The First Violin Part 37

"Ah, then I will be disagreeable to you."

This remark, and the tone in which it was uttered, came upon me with a shock which I can not express. He would be disagreeable to me because I hated those who were disagreeable to me, _ergo_, he wished me to hate him. But why? What was the meaning of the whole extraordinary proceeding?

"Why?" I asked, mechanically, and asked nothing more.

"Because then you will hate me, unless you have the good sense to do so already."

"Why? What effect will my hatred have upon you?"

"None. Not a jot. _Gar keine._ But I wish you to hate me, nevertheless."

"So you have begun to be disagreeable to me by pulling me out of the water, lending me your coat, and giving me your arm all along this hard, lonely road," said I, composedly.

He laughed.

"That was before I knew of your peculiarity. From to-morrow morning on I shall begin. I will make you hate me. I shall be glad if you hate me."

I said nothing. My head felt bewildered; my understanding benumbed. I was conscious that I was very weary--conscious that I should like to cry, so bitter was my disappointment.

As we came within the town, I said:

"I am very sorry, Herr Courvoisier, to have given you so much trouble."

"That means that I am to put you into a cab and relieve you of my company."

"It does not," I e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, pa.s.sionately, jerking my hand from his arm.

"How can you say so? How dare you say so?"

"You might meet some of your friends, you know."

"And I tell you I have no friends except Herr von Francius, and I am not accountable to him for my actions."

"We shall soon be at your house now."

"Herr Courvoisier, have you forgiven me?"

"Forgiven you what?"

"My rudeness to you once."

"Ah, _mein Fraulein_," said he, shrugging his shoulders a little and smiling slightly, "you are under a delusion about that circ.u.mstance. How can I forgive that which I never resented?"

This was putting the matter in a new, and, for me, an humbling light.

"Never resented!" I murmured, confusedly.

"Never. Why should I resent it? I forgot myself, _nicht wahr_! and you showed me at one and the same time my proper place and your own excellent good sense. You did not wish to know me, and I did not resent it. I had no right to resent it."

"Excuse me," said I, my voice vibrating against my will; "you are wrong there, and either you are purposely saying what is not true, or you have not the feelings of a gentleman." His arm sprung a little aside as I went on, amazed at my own boldness. "I did not show you your 'proper place.' I did not show my own good sense. I showed my ignorance, vanity, and surprise. If you do not know that, you are not what I take you for--a gentleman."

"Perhaps not," said he, after a pause. "You certainly did not take me for one then. Why should I be a gentleman? What makes you suppose I am one?"

Questions which, however satisfactorily I might answer them to myself, I could not well reply to in words. I felt that I had rushed upon a topic which could not be explained, since he would not own himself offended. I had made a fool of myself and gained nothing by it. While I was racking my brain for some satisfactory closing remark, we turned a corner and came into the Wehrhahn. A clock struck seven.

"_Gott im Himmel!_" he exclaimed. "Seven o'clock! The opera--_da geht's schon an!_ Excuse me, Fraulein, I must go. Ah, here is your house."

He took the coat gently from my shoulders, wished me _gute besserung_, and ringing the bell, made me a profound bow, and either not noticing or not choosing to notice the hand which I stretched out toward him, strode off hastily toward the theater, leaving me cold, sick, and miserable, to digest my humble pie with what appet.i.te I might.

CHAPTER XXII.

CUI BONO?

Christmas morning. And how cheerfully I spent it! I tried first of all to forget that it was Christmas, and only succeeded in impressing the fact more forcibly and vividly upon my mind, and with it others; the fact that I was alone especially predominating. And a German Christmas is not the kind of thing to let a lonely person forget his loneliness in; its very bustle and union serves to emphasize their solitude to solitary people.

I had seen such quant.i.ties of Christmas-trees go past the day before.

One to every house in the neighborhood. One had even come here, and the widow of the piano-tuner had hung it with lights and invited some children to make merry for the feast of Weihnachten Abend.

Every one had a present except me. Every one had some one with whom to spend their Christmas--except me. A little tiny Christmas-tree had gone to the rooms whose windows faced mine. I had watched its arrival; for once I had broken through my rule of not deliberately watching my neighbors, and had done so. The tree arrived in the morning. It was kept a profound mystery from Sigmund, who was relegated, much to his disgust, to the society of Frau Schmidt down-stairs, who kept a vigilant watch upon him and would not let him go upstairs on any account.

The afternoon gradually darkened down. My landlady invited me to join her party down-stairs; I declined. The rapturous, untutored joy of half a dozen children had no attraction for me; the hermit-like watching of the scene over the way had. I did not light my lamp. I was secure of not being disturbed; for Frau Lutzler, when I would not come to her, had sent my supper upstairs, and said she would not be able to come to me again that evening.

"So much the better!" I murmured, and put myself in a window corner.

The lights over the way were presently lighted. For a moment I trembled lest the blinds were going to be put down, and all my chance of spying spoiled. But no; my neighbors were careless fellows--not given to watching their neighbors themselves nor to suspecting other people of it. The blinds were left up, and I was free to observe all that pa.s.sed.

Toward half past five I saw by the light of the street-lamp, which was just opposite, two people come into the house; a young man who held the hand of a little girl. The young man was Karl Linders, the violoncellist; the little girl, I supposed, must be his sister. They went upstairs, or rather Karl went upstairs; his little sister remained below.

There was a great shaking of hands and some laughing when Karl came into the room. He produced various packages which were opened, their contents criticised, and hung upon the tree. Then the three men surveyed their handiwork with much satisfaction. I could see the whole scene. They could not see my watching face pressed against the window, for they were in light and I was in darkness.

Friedhelm went out of the room, and, I suppose, exerted his lungs from the top of the stairs, for he came back, flushed and laughing, and presently the door opened, and Frau Schmidt, looking like the mother of the Gracchi, entered, holding a child by each hand. She never moved a muscle. She held a hand of each, and looked alternately at them. Breathless, I watched. It was almost as exciting as if I had been joining in the play--more so, for to me everything was _sur l'imprevu_--revealed piecemeal, while to them some degree of foreknowledge must exist, to deprive the ceremony of some of its charms.

There was awed silence for a time. It was a pretty scene. In the middle of the room a wooden table; upon it the small green fir, covered with little twinkling tapers; the orthodox waxen angels, and strings of b.a.l.l.s and bonbons hanging about--the white _Christ-kind_ at the top in the arms of Father Christmas. The three men standing in a semi-circle at one side; how well I could see them! A suppressed smile upon Eugen's face, such as it always wore when pleasing other people. Friedhelm not allowing the smile to fully appear upon his countenance, but with a grave delight upon his face, and with great satisfaction beaming from his luminous brown eyes. Karl with his hands in his pockets, and an att.i.tude by which I knew he said, "There! what do you think of that?"

Frau Schmidt and the two children on the other side.

The tree was not a big one. The wax-lights were probably cheap ones; the gifts that hung upon the boughs or lay on the table must have been measured by the available funds of three poor musicians. But the whole affair did its mission admirably--even more effectively than an official commission to (let us say) inquire into the cause of the loss of an ironclad. It--the tree I mean, not the commission--was intended to excite joy and delight, and it did excite them to a very high extent. It was meant to produce astonishment in unsophisticated minds--it did that too, and here it has a point in common with the proceedings of the commission respectfully alluded to.

The little girl who was a head taller than Sigmund, had quant.i.ties of flaxen hair plaited in a pigtail and tied with light blue ribbon--new; and a sweet face which was a softened girl miniature of her brother's.

She jumped for joy, and eyed the tree and the bonbons, and everything else with irrepressible rapture. Sigmund was not given to effusive declaration of his emotion, but after gazing long and solemnly at the show, his eyes turned to his father, and the two smiled in the odd manner they had, as if at some private understanding existing between themselves. Then the festivities were considered inaugurated.

Friedhelm Helfen took the rest of the proceedings into his own hands; and distributed the presents exactly as if he had found them all growing on the tree, and had not the least idea what they were nor whence they came. A doll which fell to the share of the little Gretchen was from Sigmund, as I found from the lively demonstrations that took place.

Gretchen kissed him, at which every one laughed, and made him kiss the doll, or receive a kiss from it--a waxy salute which did not seem to cause him much enthusiasm.

I could not see what the other things were, only it was evident that every one gave every one else something, and Frau Schmidt's face relaxed into a stern smile on one or two occasions, as the young men presented her one after the other with some offering, accompanied with speeches and bows and ceremony. A conspicuous parcel done up in white paper was left to the last. Then Friedhelm took it up, and apparently made a long harangue, for the company--especially Karl Linders--became attentive. I saw a convulsive smile twitch Eugen's lips now and then, as the oration proceeded. Karl by and by grew even solemn, and it was with an almost awe-struck glance that he at last received the parcel from Friedhelm's hands, who gave it as if he were bestowing his blessing.