The First Violin Part 24

"Is that Friedhelm Helfen?" asked Karl Linders, surveying me. "_Potz blitz!_ he looks like a corpse! he's been at his old tricks again, starving himself. I expect he has touched nothing the whole day."

"Let's get him out and give him some brandy," said Courvoisier. "Lend him an arm, and I'll give him one on this side."

Together they hauled me down to the retiring-room.

"_Ei!_ he wants a schnapps, or something of the kind," said Karl, who seemed to think the whole affair an excellent joke. "Look here, _alter Narr!_" he added; "you've been going without anything to eat, _nicht_?"

"I believe I have," I a.s.sented, feebly. "But I'm all right; I'll go home."

Rejecting Karl's pressing entreaties to join him at supper at his favorite Wirthschaft, we went home, purchasing our supper on the way.

Courvoisier's first step was toward the place where he had left the child. He was gone.

"_Verschwunden!_" cried he, striding off to the sleeping-room, whither I followed him. The little lad had been undressed and put to bed in a small crib, and was sleeping serenely.

"That's Frau Schmidt, who can't do with children and nurse-maids," said I, laughing.

"It's very kind of her," said he, as he touched the child's cheek slightly with his little finger, and then, without another word, returned to the other room, and we sat down to our long-delayed supper.

"What on earth made you spend more than twelve hours without food?" he asked me, laying down his knife and fork, and looking at me.

"I'll tell you some time perhaps, not now," said I, for there had begun to dawn upon my mind, like a sun-ray, the idea that life held an interest for me--two interests--a friend and a child. To a miserable, lonely wretch like me, the idea was divine.

CHAPTER XVI.

Though nothing can bring back the hour Of splendor in the gra.s.s, of glory in the flower.

We will grieve not--rather find Strength in what remains behind; In the primal sympathy Which having been, must ever be.

In the soothing thoughts that spring Out of human suffering!

In the faith that looks through death-- In years, that bring the philosophic mind.

WORDSWORTH.

From that October afternoon I was a man saved from myself. Courvoisier had said, in answer to my earnest entreaties about joining housekeeping: "We will try--you may not like it, and if so, remember you are at liberty to withdraw when you will." The answer contented me, because I knew that I should not try to withdraw.

Our friends.h.i.+p progressed by such quiet, imperceptible degrees, each one knotting the past more closely and inextricably with the present, that I could by no means relate them if I wished it. But I do not wish it. I only know, and am content with it, that it has fallen to my lot to be blessed with that most precious of all earthly possessions, the "friend" that "sticketh closer than a brother." Our union has grown and remained not merely "_fest und treu_," but immovable, unshakable.

There was first the child. He was two years old; a strange, weird, silent child, very beautiful--as the son of his father could scarcely fail to be--but with a different kind of beauty. How still he was, and how patient! Not a fretful child, not given to crying or complaint; fond of resting in one place, with solemn, thoughtful eyes fixed, when his father was there, upon him; when his father was not there, upon the strip of sky which was to be seen, through the window above the house-tops.

The child's name was Sigmund; he displayed a friendly disposition toward me, indeed, he was pa.s.sively friendly and--if one may say such a thing of a baby--courteous to all he came in contact with. He had inherited his father's polished manner; one saw that when he grew up he would be a "gentleman," in the finest outer sense of the word. His inner life he kept concealed from us. I believe he had some method of communicating his ideas to Eugen, even if he never spoke. Eugen never could conceal his own mood from the child; it knew--let him feign otherwise never so cunningly--exactly what he felt, glad or sad, or between the two, and no acting could deceive him. It was a strange, intensely interesting study to me; one to which I daily returned with fresh avidity. He would let me take him in my arms and talk to him; would sometimes, after looking at me long and earnestly, break into a smile--a strange, grave, sweet smile. Then I could do no otherwise than set him hastily down and look away, for so unearthly a smile I had never seen. He was, though fragile, not an unhealthy child; though so delicately formed, and intensely sensitive to nervous shocks, had nothing of the coward in him, as was proved to us in a thousand ways; s.h.i.+vered through and through his little frame at the sight of a certain picture to which he had taken a great antipathy, a picture which hung in the public gallery at the Tonhalle; he hated it, because of a certain evil-looking man portrayed in it; but when his father, taking his hand, said to him, "Go, Sigmund, and look at that man; I wish thee to look at him," went without turn or waver, and gazed long and earnestly at the low type, b.e.s.t.i.a.l visage portrayed to him. Eugen had trodden noiselessly behind him; I watched, and he watched, how his two little fists clinched themselves at his sides, while his gaze never wavered, never wandered, till at last Eugen, with a strange expression, caught him in his arms and half killed him with kisses.

"_Mein liebling!_" he murmured, as if utterly satisfied with him.

Courvoisier himself? There were a great many strong and positive qualities about this man, which in themselves would have set him somewhat apart from other men. Thus he had crotchety ideas about truth and honor, such as one might expect from so knightly looking a personage. It was Karl Linders, who, at a later period of our acquaintance, amused himself by chalking up, "Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter," beneath his name. His musical talent--or rather genius, it was more than talent--was at that time not one fifth part known to me, yet even what I saw excited my wonder. But these, and a long list of other active characteristics, all faded into insignificance before the towering pa.s.sion of his existence--his love for his child. It was strange, it was touching, to see the bond between father and son. The child's thoughts and words, as told in his eyes and from his lips, formed the man's philosophy. I believe Eugen confided everything to his boy. His first thought in the morning, his last at night, was for _der Kleine_. His leisure was--I can not say "given up" to the boy--but it was always pa.s.sed with him.

Courvoisier soon gained a reputation among our comrades for being a sham and a delusion. They said that to look at him one would suppose that no more genial, jovial fellow could exist--there was kindliness in his glance, _bon camaraderie_ in his voice, a genial, open, human sympathetic kind of influence in his nature, and in all he did. "And yet," said Karl Linders to me, with gesticulation, "one never can get him to go anywhere. One may invite him, one may try to be friends with him, but, no! off he goes home! What does the fellow want at home? He behaves like a young miss of fifteen, whose governess won't let her mix with vulgar companions."

I laughed, despite myself, at this tirade of Karl. So that was how Eugen's behavior struck outsiders!

"And you are every bit as bad as he is, and as soft--he has made you so," went on Linders, vehemently. "It isn't right. You two ought to be leaders outside as well as in, but you walk yourselves away, and stay at home! At home, indeed! Let green goslings and grandfathers stay at home."

Indeed, Herr Linders was not a person who troubled home much; spending his time between morning and night between the theater and concert-room, restauration and verein.

"What do you do at home?" he asked, irately.

"That's our concern, _mein lieber_," said I, composedly, thinking of young Sigmund, whose existence was unknown except to our two selves, and laughing.

"Are you composing a symphony? or an opera buffa? You might tell a fellow."

I laughed again, and said we led a peaceable life, as honest citizens should; and added, laying my hand upon his shoulder, for I had more of a leaning toward Karl, scamp though he was, than to any of the others, "You might do worse than follow our example, old fellow."

"Bah!" said he, with unutterable contempt. "I'm a man; not a milksop.

Besides, how do I know what your example is? You say you behave yourselves; but how am I to know it? I'll drop upon you unawares and catch you, some time. See if I don't."

The next evening, by a rare chance with us, was a free one--there was no opera and no concert; we had had probe that morning, and were at liberty to follow the devices and desires of our own hearts that evening.

These devices and desires led us straight home, followed by a sneering laugh from Herr Linders, which vastly amused me. The year was drawing to a close. Christmas was nigh; the weather was cold and unfriendly. Our stove was lighted; our lamp burned pleasantly on the table; our big room looked homely and charming by these evening lights. Master Sigmund was wide awake in honor of the occasion, and sat upon my knee while his father played the fiddle. I have not spoken of his playing before--it was, in its way, unique. It was not a violin that he played--it was a spirit that he invoked--and a strange answer it sometimes gave forth to his summons. To-night he had taken it up suddenly, and sat playing, without book, a strange melody which wrung my heart--full of minor cadences, with an infinite wail and weariness in it. I closed my eyes and listened. It was sad, but it was absorbing. When I opened my eyes again and looked down, I found that tears were running from Sigmund's eyes. He was sobbing quietly, his head against my breast.

"I say, Eugen! Look here!"

"Is he crying? Poor little chap! He'll have a good deal to go through before he has learned all his lessons," said Eugen, laying down his violin.

"What was that? I never heard it before."

"I have, often," said he, resting his chin upon his hand, "in the sound of streams--in the rush of a crowd--upon a mountain--yes, even alone with the woman I--" He broke off abruptly.

"But never on a violin before?" said I, significantly.

"No, never."

"Why don't you print some of those impromptus that you are always making?" I asked.

He shrugged his shoulders. Ere I could pursue the question some one knocked at the door, and in answer to our _herein!_ appeared a handsome, laughing face, and a head of wavy hair, which, with a tall, shapely figure, I recognized as those of Karl Linders.

"I told you fellows I'd hunt you up, and I always keep my word," said he, composedly. "You can't very well turn me out for calling upon you."

He advanced. Courvoisier rose, and with a courteous cordiality offered his hand and drew a chair up. Karl came forward, looking round, smiling and chuckling at the success of his experiment, and as he came opposite to me his eyes fell upon those of the child, who had raised his head and was staring gravely at him.

Never shall I forget the start--the look of amaze, almost of fear, which shot across the face of Herr Linders. Amazement would be a weak word in which to describe it. He stopped, stood stock-still in the middle of the room; his jaw fell--he gazed from one to the other of us in feeble astonishment, then said, in a whisper:

"_Donnerwetter!_ A child!"

"Don't use bad language before the little innocent," said I, enjoying his confusion.

"Which of you does it belong to? Is it he or she?" he inquired in an awe-struck and alarmed manner.

"His name is Sigmund Courvoisier," said I, with difficulty preserving my gravity.