiling and scowling and humming softly. Now and then he lifted his head and listened. His eyes looked across the noisy garden into s.p.a.ce.

His companions ignored him. They laughed and chatted and sang. Other young men joined the group, and the talk grew loud. It was the Sunday festival of Wa.r.s.eck.

Schubert smiled absently across the babel.

"A pencil--quick!" he said in a low tone to Tieze. His hand holding the open book trembled, and the big eyes glowed with fire.

Tieze fumbled in his pockets and shook his head.

Schubert glared at the careless group.

"A pencil, I tell you!" he said fiercely.

There was a moment's lull. n.o.body laughed. Some one thrust a stub of pencil across the table. A fat young man sitting at Schubert's side seized it and, drawing a few music-bars on the back of a programme, pushed it on to him.

"Ach!" said Schubert, with a grateful sigh, "Goot--goot!" In another moment he was lost.

The talk grew louder. Hurried waiters rushed back and forth behind his chair with foaming mugs and slices of black bread, and gray and brown.

Fiddles squeaked, and skittle-players shouted. Now and then the noise broke off and changed to the national air, which the band across the garden played loudly. But through it all Schubert's big head wagged absently, and his short-sighted eyes glared at the barred lines and flying pencil.

Suddenly he raised his head with a snort. His spectacles flew to his forehead, and his round face smiled genially at the laughing group.

"Done?" asked the fat young man with a smile. He reached out his hand for the scrawled page.

Schubert drew it jealously back.

"Nein," he said quickly.

Tieze, who had come around the table, stood behind them, scanning the barred lines and the scattered shower of notes. He raised a quick hand to the group about the table.

"Gott im Himmel!" he said excitedly. "Listen, you dunderheads!"

Silence fell on the group. Every glance was turned to him. He hummed softly a few bars of sweetest melody--under the garden's din.... The notes stopped in a choking gasp, Schubert's hand on his throat.

"Stop that!" he said hoa.r.s.ely. The paper had been thrust loosely into his coat pocket. His face worked fiercely.