The 
 First Violin 
 
 by Jessie Fothergill
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 IN MEMORY OF 
 MRS. VIRGINIA B. SPORER
 
 THE FIRST VIOLIN
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 REPRINTS OF STANDARD FICTION 
 
 C as he I Byron s Profession 
 
 By G. Bernard Shaw 
 
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 An Unsocial Socialist 
 
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 A Mummer's Wife 
 
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 The First Violin 
 
 By Jessie Fothergill 
 
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 THE 
 
 FIRST VIOLIN 
 
 BY 
 
 JESSIE FOTHERGILL 
 
 With Illustrations by 
 G. W. BRENNEMAN 
 
 Two VOLUMES IN ONE 
 
 New York 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 1910
 
 Copyright, /<S&6, by 
 BRENTANO'S
 
 a. c* ux 
 
 A SLIGHT TOKEN 
 
 OF 
 
 MY GRATITUDE AND AFFECTION 
 
 2039491
 
 THE FIRST VIOLIN
 
 THE FIRST VIOLIN 
 
 BOOK I 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 MISS HALLAM 
 
 " WONDERFUL weather for April ! " Yes, it certainly 
 was wonderful . I fully agreed with the sentiment expressed 
 at different periods of the day by different members of my 
 family ; but I did not follow their example and seek enjoy- 
 ment out of doors pleasure in that balmy spring air. 
 Trouble the first trouble of my life had laid her hand 
 heavily upon me. The world felt disjointed and all upside- 
 down ; I very helpless and lonely in it. I had two sisters, 
 I had a father and a mother; but none the less was I 
 unable to share my grief with any one of them; nay, it 
 had been an absolute relief to me when first one and then 
 another of them had left the house, on business or pleas- 
 ure intent, and I, after watching my father go down the 
 garden-walk, and seeing the gate close after him, knew
 
 2 The First Violin 
 
 that, save for Jane, our domestic, who was carolling lustily 
 to herself in the kitchen regions, I was alone in the house. 
 
 I was in the drawing-room. Once secure of solitude, I 
 put down the sewing with which I had been pretending to 
 employ myself, and went to the window a pleasant, sunny 
 bay. In that window stood a small work-table, with a 
 flower-pot upon it, containing a lilac primula. I remem- 
 ber it distinctly to this day, and I am likely to carry the 
 recollection with me so long as I live. I leaned my elbows 
 upon this table, and gazed across the fields, green with 
 spring grass, tenderly lighted by^n April sun, to where the 
 river the Skern shone with a pleasant, homely, silvery 
 glitter, twining through the smiling meadows till he bent 
 round the solemn, overhanging cliff crowned with mourn- 
 ful firs, which went by the name of the Rifted or Riven 
 Scaur. 
 
 In some such delightful mead might the white-armed 
 Nausicaa have tossed her cowslip balls amongst the other 
 maids ; perhaps by some such river might Persephone have 
 paused to gather the daffodil " the fateful flower beside 
 the rilU" Light clouds flitted across the sky, a waft of 
 wind danced in at the open window, ruffling my hair mock- 
 ingly, and bearing with it the deep sound of a church- 
 clock striking four. 
 
 As if the striking of the hour had been a signal for the 
 breaking of a spell, the silence that had prevailed came to 
 an end. Wheels came rolling along the road up to the 
 door, which, however, was at the other side of the house. 
 "A visitor for my father, no doubt," I thought indiffer-
 
 The First Violin 3 
 
 ently; "and he has gone out to read the funeral service 
 for a dead parishioner. How strange ! I wonder how 
 clergymen and doctors can ever get accustomed to the grim 
 contrasts amidst which they live ! " 
 
 I suffered my thoughts to wander off in some such track as 
 this, but they were all through dominated by a heavy sense 
 of oppression the threatening hand of a calamity which I 
 feared was about to overtake me, and I had again forgot- 
 ten the outside world. 
 
 The door was opened. Jane held it open and said noth- 
 ing (a trifling habit of hers, which used to cause me much 
 annoyance), and a tall woman walked slowly into the 
 room. I rose and looked earnestly at her, surprised and 
 somewhat nervous when I saw who she was Miss Hallam, 
 of Hallam Grange, our near neighbor, but a great stranger 
 to us nevertheless, so far, that is, as personal intercourse 
 went. 
 
 " Your servant told me that every one was out except 
 Miss May," she remarked, in a harsh, decided voice, as 
 she looked not so much at me as towards me, and I per- 
 ceived that there was something strange about her eyes. 
 
 " Yes ; I am sorry," I began doubtfully. 
 
 She had sallow, strongly-marked, but proud and aristo- 
 cratic features, and a manner with more than a tinge of 
 imperiousness. Her face, her figure, her voice were 
 familiar, yet strange to me familiar because I had heard 
 of her, and been in the habit of occasionally seeing her 
 from my very earliest childhood ; strange, because she was 
 reserved and not given to seeking her neighbors' houses
 
 4 The First Violin 
 
 for purposes either of gossip or hospitality. I was aware 
 that about once in two years she made a call at our house, 
 the Vicarage, whether as a mark of politeness to us, or to 
 show that, though she never entered a church, she still 
 chose to lend her countenance and approval to the Estab- 
 lishment, or whether merely out of old use and habit, I 
 knew not. I only knew that she came, and that until now 
 it had never fallen to my lot to be present upon any of 
 those momentous occasions. 
 
 Feeling it a little hard that my coveted solitude should 
 thus be interrupted, and not quite knowing what to say to 
 her, I sat down, and there was a moment's pause. 
 
 " Is your mother well? " she inquired. 
 
 " Yes, thank you, very well. She has gone with my sis- 
 ter to Barton." 
 
 " Your father ? " 
 
 " He is well too, thank you. He has a funeral this 
 afternoon." 
 
 " I think you have two sisters, have you not? " 
 
 "Yes; Adelaide and Stella." 
 
 " And which are you? " 
 
 " May. I am the second one." 
 
 All her questions were put in an almost severe tone, 
 and not as if she took very much interest in me or mine. 
 I felt my timidity increase, and yet I liked her. Yes, I 
 felt most distinctly that I liked her. 
 
 "May," she remarked meditatively; "May Wedder- 
 burn. Are you aware that you have a very pretty north- 
 country sounding name ? "
 
 The First Violin 5 
 
 " I have not thought about it." 
 
 " How old are you ? " 
 
 " I am a little over seventeen." 
 
 " Ah ! And what do you do all day ? " 
 
 " Oh ! " I began doubtfully, " not much, I am afraid, 
 that is useful or valuable." 
 
 " You are young enough yet. Don't begin to do things 
 with a purpose for some time to come. Be happy whilst 
 you can." 
 
 " I am not at all happy," I replied, not thinking of 
 what I was saying, and then feeling that I could have bit- 
 ten my tongue out with vexation. What could it possibly 
 matter to Miss Hallam whether I were happy or not? She 
 was asking me all these questions to pass the time, and 
 in order to talk about something while she sat in our 
 house. 
 
 " What makes you unhappy ? Are your sisters disagree- 
 able ?" 
 
 "Oh**/" 
 
 " Are your parents unkind ? " 
 
 " Unkind!" I echoed, thinking what a very extraordi- 
 nary woman she was, and wondering what kind of experi- 
 ence hers could have been in the past. 
 
 " Then I cannot imagine what cause for unhappiness you 
 can have," she said composedly. 
 
 I made no answer. I repented me of having uttered the 
 words, and Miss Hallam went on : 
 
 " I should advise you to forget that there is such a thing 
 as unhappiness. You will soon succeed."
 
 6 The First Violin 
 
 " Yes I will try," said I in a low voice, as the cause of 
 my unhappiness rose up, gaunt, grim and forbidding, with 
 thin lips curved in a mocking smile, and glittering, snake- 
 like eyes fixed upon my face. I shivered faintly; and she, 
 though looking quickly at me, seemed to think she had said 
 enough about my happiness. Her next question surprised 
 me much. 
 
 " Are you fair in complexion ? " she inquired. 
 
 " Yes," said I. " I am very fair fairer than either of 
 my sisters. But are you near-sighted ? " 
 
 " Near sight/ess," she replied, with a bitter little laugh. 
 " Cataract. I have so many joys in my life that Provi- 
 dence has thought fit to temper the sunshine of my lot. I 
 am to content myself with the store of pleasant remem- 
 brances with which my mind is crowded, when I can see 
 nothing outside. A delightful arrangement. It is what 
 pious people call a ' cross ' or a ' visitation ' or something 
 of that kind. I am not pious, and I call it the destruc- 
 tion of what little happiness I had." 
 
 11 Oh, I am very, very sorry for you," I answered, feel- 
 ing what I spoke, for it had always been my idea of misery 
 to be blind shut away from the sunlight upon the fields, 
 from the hue of the river, from all that " lust of the eye " 
 which meets us on every side. 
 
 " But are you quite alone ? " I continued. " Have you 
 no one to 
 
 I stopped : I was about to add, "to be kind to you to 
 take care of you ?" but I suddenly remembered that it 
 would not do for me to ask such questions.
 
 The First Violin 7 
 
 " No, I live quite alone," said she abruptly. " Did 
 you think of offering to relieve my solitude ? " 
 
 I felt myself burning with a hot blush all over my face, 
 as I stammered out : 
 
 " I am sure I never thought of anything so impertinent, 
 but but if there was anything I could do read, or 
 
 I stopped again. Never very confident in myself, I felt 
 a miserable sense that I might have been going too far. I 
 wished most ardently that my mother or Adelaide had 
 been there to take the weight of such a conversation from 
 my shoulders. What was my surprise to hear Miss Hallam 
 say, in a tone quite smooth, polished, and polite : 
 
 " Come and drink tea with me to-morrow afternoon 
 afternoon tea I mean. You can go away again as soon as 
 you like. Will you ?" 
 
 " Oh, thank you. Yes, I will." 
 
 " Very well. I shall expect you between four and five. 
 Good-afternoon. ' ' 
 
 " Let me come with you to your carriage," said I has- 
 tily. " Jane our servant is so clumsy." 
 
 I preceded her with care, saw her seated in her carriage 
 and driven away towards the Grange, which was but a few 
 hundred yards from our own gates, and then I returned to 
 the house. And as I went in again, my companion-shadow 
 glided once more to my side, with soft, insinuating, irre- 
 sistible importunity, and I knew that it would be my faith- 
 ful attendant for who could say how long ?
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " Traversons gravement 
 cette mechanic mascarade 
 qu'on appelle le monde." 
 
 THE houses in Skern- 
 ford the houses of the 
 "gentry" that is to 
 say lay almost all on 
 one side an old-fash- 
 ioned, sleepy- looking 
 
 green," towards 
 which their entrances 
 lay; but their real 
 
 front, their pleasantest aspect, was on their other side, 
 facing the river which ran below, and down to which 
 their gardens sloped in terraces. Our house, the Vicar- 
 age, lay nearest the church; Miss Hallam's house, the 
 Grange, farthest from the church. Between these, larger 
 and more imposing, in grounds beside which ours seemed 
 to dwindle down to a few flower-beds, lay Deeplish Hall, 
 whose owner, Sir Peter Le Marchant, had lately come to 
 live there, at least for a time.
 
 The First Violin 9 
 
 It was many years since Sir Peter Le Marchant, whose 
 image at this time was fated to enter so largely and so much 
 against my will into all my calculations, had lived at, or 
 even visited his estate at Skernford. He was a man of 
 immense property, and report said that Deeplish Hall, 
 which we innocent villagers looked upon as such an im- 
 posing mansion, was but one, and not the grandest of his 
 several country houses. All that I knew of his history or 
 rather, all that I had heard of it, whether truly or not, I 
 was in no position to say was but a vague and misty 
 account ; yet that little had given me a dislike to him 
 before I ever met him. 
 
 Miss Hal lam, our neighbor, who lived in such solitude 
 and retirement, was credited with having a history if 
 report had only been able to fix upon what it was. She 
 was popularly supposed to be of a grim and decidedly 
 eccentric disposition. Eccentric she was, as I afterwards 
 found as I thought when I first saw her. She seldom 
 appeared either in church or upon any other public occa- 
 sion, and was said to be the deadly enemy of Sir Peter 
 Le Marchant and all pertaining to him. There was some 
 old, far-back romance connected with it a romance which 
 I did not understand, for up to now I had never known 
 either her or Sir Peter sufficiently to take any interest in 
 the story, but the report ran that in days gone by how 
 far gone by, too, they must have been ! Miss Hallam a 
 young and handsome heiress, loved very devotedly her one 
 sister, and that sister so much was known as a fact had 
 become Lady Le Marchant : was not her monument in the
 
 io The First Violin 
 
 church between the Deeplish Hall and the Hallam Grange 
 pews? Was not the tale of her virtues and her years 
 seven and twenty only did she count of the latter there 
 recorded ? That Barbara Hallam had been married to Sir 
 Peter was matter of history : what was not matter of his- 
 tory, but of tradition which was believed in quite as firmly, 
 was that the Baronet had ill-treated his wife in what way 
 was not distinctly specified, but I have since learnt that it 
 was true ; she was a gentle creature, and he made her life 
 miserable unto her. She was idolized by her elder sister, 
 who, burning with indignation at the treatment to which her 
 darling had been subjected, had become, even in disposi- 
 tion, an altered woman. From a cheerful, open-hearted, 
 generous, somewhat brusque young person, she had grown 
 into a prematurely old, soured, revengeful woman. It was 
 to her that the weak and injured sister had fled ; it was in 
 her arms that she had died. Since her sister's death, Miss 
 Hallam had withdrawn entirely from society, cherishing a 
 perpetual grudge against Sir Peter Le Marchant. Whethei 
 she had relations or none, friends or acquaintance outside 
 the small village in which she lived, none knew. If so, 
 they limited their intercourse with her to correspondence, 
 for no visitor ever penetrated to her damp old Grange, nor 
 had she ever been known to leave it with the purpose of 
 making any journey abroad. If perfect silence and perfect 
 retirement could hush the tongues of tradition and report, 
 then Miss Hallam's story should have been forgotten. 
 But it was not forgotten. Such things never do become 
 forgotten.
 
 The First Violin n 
 
 It was only since Sir Peter had appeared suddenly some 
 six weeks ago at Deeplish Hall, that these dry bones of 
 tradition had for me quickened into something like life, 
 and had acquired a kind of interest for me. 
 
 Our father, as Vicar of the parish, had naturally called 
 upon Sir Peter, and as naturally invited him to his house. 
 His visits had begun by his coming to lunch one day, and 
 we had speculated about him a little in advance, half- 
 jestingly, raking up old stories, and attributing to him 
 various evil qualities of a hard and loveless old age. But 
 after he had gone, the verdict of Stella and myself was, 
 " Much worse than we had expected." He was different 
 from what we had expected. Perhaps that annoyed us. 
 Instead of being able to laugh at him, we found something 
 oppressive, chilling, to me frightful, in the cold sneering 
 smile which seemed perpetually hovering about his thin lips 
 in the fixed, snaky glitter of his still, intent gray eyes. 
 His face was pale, his manners were polished, but to meet 
 his eye was a thing I hated, and the touch of his hand made 
 me shudder. While speaking in the politest possible man- 
 ner, he had eyed over Adelaide and me in a manner which 
 I do not think either of us had ever experienced before. I 
 hated him from the moment in which I saw him looking 
 at me with an expression of approval. To be approved by 
 Sir Peter Le Marchant, could fate devise anything more 
 horrible ? Yes, I knew now that it could : one might have 
 to submit to the approval, to live in the approval. I had 
 expressed my opinion on the subject with freedom to Ade- 
 laide, who to my surprise had not agreed with me, and had
 
 12 The First Violin 
 
 told me coldly that I had no business to speak disrespect- 
 fully of my father's visitors. I was silenced, but unhappy. 
 From the first moment of seeing Sir Peter, I had felt an 
 uncomfortable, uneasy feeling, which had I been senti- 
 mental I might have called a presentiment, but I was not 
 sentimental. I was a healthy young girl of seventeen, 
 believing in true love, and goodness, and gentleness very 
 earnestly; "fancy free," having read few novels, and 
 heard no gossip a very baby in many respects. Our home 
 might be a quiet one, a poor one, a dull one our circle 
 of acquaintance small, our distractions of the most 
 limited description imaginable, but at least we knew no 
 evil, and I speak for Stella and myself thought none. 
 Our father and mother were persons with nothing whatever 
 remarkable about them. Both had been handsome. My 
 mother was pretty, my father good-looking, yet. I loved 
 them both dearly. It had never entered my head to do 
 otherwise than love them, but the love which made the 
 star and the poetry of my quiet and unromantic life was 
 that I bore to Adelaide, my eldest sister. I believed in 
 her devotedly, and accepted her judgment, given in her 
 own peculiar proud, decided way, upon every topic on 
 which she chose to express it. She was one and twenty, 
 and I used to think I could lay down my life for her. 
 
 It was consequently a shock to me to hear her speak in 
 praise yes, Upraise of Sir Peter Le Marchant. My first 
 impulse was to distrust my own judgment, but no : I could 
 not long do so. He was repulsive ; he was stealthy, hard, 
 cruel, in appearance. I could not account for Adelaide's
 
 The First Violin 13 
 
 perversity in liking him, and passed puzzled days and 
 racked my brain in conjecture as to why, when Sir Peter 
 came, Adelaide should be always at home, always neat and 
 fresh not like me. Why was Adelaide, who found it too 
 much trouble to join Stella and me in our homely concerts, 
 always ready to indulge Sir Peter's taste for music, to 
 entertain him with conversation ? and she could talk. 
 She was unlike me in that respect. I never had a bril- 
 liant. gift of conversation. She was witty about the things 
 she did know, and never committed the fatal mistake of 
 pretending to be up in the things she did not know. These 
 gifts of mind, these social powers, were always ready for 
 the edification of Sir Peter. By degrees the truth forced 
 itself upon me. Some one said I overheard it that 
 " that handsome Miss Wedderburn was undoubtedly setting 
 her cap at Sir Peter Le Marchant." Never shall I forget 
 the fury which at first possessed me, the conviction which 
 gradually stole over me that it was true. My sister Ade- 
 laide, beautiful, proud, clever and I had always thought 
 good had distinctly in view the purpose of becoming 
 Lady Le Marchant. I shed countless tears over the 
 miserable discovery, and dared not speak to her of it. 
 But that was not the worst. My horizon darkened. One 
 horrible day I discovered that it was I, and not Adelaide, 
 who had attracted Sir Peter's attentions. It was not a 
 scene, not a set declaration. It was a word in that smooth 
 voice, a glance from that hated and chilling eye, which 
 suddenly aroused me to the truth. 
 
 Shuddering, dismayed, I locked the matter up within
 
 14 The First Violin 
 
 my own breast, and wished with a longing that sometimes 
 made me quite wretched, that I could quit Skernford, my 
 home, my life, which had lost zest for me, and was become 
 a burden to me. The knowledge that Sir Peter admired 
 me absolutely degraded me in my own eyes. I felt as if I 
 could not hold up my head. I had spoken to no one of 
 what had passed within me, and I trusted it had not been 
 noticed ; but all my joy was gone. It was as if I stood 
 helpless while a noisome reptile coiled its folds around 
 me. 
 
 To-day, after Miss Hallam's departure, I dropped into 
 my now chronic state of listlessness and sadness. They all 
 came back : my father from the church ; my mother and 
 Adelaide from Darton, whither they had been on a shop- 
 ping expedition; Stella from a stroll by the river. We 
 had tea, and they dispersed quite cheerfully to their vari- 
 ous occupations. I, seeing the gloaming gently and dim 
 falling over the earth, walked out of the house into the 
 garden, and took my way towards the river. I passed an 
 arbor in which Stella and I had loved to sit and watch the 
 stream, and talk and read Miss Austen's novels. Stella 
 was there now, with a well-thumbed copy of " Pride and 
 Prejudice " in her hand. 
 
 "Come and sit down, May," she apostrophized me. 
 " Do listen to this about Bingley and Wickham." 
 
 " No, thank you," said I abstractedly, and feeling that 
 Stella was not the person to whom I could confide my 
 woe. Indeed, on scanning mentally the list of my ac- 
 quaintance, I found that there was not one in whom I could
 
 The First Violin 15 
 
 confide. It gave me a strange sense of loneliness and 
 aloofness, and hardened me more than the reading of a 
 hundred satires on the meannesses of society. 
 
 I went along the terrace by the river-side, and looked 
 up to the left traces of Sir Peter again. There was the 
 terrace of Deeplish Hall, which stood on a height just 
 above a bend in the river. It was a fine old place. The 
 sheen of the glass-houses caught the rays of the sun and 
 glanced in them. It looked rich, old, and peaceful. I 
 had been many a time through its gardens, and thought 
 them beautiful, and wished they belonged to me. Now I 
 felt that they lay in a manner at my feet, and my strongest 
 feeling respecting them was an earnest wish that I might 
 never see them again. 
 
 Thus agreeably meditating, I insensibly left our own 
 garden and wandered on in the now quickly falling twi- 
 light into a narrow path leading across a sort of No-Man's- 
 Land into the demesne of Sir Peter Le Marchant. In my 
 trouble I scarcely remarked where I was going, and with 
 my eyes cast upon the ground was wishing that I could 
 
 feel again as I once had felt, when 
 
 
 
 " I nothing had, and yet enough " ; 
 
 and was sadly wondering what I could do to escape from 
 the net in which I felt myself caught, when a shadow dark- 
 ened the twilight in which I stood, and looking up I saw 
 Sir Peter, and heard these words : 
 
 " Good-evening, Miss Wedderburn. Are you enjoying a 
 little stroll ?"
 
 1 6 The First Violin 
 
 By, as it seemed to me, some strange miracle all my in. 
 ward fears and tremblings vanished. I did not feel afraid 
 of Sir Peter in the least. I felt that here was a crisis. 
 This meeting would show me whether my fears had been 
 groundless, and my own vanity and self-consciousness of 
 unparalleled proportions, or whether I had judged truly, 
 and had good reason for my qualms and anticipations. 
 
 It came. The alarm had not been a false one. Sir 
 Peter, after conversing with me for a short time, did, in 
 clear and unmistakable terms, inform me that he loved 
 me, and asked me to marry him. 
 
 " I thank you," said I, mastering my impulse to cover 
 my face with my hands, and run shuddering away from 
 him. " I thank you for the honor you offer me, and beg to 
 decline it." 
 
 He looked surprised, and still continued to urge me in 
 a manner which roused a deep inner feeling of indignation 
 within me, for it seemed to say that he understood me to 
 be overwhelmed with the honor he proposed to confer upon 
 me, and humored my timidity about accepting it. There 
 was no doubt in his manner; not the shadow of a suspi- 
 cion that I could be in earnest. There was something that 
 turned my heart cold within me a cool, sneering tone, 
 which not all his professions of affection could disguise. 
 Since that time I have heard Sir Peter explicitly state his 
 conception of the sphere of woman in the world : it was 
 not an exalted one. He could not even now quite con- 
 ceal that while he told me he wished to make me his wife 
 and the partner of his heart and possessions, yet he knew
 
 The First Violin 17 
 
 that such professions were but words that he did not sue 
 for my love (poor Sir Peter ! I doubt if ever in his long 
 life he was blessed with even a momentary glimpse of the 
 divine countenance of pure Love), but offered to buy my 
 youth, and such poor beauty as I might have, with his 
 money and his other worldly advantages. 
 
 Sir Peter was a blank, utter sceptic with regard to the 
 worth of women. He did not believe in their virtue nor 
 their self-respect ; he believed them to be clever actresses, 
 and, taken all in all, the best kind of amusement to be 
 had for money. This kind of opinion was then new to 
 me; the effect of it upon my mind such as might be 
 expected. I was seventeen, and an ardent believer in all 
 things pure and of good report. 
 
 Nevertheless, I remained composed, sedate, even courte- 
 ous to the last till I had fairly made Sir Peter understand 
 that no earthly power should induce me to marry him ; till 
 I had let him see that I fully comprehended the advan- 
 tages of the position he offered me, and declined them. 
 
 " Miss Wedderburn, " said he at last and his voice was 
 as unruffled as my own ; had it been more angry I should 
 have feared it less " do you fear opposition ? I do not 
 think your parents would refuse their consent to our 
 union." 
 
 I closed my eyes for a moment, and a band seemed to 
 tighten about my heart. Then I said : 
 
 " I speak without reference to my parents. In such a 
 matter I judge for myself." 
 
 " Always the same answer ? " 
 a
 
 J$ The First Violin 
 
 " Always the same, Sir Peter." 
 
 " It would be most ungentlemanly to press the subject 
 any further." His eyes were fixed upon me with the same 
 cold, snake-like smile. " I will not be guilty of such a 
 solecism. Your family affections, my dear young lady, are 
 strong, I should suppose. Which whom do you love 
 best?" 
 
 Surprised at the blunt straightforwardness of the ques- 
 tion, as coming from him, I replied thoughtlessly, " Oh, 
 my sister Adelaide." 
 
 " Indeed ! I should imagine she was in every way 
 worthy the esteem of so disinterested a person as yourself. 
 A different disposition, though quite. Wijl you allow 
 me to touch your hand before I retire ? " 
 
 Trembling with uneasy forebodings roused by his con- 
 tinual sneering smile, and the peculiar evil light in his 
 eyes, I yet went through with my duty to the end. He 
 took the hand I extended, and raised it to his lips with a 
 low bow. 
 
 " Good-evening, Miss Wedderburn." 
 
 Faintly returning his valediction, I saw him go away, 
 and then in a dream, a maze, a bewilderment, I too 
 turned slowly away, and walked to the house again. I 
 felt, I knew I had behaved well and discreetly, but I had 
 no confidence whatever that the matter was at an ej>d.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " Lucifer, Star of the Morning ! How art thou fallen ! " 
 
 I FOUND myself, without having met any one of my 
 family, in my own room, in the semi-darkness, seated on 
 a chair by my bedside, unnerved, faint, miserable with a 
 misery such as I had never felt before. The window was 
 open, and there came up a faint scent of sweet-briar and 
 wall-flowers in soft, balmy gusts, driven into the room by 
 the April night-wind. There rose a moon and flooded 
 the earth with radiance. Then came a sound of footsteps; 
 the door of the next room, that belonging to Adelaide, was 
 opened. I heard her come in, strike a match, and light 
 her candle ; the click of the catch as the blind rolled 
 down. There was a door between her room and mine, and 
 presently she passed it, and bearing a candle in her hand, 
 stood in my presence. My sister was very beautiful, very 
 proud. She was cleverer, stronger, more decided than I,
 
 20 The First Violin 
 
 or rather, while she had those qualities very strongly 
 developed, I was almost without them. She always held 
 her head up, and had one of those majestic figures which 
 require no back-boards to teach them uprightness, no mas- 
 ter of deportment to instil grace into their movements. 
 Her toilette and mine were not, as may be supposed, of 
 very rich materials or varied character; but while my 
 things always looked as bad of their kind as they could 
 fitted badly, sat badly, were creased and crumpled hers 
 always had a look of freshness ; she wore the merest old 
 black merino as if it were velvet, and a muslin frill like a 
 point-lace collar. There are such people in the world. 
 I have always admired them, envied them, wondered at 
 them from afar : it has never been my fate in the smallest 
 degree to approach or emulate them. 
 
 Her pale face, with its perfect outlines, was just illu- 
 mined by the candle she held, and the light also caught 
 the crown of massive plaits which she wore around her 
 head. She set the candle down. I sat still and looked at 
 her. 
 
 " You are there, May," she remarked. 
 
 " Yes," was my subdued response. 
 
 " Where have you been all the evening ?" 
 
 " It does not matter to any one." 
 
 " Indeed it does. You were talking to Sir Peter Le 
 Marchant. I saw you meet him from my bedroom win- 
 dow." 
 
 "Did you?" 
 
 " Did he propose to you ? " she inquired, with a com-
 
 The First Violin 21 
 
 posure which seemed to me frightful. "Worldly," I 
 thought, was a weak word to apply to her, and I was suffer- 
 ing acutely. 
 
 " He did." 
 
 " Well, I suppose it would be a little difficult to accept 
 him?" 
 
 " I did not accept him." 
 
 " What ? " she inquired, as if she had not quite caught 
 what I said. 
 
 " I refused him," said I, slightly raising my voice. 
 
 " What are you telling me ? " 
 
 "The truth." 
 
 " Sir Peter has fif " 
 
 " Don't mention Sir Peter to me again," said I ner- 
 vously, and feeling as if my heart would break. I had 
 never quarrelled with Adelaide before. No reconciliation 
 afterwards could ever make up for the anguish which I 
 was going through now. 
 
 " Just listen to me," she said, bending over me, her 
 lips drawn together. " I ought to have spoken to you 
 before. I don't know whether you have ever given any 
 thought to our position and circumstances. If not, it 
 would be as well that you should do so now. Papa is fifty- 
 five years old, and has three hundred a year. In the course 
 of time he will die, and as his life is not insured, and he 
 has regularly spent every penny of his income naturally it 
 would have been strange if he hadn't what is to become 
 of us when he is dead ? " 
 
 " We can work,"
 
 22 The First Violin 
 
 " Work ! " said she, with inexpressible scorn. " Work ! 
 Pray what can we do in the way of work ? What kind of 
 education have we had ? The village schoolmistress 
 could make us look very small in the matter of geography 
 and history. We have not been trained to work, and, let 
 me tell you, May, unskilled labor does not pay in these 
 days." 
 
 " I am sure you can do anything, Adelaide, and I will 
 teach singing. I can sing." 
 
 " Pooh ! Do you suppose that because you can take C 
 in alt, you are competent to teach singing ? You don't 
 know how to sing yourself yet. Your face is your fortune. 
 So is mine my fortune. So is Stella's her fortune. You 
 have enjoyed yourself all your life : you have had seven- 
 teen years of play and amusement, and now you behave 
 like a baby. You refuse to endure a little discomfort, as 
 the price of placing yourself and your family for ever out 
 of the reach of trouble and trial. Why, if you were Sir 
 Peter's wife, you could do what you liked with him. I 
 don't say anything about myself; but oh! May, I am 
 ashamed of you, I am ashamed of you ! I thought you 
 had more in you. Is it possible that you are nothing but 
 a romp nothing but a vulgar tomboy ? Good heaven ! 
 If the chance had been mine ! " 
 
 " What would you have done ?" I whispered, subdued 
 for the moment, but obstinate in my heart as ever. 
 
 " I am nobody now; no one knows me. But if I had 
 had the chance that you have had to-night, in another year 
 I would have been known and envied by half the women in
 
 The First Violin 23 
 
 England. Bah ! Circumstances are too disgusting, too 
 unkind!" 
 
 " Oh ! Adelaide, nothing could have made up for being 
 tied to that man," said I in a small voice; " and I am 
 not ambitious." 
 
 " Ambitious ! You are selfish downright, grossly, inor- 
 dinately selfish. Do you suppose no one else ever had 
 to do what they did not like ? Why did you not stop to 
 think, instead of rushing away from the thing like some 
 unreasoning animal ? " 
 
 "Adelaide! Sir Peter ! To marry him ! " I implored 
 in tears. " How could I ? I should die of shame at the 
 very thought. Who could help seeing that I had sold my- 
 self to him ?" 
 
 " And who would think any the worse of you ? And what 
 if they did ? With fifteen thousand a year you may defy 
 public opinion." 
 
 " Oh, don't ! don't ! " I cried, covering my face with 
 my hands. " Adelaide, you will break my heart ! " 
 
 Burying my face in the bed-quilt, I sobbed irrepressibly. 
 Adelaide's apparent unconsciousness of, or callousness to, 
 the stabs she was giving me, and the anguish they caused 
 me almost distracted me. 
 
 She loosed my arm, remarking, with bitter vexation : 
 
 " I feel as if I could shake you ! " 
 
 She left the room. I was left to my meditations. My 
 head my heart too ached distractingly : my arm was 
 sore where Adelaide had grasped it ; I felt as if she had 
 taken my mind by the shoulders and shaken it roughly. I
 
 24 The First Violin 
 
 fastened both doors of my room, resolving that neither she 
 nor any one else should penetrate to my presence again 
 that night. 
 
 What was I to do ? Where to turn ? I began now to 
 realize that the Res domi, which had always seemed to me 
 so abundant for all occasions, were really Res anguste, and 
 that circumstances might occur in which they would be 
 miserably inadequate. 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " Zu Rathe gehen, und vom Rath zur That." 
 
 Briefe BEETHOVEN'S. 
 
 THERE was surely not much in Miss Hallam to encour- 
 age confidences; yet, within half an hour of the time of 
 entering her house, I had told her all that oppressed my 
 heart, and had gained a feeling of greater security than I had 
 yet felt. I was sure that she would befriend me. True, she 
 did not say so. When I told her about Sir Peter Le Mar- 
 chant's proposal to me, about Adelaide's behavior; when, 
 in halting and stammering tones, and interrupted by tears, 
 I confessed that I had not spoken to my father or mother 
 upon the subject, and that I was not quite sure of their 
 approval of what I had done, she even laughed a little, but 
 not in what could be called an amused manner. When I 
 had finished my tale, she said : 
 
 " If I understand you, the case stands thus : You have 
 refused Sir Peter Le Marchant, but you do not feel at all 
 sure that he will not propose to you again. Is it not so? "
 
 The First Violin 25 
 
 "Yes," I admitted. 
 
 " And you dread and shrink from the idea of a repeti- 
 tion of this business ? " 
 
 " I feel as if it would kill me." 
 
 " It would not kill you. People are not so easily killed 
 as all that; but it is highly unfit that you should be sub- 
 jected to a recurrence of it. I will think about it. Will 
 you have the goodness to read me a page of this book ? " 
 
 Much surprised at this very abrupt change of the subject, 
 but not daring to make any observation upon it, I took the 
 book the current number of a magazine and read a page 
 to her. 
 
 "That will do," said she. " Now, will you read this 
 letter, also aloud ? " 
 
 She put a letter into my hand, and I read : 
 
 " ' DEAR MADAM, 
 
 " ' In answer to your letter of last week, I write to say 
 that I could find the rooms you require, and that by me 
 you will have many good agreements which would make 
 your stay in Germany pleasanter. My house is a large one 
 in the Alle"estrasse. Dr. Mittendorf, the oculist, lives 
 not far from here, and the Stadtische Augenklinik that is, 
 the eye hospital is quite near. The rooms you would have 
 are upstairs suite of salon and two bed-rooms, with room 
 for your maid in another part of the house. I have other 
 boarders here at the time, but you would do as you pleased 
 about mixing with them. 
 
 " ' With all highest esteem, 
 
 " ' Your devoted, 
 
 " ' CLARA STEINMANN.' "
 
 z6 The First Violin 
 
 "You don't understand it all, I suppose?" said she, 
 when I had finished. 
 
 "No." 
 
 " That lady writes from Elberthal. You have heard of 
 Elberthal on the Rhine, I presume ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! A large town. There used to be a fine pic- 
 ture-gallery there; but in the war between the " 
 
 " There, thank you ! I studied Guy's Geography my- 
 self in my youth. I see you know the place I mean. 
 There is an eye hospital there, and a celebrated oculist 
 Mittendorf. I am going there. I don't suppose it will 
 be of the least use ; but I am going. Drowning men catch 
 at straws. Well, what else can .you do ? You don't read 
 badly." 
 
 " I can sing not very well, but I can sing." 
 
 " You can sing," said she reflectively. " Just go to the 
 piano and let me hear a specimen. I was once a judge in 
 these matters." 
 
 I opened the piano, and sang, as well as I could, an 
 English version of " Die Lotusblume" 
 
 My performance was greeted with silence, which Miss 
 Hallam at length broke, remarking : 
 
 " I suppose you have not had much training ? " 
 
 " Scarcely any." 
 
 " Humph ! Well, it is to be had, even if not in Skern- 
 ford. Would you like some lessons ? " 
 
 " I should like a good many things that I am not likely 
 ever to have." 
 
 " At Elberthal there are all kinds of advantages with
 
 The First Violin 27 
 
 regard to these things music and singing, and so on. 
 Will you come there with me as my companion ? " 
 
 I heard, but did not fairly understand. My head was in 
 a whirl. Go to Germany with Miss Hallam; leave Skern- 
 ford, Sir Peter, all that had grown so weary to me ; see 
 new places, live with new people ; learn something ! No, 
 I did not grasp it in the least. I made no reply, but sat 
 breathlessly staring. 
 
 " But I shall expect you to make yourself useful to me 
 in many ways," proceeded Miss Hal lam. 
 
 At this touch of reality I began to waken up again. 
 
 " Oh, Miss Hallam, is it really true ? Do you think 
 they will let me go ? " 
 
 " You haven't answered me yet." 
 
 " About being useful ? I would do anything you like 
 anything in the world." 
 
 " Do not suppose your life will be all roses, or you will 
 be woefully disappointed. I do not go out at all ; my 
 health is bad so is my temper very often. I am what 
 people who never had any trouble are fond of calling 
 peculiar. Still, if you are in earnest, and not merely sen- 
 timentalizing, you will take your courage in your hands 
 and come with me." 
 
 " Miss Hallam," said I, with tragic earnestness, as I 
 took her hand, " I will come. I see you half mistrust me ; 
 but if I had to go to Siberia to get out of Sir Peter's way, 
 I would go gladly and stay there. I hope I shall not be 
 very clumsy. They say at home that I am, very, but I 
 will do my best."
 
 28 The First Violin 
 
 " They call you clumsy at home, do they ? " 
 
 " Yes. My sisters are so much cleverer than I, and can 
 do everything so much better than I can. I am rather 
 stupid, I know." 
 
 "Very well, if you like to call yourself so, do. It is 
 decided that you come with me. I will see your father 
 about it to-morrow. I always get my own way when I wish 
 it. I leave in about a week." 
 
 I sat with clasped hands, my heart so full that I could 
 not speak. Sadness and gladness struggled hard within 
 me. The idea of getting away from Skernford was almost 
 too delightful ; the remembrance of Adelaide made my 
 heart ache. 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " Ade nun, ihr Kerge, du vaterlich Haus ! 
 Es treibt in die Feme mich machtig hinaus." 
 
 VOLKSLIED. 
 
 CONSENT was given. Sir Peter was not mentioned to 
 tie by my parents, or by Adelaide. The days of that week 
 flew rapidly by. 
 
 I was almost afraid to mention my prospects to Adelaide. 
 I feared she would resent my good fortune in going abroad, 
 and that her anger at my having spoiled those other pros- 
 pects would remain unabated. Moreover, a deeper feeling 
 separated me from her now the knowledge that there lay 
 a great gulf of feeling, sentiment, opinion between us, 
 which nothing could bridge over or do away with. Out- 
 wardly, we might be amiable and friendly to each other,
 
 The First Violin 29 
 
 but confidence, union, was fled for ever. Once again in 
 the future, I was destined, when our respective principles 
 had been tried to the utmost, to have her confidence to 
 see her heart of hearts ; but for the present we were effec- 
 tually divided. I had mortally offended her, and it was 
 not a case in which I could with decency, even, humble 
 myself to her. Once, however, she mentioned the future. 
 
 When the day of our departure had been fixed, and was 
 only two days distant : when I was breathless with hurried 
 repairing of old clothes, and the equally hurried laying 
 in of a small stock of new ones; while I was contemplat- 
 ing with awe the prospect of a first journey to London, to 
 Ostend, to Brussels, she said to me, as I sat feverishly 
 hemming a frill : 
 
 " So you are going to Germany ? " 
 
 "Yes, Adelaide." 
 
 " What are you going to do there ? " 
 
 "My duty, I hope." 
 
 " Charity, my dear, and duty too, begins at home. I 
 should say you were going away leaving your duty undone." 
 
 I was silent, and she went on : 
 
 " I suppose you wish to go abroad, May ? " 
 
 " You know I always have wished to go." 
 
 "So do I." 
 
 " I wish you were going too," said I timidly. 
 
 " Thank you. My views upon the subject are quite dif- 
 ferent. When /go abroad I shall go in a different capa- 
 city to that you are going to assume. I will let you know 
 all about it in due time."
 
 30 The First Violin 
 
 "Very well," said I, almost inaudibly, having a vague 
 idea as to what she meant, but determined not to speak 
 about it. 
 
 The following day the curtain rose upon the first act of 
 the play call it drama, comedy, tragedy, what you will 
 which was to be played in my absence. I had been up the 
 village to the post-office, and was returning, when I saw 
 advancing towards me two figures which I had cause to 
 remember my sister's queenly height ; her white hat over 
 her eyes, and her sunshade in her hand, and beside her 
 the pale face, with its ragged eyebrows and hateful sneer, 
 of Sir Peter Le Marchant. 
 
 Adelaide, not at all embarrassed by his company, was 
 smiling slightly, and her eyes with drooped lids glanced 
 downwards towards the Baronet. I shrank into a cottage 
 to avoid them as they came past, and waited. Adelaide 
 was saying : 
 
 " Proud yes, I am proud, I suppose. Too proud, at 
 least, to " 
 
 There ! Out of hearing. They had passed. I hurried 
 out of the cottage, and home. 
 
 The next day I met Miss Hallam and her maid (we three 
 travelled alone) at the station, and soon we were whirling 
 smoothly along our southward way to York first, then to 
 London, and so out into the world, thought I.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " Ein Held aus der Fremde, gar 
 ktthn." 
 
 WE had left 
 Brussels and Bel- 
 gium behind, had 
 departed from the 
 regions of Chemins 
 de fer, and entered 
 those of Eisen- 
 bahnen. We were 
 at Cologne, where 
 we had to change, 
 and wait half an 
 hour before we 
 could go on to 
 Klberthal. We sat 
 in the Wartesaal, 
 and I had committed to my charge two bundles, with 
 strict injunctions not to lose them. 
 3
 
 34 The First Violin 
 
 Then the doors were opened, and the people made a 
 mad rush to a train standing somewhere in the dim dis- 
 tance. Merrick, Miss Hallam's maid, had to give her 
 whole and entire attention to her mistress. I followed 
 close in their wake, until, as we had almost come to the 
 train, I cast my eyes downwards and perceived that there 
 was missing from my arm a gray shawl of Miss Hallam's, 
 which had been committed to my charge, and upon which 
 she set a fidgety kind of value, as being particularly warm 
 or particularly soft. 
 
 Dismayed, I neither hesitated nor thought, but turned, 
 fought my way through the throng of people to the waiting- 
 room again, hunted every corner, but in vain, for the 
 shawl. Either it was completely lost, or Merrick had, 
 without my observing it, taken it under her own protec- 
 tion. It was not in the waiting-room. Giving up the 
 search, I hurried to the door : it was fast. No one more, 
 it would seem, was to be let out that way; I must go 
 round, through the passages into the open hall of the sta- 
 tion, and so on to the platform again. More easily said 
 than done. Always, from my earliest youth up, I have 
 had a peculiar faculty for losing myself. On this eventful 
 day I lost myself. I ran through the passages, came into 
 the great open place surrounded on every side by doors 
 leading to platforms, offices, or booking-offices. Glancing 
 hastily round, I selected that door which appeared to my 
 imperfectly-developed " locality" to promise egress upon 
 the platform, pushed it open, and going along a covered 
 passage, and through another door, found myself, after the
 
 The First Violin 35 
 
 loss of a good five minutes, in a lofty, deserted wing of 
 the station, gazing wildly at an empty platform, and fever- 
 ishly scanning all the long row of doors to my right, in a 
 mad effort to guess which would take me from this delight- 
 ful terra incognita back to my friends. 
 
 Gepdck-Expedition, I read, .and thought it did not sound 
 promising. Telegraphenbureau . Impossible ! Ausgang. 
 There was the magic word, and I, not knowing it, stared 
 at it and was none the wiser for its friendly sign. I heard 
 a hollow whistle in the distance. No doubt it was the 
 Elberthal train going away, and my heart sank deep, deep 
 within my breast. I knew no German word. All I could 
 say was " Elberthal ; " and my nearest approach to " first- 
 class " was to point to the carriage doors and say " in," 
 which might or might not be understood probably not. 
 
 I heard a subdued bustle coming from the right hand in 
 the distance, and I ran hastily to the other end of the great 
 empty place, seeing, as I thought, an opening. Vain 
 delusion ! Deceptive dream of the fancy ! There was a 
 glass window through which I looked and saw a street 
 thronged with passengers and vehicles. I hurried back 
 again to find my way to the entrance of the station and 
 there try another door, when I heard a bell ring violently 
 a loud groaning and shrieking, and then the sound, as it 
 were, of a train departing. 
 
 A porter at least, a person in uniform appeared in a 
 doorway. How I rushed up to him ! How I seized his 
 arm, and, dropping my rugs, gesticulated excitedly and 
 panted forth the word, " Elberthal ! "
 
 36 The First Violin 
 
 " Elberthal ?" said he in a guttural bass; " Wotten Sie 
 nach Elberthal, Frduleinchen ? ' ' 
 
 There was an impudent twinkle in his eye, as it were 
 impertinence trying to get the better of beer, and I reiter- 
 ated " Elberthal," growing very red, and cursing all 
 foreign speeches by my god& a process often employed, 
 I believe, by cleverer persons than I, with reference to 
 things they do not understand. 
 
 " Schonfort, Frdulein" he continued, with a grin. 
 
 " But where what Elberthal!" 
 
 He was about to make some further reply, when, turn- 
 ing, he seemed to see some one, and assumed a more 
 respectful demeanor. I too turned, and saw at some 
 little distance from us a gentleman sauntering along, who, 
 though coming towards us, did not seem to observe us. 
 Would he understand me if I spoke to him? Desperate as I 
 was, I felt some timidity about trying it. Never had I felt 
 so miserable, so helpless, so utterly ashamed as I did then. 
 My lips trembled as the new-comer drew nearer, and the 
 porter, taking the opportunity of quitting a scene which 
 began to bore him, slipped away. I was left alone on the 
 platform, nervously snatching short glances at the person 
 slowly, very slowly approaching me. He did not look up 
 as if he beheld me or in any way remarked my presence. 
 His eyes were bent towards the ground : his fingers 
 drummed a tune upon his chest. As he approached, I 
 heard that he was humming something. I even heard 
 the air: it has been impressed upon my memory firmly 
 enough since, though I did not know it then the air of
 
 The First Violin 37 
 
 the March from Raff's Fifth Symphony, the " Leonore." 
 I heard the tune softly hummed in a mellow voice as, with 
 face burning and glowing, I placed myself before him. 
 Then he looked suddenly up, as if startled, fixed upon me 
 a pair of eyes which gave me a kind of shock; so keen, so 
 bright, so commanding were they, with a kind of tameless 
 freedom in their glance such as I had never seen before. 
 
 Arrested (no doubt by my wild and excited appear- 
 ance), he stood still and looked at me, and as he looked a 
 slight smile began to dawn upon his lips. Not an English- 
 man. I should have known him for an outlander anywhere. 
 I remarked no details of his appearance; only that he was 
 tall and had, as it seemed to me, a commanding bearing. 
 I stood hesitating and blushing. (To this very day the 
 blood comes to my face as I think of my agony of blushes 
 in that immemorial moment.) I saw a handsome a very 
 handsome face, quite different from any I had ever seen 
 before : the startling eyes before spoken of, and which sur- 
 veyed me with a look so keen, so cool, and so bright, which 
 seemed to penetrate through and through me; while a 
 slight smile curled the light moustache upwards a general 
 aspect which gave me the impression that he was not only a 
 personage, but a very great personage with a flavor of 
 something else permeating it all which puzzled me and 
 made me feel embarrassed as to how to address him. 
 While I stood inanely, trying to gather my senses together, 
 he took off the little cloth cap he wore, and bowing, asked : 
 " Mein Frau/em, in what can I assist you ? " 
 His English was excellent his bow like nothing I had
 
 38 The First Violin 
 
 seen before. Convinced that I had met a genuine, 
 thorough fine gentleman (in which I was right for once in 
 my life), I began : 
 
 " I have lost my way," and my voice trembled in spite 
 of all my efforts to steady it. " In the crowd I lost my 
 friends, and I was going to Elberthal, and I turned the 
 wrong way and 
 
 " Have come to destruction, nicht wahr f t '" He looked 
 at his watch, raised his eyebrows, and shrugged his shoul- 
 ders. " The Elberthal train is already away." 
 
 " Gone ! " I dropped my rugs and began a tremulous 
 search for my pocket-handkerchief. " What shall I do ? " 
 
 " There is another let me see in one hour two will 
 'mat nachsehen. Will you come with me, Fraulein, and 
 we will see about the trains." 
 
 " If you would show me the platform," said I. " Per- 
 haps some of them may still be there. Oh, what w/7/they 
 think of me ?" 
 
 '.' We must go to the Wartesaal" said he. " Then you 
 can look out and see if you see any of them." 
 
 I had no choice but to comply. 
 
 My benefactor picked up my two bundles, and, in spite 
 of my expostulations, carried them with him. He took 
 me through the door inscribed Ausgang, and the whole 
 thing seemed so extremely simple now, that my astonish- 
 ment as to how I could have lost myself increased every 
 minute. He went before me to the waiting-room, put my 
 bundles upon one of the sofas, and we went to the door. 
 The platform was almost as empty as the one we had
 
 The First Violin 39 
 
 left. I looked round, and though it was only what I had 
 expected, yet my face fell when I saw how utterly and 
 entirely my party had disappeared. 
 
 " You see them not ? " he inquired. 
 
 " No they are gone," said I, turning away from the 
 window and choking down a sob, not very effectually. 
 Turning my damp and sorrowful eyes to my companion, I 
 found he was still smiling to himself as if quietly amused 
 at the whole adventure. 
 
 "I'll go and see at what time the trains go to Elberthal. 
 Suppose you sit down yes ? " 
 
 Passively obeying, I sat down and turned the situation 
 over in my mind, in which kind of agreeable mental 
 legerdemain I was still occupied when he returned. 
 
 " It is now half-past three, and there is a train to Elber- 
 thal at seven." 
 
 "Saxnt" 
 
 "Seven: a very pleasant time to travel, nicht wahr? 
 Then it is still quite light." 
 
 "So long! Three hours and a half;" I murmured 
 dejectedly, and bit my lips, and hung my head. Then I 
 said, " I am sure I am much obliged to you. If I might 
 ask you a favor ? ' ' 
 
 ' ' Bitte, mein Fraulein .' ' ' 
 
 " If you could show me exactly where the train starts 
 from, and could I get a ticket now, do you think ? " 
 
 " I'm afraid not, so long before," he answered, twisting 
 his moustache, as I could not help seeing, to hide a smile. 
 
 "Then," said I, with stoic calmness, "I shall never
 
 40 The First Violin 
 
 get to Elberthal never, for I don't know a word of Ger- 
 man, not one. " I sat more firmly down upon the sofa, and 
 tried to contemplate the future with fortitude. 
 
 "I can tell you what to say," said he, removing with 
 great deliberation the bundles which divided us, and sit- 
 ting down beside me. He leaned his chin upon his hand, 
 and looked at me, ever, as it seemed to me, with amuse- 
 ment tempered with kindness, and I felt like a very little 
 girl indeed. 
 
 " You are exceedingly good," I replied, " but it would 
 be of no use. I am so frightened of those men in blue 
 coats and big moustaches. I should not be able to say a 
 word to any of them." 
 
 " German is sometimes not unlike English." 
 
 " It is like nothing to me, except a great mystery." 
 
 " Billet is ticket," said he persuasively. 
 
 "Oh, is it?" said I, with a gleam of hope. "Per- 
 haps I could remember that. Billet" I repeated reflec- 
 tively. 
 
 he-amended; " not #/71it." 
 / Bill-jr/," I repeated. 
 
 " And ' to Elberthal ' may be said in one word, ' Elber- 
 thal.' ' Ein Billet Elberthal erster Classed " 
 
 " Ein Bill-yet,'''' I repeated automatically, for my 
 thoughts were dwelling more upon the charming quandary 
 in which I found myself, than upon his half -good- 
 natured, half-mocking instructions : "Ein Bill-yet, first 
 erste it is of no use. I can't say it. But" here a 
 brilliant idea struck me " if you would write it out for
 
 The First Violin 41 
 
 me on a paper, and then I could give it the man : he 
 would surely know what it meant." 
 
 " A very interesting idea, but a vivd voce interview is so 
 much better." 
 
 " I wonder how long it takes to walk to Elberthal ! " I 
 suggested darkly. 
 
 " Oh, a mere trifle of a walk. You might do it in four 
 or five hours, I dare say." 
 
 I bit my lip, trying not to cry. 
 
 " Perhaps we might make some other arrangement," he 
 remarked. " I am going to Elberthal too." 
 
 " You ? Thank heaven ! " was my first remark. Then 
 as a doubt came over me : " Then why why " 
 
 Here I stuck fast, unable to ask why he had said so 
 many tormenting things to me, pretended to teach me 
 German phrases, and so on. The words would not come 
 out. 
 
 Meanwhile he, without apparently feeling it necessary 
 to explain himself upon these points, went on : 
 
 " Yes. I have been at a Probe " (not having the faint- 
 est idea as to what a Probe might be, and not liking to 
 ask, I held my peace and bowed assentingly). He went 
 on, " And I was delayed a little. I had intended to go by 
 the train you have lost, so if you are not afraid to trust 
 yourself to my care we can travel together." 
 
 " You you are very kind." 
 
 " Then you are not afraid ? " 
 
 " I oh no ! I should like it very much. I mean I 
 am sure it would be very nice."
 
 42 The First Violin 
 
 Feeling that my social powers were as yet in a very 
 undeveloped condition, I subsided into silence, as he went 
 on : 
 
 " I hope your friends will not be very uneasy ? " 
 
 " Oh dear no ! " I assured him, with a pious conviction 
 that I was speaking the truth. 
 
 " We shall arrive at Elberthal about 8.30." 
 
 I scarcely heard. I had plunged my hand into my 
 pocket, and found a hideous conviction crossed my mind. 
 I had no money! I had, until this moment, totally for- 
 gotten having given my purse to Merrick to keep; and 
 she, as pioneer of the party, naturally had all our tickets 
 under her charge. 
 
 My heart almost stopped beating. It was unheard of, 
 horrible, this possibility of falling into the power of a 
 total, utter stranger a foreigner a heaven only knew 
 what ! Engrossed with this painful and distressing prob- 
 lem, I sat silent, and with eyes gloomily cast down. 
 
 "One thing is certain," he remarked. "We do not 
 spend three hours and a half in the station. / want 
 some dinner. A four hours' Probe is apt to make one a 
 little hungry. Come, we will go and have something 
 to eat." 
 
 The idea had evidently come to him as a species of 
 inspiration, and he openly rejoiced in it. 
 
 " I am not hungry," said I; but I was, very. I knew 
 it now that the idea "dinner" had made itself con- 
 spicuous in my consciousness. 
 
 "Perhaps you think not; but you are, all the same,"
 
 The First Violin 43 
 
 he said. " Come with me, Frduldn. You have put your- 
 self into my hands; you must do what I tell you." 
 
 I followed him mechanically out of the station and down 
 the street, and I tried to realize that instead of being with 
 Miss Hallam and Merrick, my natural and respectable 
 protectors, safely and conventionally plodding the slow way 
 in the slow continental train to the slow continental town, I 
 was parading about the streets of Koln with a man of whose 
 very existence I had half an hour ago been ignorant ; I was 
 dependent, too, upon him, and him alone, for my safe 
 arrival at Elberthal. And I followed him unquestioningly, 
 now and then telling myself, by way of feeble consolation, 
 that he was a gentleman he certainly was a gentleman 
 and wishing now and then, or trying to wish, with my usual 
 proper feeling, that it had been some nice old lady with 
 whom I had fallen in : it would have made the whole 
 adventure blameless, and, comparatively speaking, agree- 
 able. 
 
 We went along a street, and came to an hotel, a large 
 building, into which my conductor walked, spoke to a 
 waiter, and we were shown into the restaurant, full of 
 round tables, and containing some half-dozen parties of 
 people. I followed with stony resignation. It was the 
 severest trial of all, this coming to an hotel alone with a 
 gentleman in broad daylight. I caught sight of a reflec- 
 tion in the mirror of a tall, pale girl, with heavy, tumbled 
 auburn hair, a brown hat which suited her, and a severely 
 simple travelling-dress. I did not realize until I had gone 
 past that it was my own reflection which I had seen.
 
 44 The First Violin 
 
 " Suppose we sit here," said he, going to a table in a 
 comparatively secluded window-recess, partially overhung 
 with curtains. 
 
 " How very kind and considerate of him ! " thought I. 
 
 " Would you rather have wine or coffee, Frdulein ? " 
 
 Pulled up from the impulse to satisfy my really keen 
 hunger by the recollection of my " lack of gold," I answered 
 hastily : 
 
 " Nothing, thank you really nothing." 
 
 " Oh, dock ! You must have something," said he, smil- 
 ing. " I will order something. Don't trouble about it." 
 
 " Don't order anything for me," said I, my cheeks 
 burning again. " I shall not eat anything." 
 
 " If you do not eat, you will be ill. Remember, we do 
 not get to Elberthal before eight," said he. " Is it per- 
 haps disagreeable to you to eat in the saal ? If you like 
 we can have a private room." 
 
 " It is not that at all," I replied; and seeing that he 
 looked surprised, I blurted out the truth. " I have no 
 money. I gave my purse to Miss Hallam's maid to keep, 
 and she has taken it with her." 
 
 With a laugh, in which, infectious though it was, I was 
 too wretched to join : 
 
 " Is that all ? Kettner!" cried he. 
 
 An obsequious waiter came up, smiled sweetly and 
 meaningly at us, received some orders from my compan- 
 ion, and disappeared. 
 
 He seated himself beside me at the little round table. 
 
 " He will bring something at once," said he, smiling.
 
 The First Violin 45 
 
 I sat still. I was not happy, and yet I could not feel all 
 the unhappiness which I considered appropriate to the 
 circumstances. 
 
 My companion took up a Kolnische Zeitung, and glanced 
 over the advertisements, while I looked a little stealthily 
 at him, and for the first time took in more exactly what 
 he was like, and grew more puzzled with him each mo- 
 ment. As he leaned upon the table, one slight, long, 
 brown hand propping his head, and half lost in the thick, 
 fine brown hair, which waved in large, ample waves over 
 his head, there was an indescribable grace, ease, and negli- 
 gent beauty in the attitude. Move as he would, let him 
 assume any possible or impossible attitude, there was still 
 the same grace, half careless, yet very dignified, in the 
 position he took. 
 
 All his lines were lines of beauty, but beauty which had 
 power and much masculine strength ; nowhere did it 
 degenerate into flaccidity, nowhere lose strength in grace. 
 His hair was long, and I wondered at it. My small 
 experience in our delightful home and village circle had 
 not acquainted me with that flowing style; the young men 
 of my acquaintance cropped their hair close to the scalp, 
 and called it the modern style of hair-dressing. It had 
 always looked to me more like hair-undressing. This hair 
 fell in a heavy wave over his forehead, and he had the 
 habit, common to people whose hair does so, of lifting his 
 head suddenly and shaking back the offending lock. His 
 forehead was broad, open, pleasant, yet grave. Eyes, as I 
 had seen, very dark, and with lashes and brows which
 
 46 The First Violin 
 
 enhanced the contrast to a complexion at once fair and 
 pale. A light moustache, curving almost straight across 
 the face, gave a smiling expression to lips which were 
 otherwise grave, calm, almost sad. In fact, looking 
 nearer, I thought he did look sad ; and though when he 
 looked at me his eyes were so piercing, yet in repose they 
 had a certain distant, abstracted expression, not far re- 
 moved from absolute mournfulness. Broad-shouldered, 
 long-armed, with a physique in every respect splendid, he 
 was yet very distinctly removed from the mere handsome 
 animal which I believe enjoys a distinguished popularity 
 in the latter-day romance. 
 
 Now, as his eyes were cast upon the paper, I perceived 
 lines upon his forehead, signs about the mouth telling of a 
 firm, not to say imperious disposition; a certain curve of 
 the lips, and of the full, yet delicate nostril, told of pride 
 both strong and high. He was older than I had thought, 
 his face sparer; there were certain hollows in the cheeks, 
 two lines between the eyebrows, a sharpness, or rather 
 somewhat worn appearance of the features, which told of a 
 mental life, keen and consuming. Altogether, an older, 
 more intellectual, more imposing face than I had at first 
 thought ; less that of a young and handsome man, more 
 that of a thinker and student. Lastly, a cool ease, delib- 
 eration, and leisureliness about all he said and did, hinted 
 at his being a person in authority, accustomed to give 
 orders and see them obeyed without question. I decided 
 that he was, in our graceful home phrase, " master in his 
 own house."
 
 The First Violin 47 
 
 His clothing was unremarkable gray summer clothes, 
 such as any gentleman or* any shopkeeper might wear ; 
 only in scanning him no thought of shopkeeper came into 
 my mind. His cap lay upon the table beside us, one of 
 the little gray Studentenhiite with which Elberthal soon 
 made me familiar, but which struck me then as odd and 
 outlandish. I grew every moment more interested in my 
 scrutiny of this, to me, fascinating and remarkable face, 
 and had forgotten to try to look as if I were not looking, 
 when he glanced up suddenly, without warning, with those 
 bright, formidable eyes, which had already made me feel 
 somewhat shy as I caught them fixed upon me. 
 
 "Nun, have you decided ?" he asked, with a humor- 
 ous look in his eyes, which he was too polite to allow to 
 develop itself into a smile. 
 
 " I oh, I beg your pardon ! " 
 
 " You do not want to," he answered, in imperfect idiom. 
 " But have you decided ? " 
 
 " Decided what ?" 
 
 " Whether I am to be trusted ? " 
 
 " I have not been thinking about that," I said uncom- 
 fortably, when to my relief the appearance of the waiter 
 with preparations for a meal saved me further reply. 
 
 "What shall we call this meal ?" he asked, as the 
 waiter disappeared to bring the repast to the table. "It 
 is too late for the Mittagessen, and too early for the Abend- 
 brod. Can you suggest a name ? " 
 
 " At home, it would be just the time for afternoon 
 tea."
 
 48 The First Violin 
 
 " Ah, yes ! Your English afternoon tea is very ' 
 
 He stopped suddenly. 
 
 " Have you been in England ? " 
 
 " This is just the time at which we drink our afternoon 
 coffee in Germany," said he, looking at me with his im- 
 penetrably bright eyes, just as if he had never heard me. 
 " When the ladies all meet together to talk scan Oh, 
 behiite ! what am I saying ? to consult seriously upon 
 important topics, you know. There are some low-minded 
 persons who call the whole ceremony a Klatsch Kaffee- 
 klatsch. I am sure you and I shall talk seriously upon 
 important subjects, so suppose we call this our Kaffee- 
 klatsch, although we have no coffee to it." 
 
 "Oh yes, if you like." 
 
 He put a piece of cutlet upon my plate, and poured 
 yellow wine into- my glass. Endeavoring to conduct my- 
 self with the dignity of a grown-up person and to show that 
 I did know something, I inquired if the wine were hock. 
 
 He smiled. 
 
 " It is not Hochheimer not Rheinweinat all he no, 
 it you say it is Moselle wine ' Doctor.' ' 
 
 "Doctor?" 
 
 ' ' Doctorberger ; I do not know why so called. And a 
 very good fellow too so say all his friends, of whom I am 
 a warm one. Try him." 
 
 I complied with the admonition, and was able to say 
 that I liked Doctorberger. We ate and drank in silence 
 for some little time, and I found that I was very hungry. 
 I also found that I could not conjure up any real feeling
 
 The First Violin 49 
 
 of disco:nfort or uneasiness, and that the prospective scold- 
 ing from Miss Hallam had no terrors in it for me. Never 
 had I felt so serene in mind, never more at ease in 
 every way, than now. I felt that this was wrong Bohe- 
 mian, irregular, and not respectable, and tried to get up a 
 little unhappiness about something. The only thing that 
 I could think of was : 
 
 " I am afraid I am taking up your time. Perhaps you 
 had some business which you were going to when you met 
 me." 
 
 " My business, when I met you, was to catch the train 
 to Elberthal, which was already gone, as you know. I 
 shall not be able to fulfil my engagements for to-night, so 
 it really does not matter. I am enjoying myself very 
 much." 
 
 " I am very glad I did meet you," said I, growing 
 more reassured as I found that my companion, though 
 exceedingly polite and attentive to me, did not ask a ques- 
 tion as. to my business, my travelling companions, my 
 intended stay or object in Elberthal that he behaved as a 
 perfect gentleman one who is a gentleman throughout, in 
 thought as well as in deed. He did not even ask me how 
 it was that my friends had not waited a little for me, though 
 he must have wondered why two people left a young girl, 
 moneyless and ignorant, to find her way after them as well 
 as she could. He took me as he found me, and treated 
 me as if I had been the most distinguished and important 
 of persons. But at my last remark he said, with the same 
 odd smile which took me by surprise every time I saw it : 
 4
 
 So The First Violin 
 
 " The pleasure is certainly not all on your side, mein 
 Frdulein. I suppose from that you have decided that I 
 am to be trusted ? ' ' 
 
 I stammered out something to the effect that " I should 
 be very ungrateful were I not satisfied with with such 
 
 a " I stopped, looking at him in some confusion. 
 
 I saw a sudden look flash into his eyes and over his face. 
 It was gone again in a moment so fleeting that I had 
 scarce time to mark it, but it opened up a crowd of strange, 
 new impressions to me, and while I could no more have 
 said what it was like the moment it was gone, yet it left 
 two desires almost equally strong in me I wished in one 
 and the same moment that I had for my own peace of mind 
 never seen him and that I might never lose sight of 
 him again : to fly from that look, to remain and encounter 
 it. The tell-tale mirror in the corner caught my eye. 
 At home they used sometimes to call me, partly in 
 mockery, partly in earnest, " Bonny May." The sobriquet 
 had hitherto been a mere shadow, a meaningless thing, to 
 me. I liked to hear it, but had never paused to consider 
 whether it were appropriate or not. In my brief inter- 
 course with my venerable suitor, Sir Peter, I had come a 
 little nearer to being actively aware that I was good-look- 
 ing, only to anathematize the fact. Now, catching sight 
 of my reflection in the mirror, I wondered eagerly whether 
 I really were fair, and wished I had some higher authority 
 to think so, than the casual jokes of my sisters. It did 
 not add to my presence of mind to find that my involun- 
 tary glance to the mirror had been intercepted perhaps
 
 The First Violin 5* 
 
 even my motive guessed at he appeared to have a fright- 
 fully keen instinct. 
 
 " Have you seen the Dom ?" was all he said; but it 
 seemed somehow to give a point to what had passed. 
 
 " The Dom what is the Dom ? " 
 
 " The Kolner Dom ; the cathedral." 
 
 "Oh no! Oh, should we have time to see it?" I 
 exclaimed. " How I should like it ! " 
 
 " Certainly. It is close at hand. Suppose we go now." 
 
 Gladly I rose, as he did. One of my most ardent 
 desires was about to be fulfilled not so properly and cor- 
 rectly as might have been desired, but yes, certainly 
 more pleasantly than under the escort of Miss Hallam, 
 grumbling at every groschen she had to unearth in pay- 
 ment. 
 
 Before we could leave our seclusion there came up to us 
 a young man who had looked at us through the door and 
 paused. I had seen him; had seen how he said some- 
 thing to a companion, and how the companion shook his 
 head dissentingly. The first speaker came up to us, eyed 
 me* with a look of curiosity, and turning to my protector 
 with a benevolent smile, said : 
 
 " Eugen Courvoisier ! Also hatte ich dock Recht ! " 
 
 I caught the name. The rest was of course lost upon 
 me. Eugen Courvoisier ? I liked it, as I liked him, and 
 in my young enthusiasm decided that it was a very good 
 name. The new comer, who seemed as if much pleased 
 with some discovery, and entertained at the same time, 
 addressed some questions to Courvoisier, who answered
 
 52 The First Violin 
 
 him tranquilly but in a tone of voice which was ver) freez- 
 ing ; and then the other, with a few words, and an unbe- 
 lieving kind of laugh, said something about a schone 
 Geschichte, and, with another look at me, went out of the 
 coffee-room again. 
 
 We went out of the hotel, up the street to the cathedral. 
 It was the first cathedral I had ever been in. The shock 
 and the wonder of its grandeur took my breath away. 
 When I had found courage to look round, and up at those 
 awful vaults the roofs, I could not help crying a little. 
 The vastness, coolness, stillness and splendor crushed me 
 the great solemn rays of sunlight coming in slanting 
 glory through the windows the huge height the impres- 
 sion it gave of greatness, and of a religious devotion to 
 which we shall never again attain; of pure, noble hearts, 
 and patient, skilful hands, toiling, but in a spirit that 
 made the toil a holy prayer carrying out the builder's 
 thought great thought greatly executed all was too much 
 for me, the more so in that while \fe.lt it all I could not 
 analyze it. It was a dim, indefinite wonder. I tried 
 stealthily and fn shame to conceal my tears, looking sur- 
 reptitiously at him in fear lest he should be laughing at 
 me again. But he was not. He held his cap in his hand 
 was looking with those strange, brilliant eyes fixedly 
 towards the high altar, and there was some expression upon 
 his face which I could not analyze not the expression of 
 a person for whom such a scene has grown or can grow 
 common by custom not the expression of a sight-seer who 
 feels that he must admire ; not my own first astonishment.
 
 The First Violin 53 
 
 At least he felt it the whole grand scene, and I instinc- 
 tively and instantly felt more at home with him than I had 
 done befpre. 
 
 " Oh ! " said I at last, " if one could stay here for ever, 
 what would one grow to ? " 
 
 He smiled a little. 
 
 "You find it beautiful ?" 
 
 "It is the first 1 have seen. It is much more than 
 beautiful." 
 
 " The first you have seen ! Ah, well, I might have 
 guessed that." 
 
 "Why? do I look so countrified?" I inquired, with 
 real interest, as I let him lead me to a little side-bench, 
 and place himself beside me. I asked in all good faith. 
 About him there seemed such a cosmopolitan ease, that I 
 felt sure he could tell me correctly how I struck other 
 people if he would. 
 
 " Countrified what is that ? " 
 
 " Oh, we say it when people are like me have never 
 seen anything but their own little village, and never had 
 any adventures, and " 
 
 "Get lost at railway stations, und so weiter. I don't 
 know enough of the meaning of ' countrified ' to be able to 
 say if you are so, but it is easy to see that you have not 
 had much contention with the powers that be." 
 
 " Oh, I shall not be stupid long," said I comfortably. 
 " I am not going back home again." 
 
 " So ! " He did 'not ask more, but I saw that he lis- 
 tened, and proceeded communicatively.
 
 54 The First Violin 
 
 " Never. I have not quarrelled with them exactly, but 
 had a disagreement, because because " 
 
 "Because ?" 
 
 " They wanted me to I mean, an old gentleman no, 
 I mean " 
 
 " An old gentleman wanted you to marry him, and you 
 would not," said he, with an odd twinkle in his eyes. 
 
 " Why, how can you know ? " 
 
 " I think, because you told me. But I will forget it if 
 you wish." 
 
 " Oh no ! It is quite true. Perhaps I ought to have 
 married him." 
 
 " Ought' " He looked startled. 
 
 " Yes. Adelaide my eldest sister said so. But it 
 was no use. I was very unhappy, and Miss Hallam, who 
 is Sir Peter's deadly enemy he is the old gentleman, you 
 know was very kind to me. She invited me to come with 
 her to Germany, and promised to let me have singing 
 lessons." 
 
 " Singing lessons ?" 
 
 I nodded. " Yes ; and then when I know a good deal 
 more about singing, I shall go back again and give lessons. 
 I shall support myself, and then no one will have the right 
 to want to make me marry Sir Peter." 
 
 " Du lieber Himmel ! " he ejaculated, half to himself. 
 " Are you very musical, then ? " 
 
 " I can sing," said I. " Only I wantsome more training." 
 
 " And you will go back all alone and try to give lessons? " 
 
 " I shall not only try, I shall do it." I corrected him.
 
 The First Violin 55 
 
 " And do you like the prospect ? " 
 
 " If I can get enough money to live upon, I shall like it 
 very much. It will be better than living at home and 
 being bothered." 
 
 " I will tell you what you should do before you begin 
 your career," said he, looking at me with an expression 
 half wondering, half pitying. 
 
 " What ? If you could tell me anything." 
 
 " Preserve your voice, by all means, and get as much 
 instruction as you can ; but change all that waving hair, 
 and make it into unobjectionable smooth bands of no par- 
 ticular color. Get a mask to wear over your face, which 
 is too expressive; do something to your eyes to alter 
 their " 
 
 The expression then visible in the said eyes seemed to 
 strike him, for he suddenly stopped, and with a slight 
 laugh, said : 
 
 " Ach was rede ich fiir dummes Zeug f Excuse me, 
 mein Fraulein." 
 
 "But," I interrupted earnestly, "what do you mean ? 
 Do you think my appearance will be a disadvantage to me ? ' ' 
 
 Scarcely had I said the words than I knew how intensely 
 stupid they were, how very much they must appear as if 
 I were openly and impudently fishing for compliments. 
 How grateful I felt when he answered, with a grave 
 directness, which had nothing but the highest compliment 
 in it that of crediting me with right motives : 
 
 " Mein Frdulein, how can I tell ? It is only that I 
 knew some one, rather older than you, and very beautiful,
 
 56 The First Violin 
 
 who had such a pursuit. Her name was Corona Heidel- 
 berger, and her story was a sad one." 
 
 "Tell it me," I besought. 
 
 " Well, no, I think not. But sometimes I have a 
 little gift of foresight, and that tells me that you will not 
 become what you at present think. You will be much 
 happier and more fortunate." 
 
 " I wonder if it would be nice to be a great operatic 
 singer," I speculated. 
 
 " Oh, behiite ! don't think of it ! " he exclaimed, starting 
 up and moving restlessly. " You do not know -you an 
 opera singer " 
 
 He was interrupted. There suddenly filled the air a 
 sound of deep, heavenly melody, which swept solemnly 
 adown the aisles, and filled with its melodious thunder 
 every corner of the great building. I listened with my face 
 upraised, my lips parted. It was the organ, and presently, 
 after a wonderful melody, which set my heart beating a 
 melody full of the most witchingly sweet high notes, and 
 a breadth and grandeur of low ones such as only two com- 
 posers have ever attained to, a voice a single woman's 
 voice was upraised. She was invisible, and she sang till 
 the very sunshine seemed turned to melody, and all the 
 world was music the greatest, most glorious of earthly 
 
 things. 
 
 " Blute nur, liebes Herz ! 
 
 Ach, ein Kind, das du erzogen, 
 Das an deiner Brust gesogen, 
 Drohet den Pfleger zu ermorden, 
 Denn es ist zur Schlange worden.'
 
 The First Violin 57 
 
 " What is it ? " I asked below my breath, as it ceased. 
 
 He had shaded his face with his hand, but turned to me 
 as I spoke, a certain half-suppressed enthusiasm in his eyes. 
 
 " Be thankful for your first introduction to German 
 music," said he, "and that it was grand old Johann 
 Sebastian Bach whom you heard. That is one of the 
 soprano solos in the Passionsmusik that is music." 
 
 There was more music. A tenor voice was singing a 
 recitative now, and that exquisite accompaniment, with a 
 sort of joyful solemnity, still continued. Every now and 
 then, shrill, high, and clear, penetrated a chorus of boys' 
 voices. I, outer barbarian that I was, barely knew the 
 name of Bach and his Matthdus Passion, so in the pauses 
 my companion told me by snatches what it was about. 
 There was not much of it. After a few solos and recita- 
 tives, they tried one or two of the choruses. I sat in 
 silence, feeling a new world breaking in glory around me, 
 till that tremendous chorus came; the organ notes swelled 
 out, the tenor voice sang, " Whom will ye that I give unto 
 you ?" and the answer came, crashing down in one tre- 
 mendous clap, " Barrabam ! " And such music was in the 
 world, had been sung for years, and I had not heard it. 
 Verily, there may be revelations and things new under the 
 sun every day. 
 
 I had forgotten everything outside the cathedral every 
 person but the one at my side. It was he who roused first 
 looking at his watch and exclaiming : 
 
 " Herrgott! We must go to the station, Fraulein, if we 
 wish to catch the train."
 
 58 The First Violin 
 
 And yet I did not think he seemed very eager to catch 
 it, as we went through the busy streets in the warmth of 
 evening, for it was hot, as it sometimes is in pleasant 
 April, before the withering east winds of the " merry 
 month " have come to devastate the land, and sweep sickly 
 people off the face of the earth. We went slowly through 
 the moving crowds to the station, into the Wartesaal, 
 where he left me while he went to take my ticket. I 
 sat in the same corner of the same sofa as before, and 
 to this day I could enumerate every object in that Warte- 
 saal, 
 
 It was after seven o'clock. The outside sky was still 
 bright, but it was dusk in the waiting-room and under the 
 shadow of the station. When " Eugen Courvoisier " came 
 in again, I did not see his features so distinctly as lately 
 in the cathedral. Again he sat down beside me, silently 
 this time. I glanced at his face, and a strange, sharp, 
 pungent thrill shot through me. The companion of a few 
 hours was he only that ? 
 
 "Are you very tired ? " he asked gently, after a long 
 pause. " I think the train will not be very long now." 
 
 Even as he spoke, clang, clang, went the bell, and for 
 the second time that day I went towards the train for Elber- 
 thal. This time no wrong turning, no mistake. Courvoi- 
 sier put me into an empty compartment, and followed me, 
 said something to a guard who went past, of which I could 
 only distinguish 1 the word allein ; but as no one disturbed 
 our privacy, I concluded that German railway guards, like 
 English ones, are mortal.
 
 The First Violin $9 
 
 After debating within myself for some time, I screwed 
 up my courage and began : 
 
 " Mr. Courvoisier your name is Courvoisier,is it not? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Will you please tell me how much money you have 
 spent for me to-day ? ' ' 
 
 " How much money ? " he asked, looking at me with a 
 provoking smile. 
 
 The train was rumbling slowly along, the night darken- 
 ing down. We sat by an open window, and I looked 
 through it at the gray, Dutch-like landscape, the falling 
 dusk, the poplars that seemed sedately marching along 
 with us. 
 
 " Why do you want to know how much? " he demanded. 
 
 " Because I shall want to pay you, of course, when I get 
 my purse," said I. " And if you will kindly tell me your 
 address, too but how much money did you spend ? " 
 
 He looked at me, seemed about to laugh off the ques- 
 tion, and then said : 
 
 " I believe it was about three thaler ten groschen, but I 
 am not at all sure. I cannot tell till I do my accounts." 
 
 "Oh dear!" said I. 
 
 " Suppose I let you know how much it was," he went 
 on, with a gravity which forced conviction upon me. 
 
 " Perhaps that would be the best," I agreed. " But I 
 hope you will make out your accounts soon." 
 
 " Oh, very soon. And where shall I send my bill 
 to?" 
 
 Feeling as if there were something not quite as it should
 
 60 The First Violin 
 
 be in the whole proceeding, I looked very earnestly at him, 
 but could find nothing but the most perfect gravity in his 
 expression. I repeated my address and name slowly and 
 distinctly, as befitted so business-like a transaction, and he 
 wrote them down in a little book. 
 
 " And you will not forget," said I, "to give me your 
 address when you let me know what I owe you." 
 
 " Certainly when I let you know what you owe me," 
 he replied, putting the little book into his pocket again. 
 
 " I wonder if any one will come to meet me," I specu- 
 lated, my mind more at ease in consequence of the busi- 
 ness-like demeanor of my companion. 
 
 " Possibly," said he, with an ambiguous half smile, 
 which I did not understand. 
 
 " Miss Hallam the lady I came with is almost blind. 
 Her maid had to look after her, and I suppose that is why 
 they did not wait for me," said I. 
 
 " It must have been a very strong reason, at any rate," 
 he said gravely. 
 
 Now the train rolled into the Elberthal station. There 
 were lights, movement, a storm of people all gabbling 
 away in a foreign tongue. I looked out. No face of any 
 one I knew. Courvoisier sprang down and helped me out. 
 
 " Now I will put you into a Droschke" said he, leading 
 the way to where they stood outside the station. 
 
 " Alleestrasse thirty-nine," he said to the man. 
 
 " Stop one moment," cried I, leaning eagerly out. At 
 that moment a tall, dark girl passed us, going slowly 
 towards the gates. She almost paused as she saw us. She
 
 The First Violin 61 
 
 was looking at my companion ; I did not see her face, and 
 was only conscious of her as coming between me and him, 
 and so annoying me. 
 
 " Please let me thank you," I continued. " You have 
 been so kind, so very kind 
 
 " Oh, bitte sehr ! It was so kind in you to get lost 
 exactly when and where you did," said he, smiling. 
 " Adieu, mein Frditlein" he added, making a sign to the 
 coachman, who drove off. 
 
 I saw him no more. " Eugen Courvoisier" I kept re- 
 peating the name to myself, as if I were in the very least 
 danger of forgetting it " Eugen Courvoisier." Now that 
 I had parted from him I was quite clear as to my own feel- 
 ings. I would have given all I was worth not much, truly 
 to see him for one moment again. 
 
 Along a lighted street with houses on one side, a gleam- 
 ing shine of water on the other, and trees on both, down a 
 cross way, then into another street, very wide, and gayly 
 lighted, in the midst of which was an avenue. 
 
 We stopped with a rattle before a house door, and I 
 read, by the light of the lamp that hung over it, " 39."
 
 The First Violin 63 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 Anna Sartorius 
 
 I WAS expected. That was very evident. An excited- 
 looking Dienstmadchen opened the door, and on seeing 
 me, greeted me as if I had been an old friend. I was 
 presently rescued by Merrick, also looking agitated. 
 
 " Ho, Miss Wedderburn, at last you are here ! How 
 Miss Hallam have worried, to be sure." 
 
 " I could not help it, I'm very sorry," said I, follow- 
 ing her upstairs up a great many flights of stairs, as it 
 seemed to me, till she ushered me into a sitting-room, 
 where I found Miss Hallam. 
 
 " Thank heaven, child ! you are here at last. I was 
 beginning to think that if you did not come by this train, 
 I must send some one to Koln to look after you." 
 
 " By this train ! " I repeated blankly. " Miss Hallam 
 what do you mean ? There has been no other train." 
 
 " Two : there was one at four and one at six. I cannot 
 tell you how uneasy I have been at your non-appearance." 
 
 " Then then ' I stammered, growing hot all over. 
 "Oh, \vovr horrible !" 
 
 " What is horrible ? " she demanded. " And you must 
 be starving. Merrick, go and see about something to eat 
 for Miss Wedderburn. Now," she added as her maid left 
 the room, " tell me what you have been doing." 
 
 I told her everything, concealing nothing. 
 
 "Most annoying!" she remarked. "A gentleman,
 
 64 The First Violin 
 
 you say. My dear child, no gentleman would have done 
 anything of the kind. I am very sorry for it all." 
 
 " Miss Hallam," I implored, almost in tears, " please 
 do not tell any one what has happened to me. I will 
 never be such a fool again. I know now and you may 
 trust me. But do not let any one know how stupid I have 
 been. I told you I was stupid I told you several times. 
 I am sure you must remember." 
 
 " Oh yes, I remember. We will say no more about it." 
 
 " And the gray shawl ? " said I. 
 
 " Merrick had it." 
 
 I lifted my hands and shrugged my shoulders. " Just 
 my luck," I murmured resignedly, as Merrick came in 
 with a tray. 
 
 Miss Hallam, I noticed, continued to regard me now and 
 then, as I ate with but small appetite. I was too excited 
 by what had passed, and by what I had just heard, to be 
 hungry. I thought it kind, merciful, humane in her to 
 promise to keep my secret and not expose my ignorance 
 and stupidity to strangers. 
 
 " It is evident," she remarked, " that you must at 
 once begin to learn German, and then if you do get lost at 
 a railway-station again, you will be able to ask your way." 
 
 Merrick shook her head with an inexpressibly bitter smile. 
 
 " I'd defy any one to learn this 'ere language, ma'am. 
 They call an accident a Ungliick : if any one could tell me 
 what that means, I'd thank them, that's all." 
 
 " Don't express your .pinions, Merrick, unless you wish 
 to seem deficient in understanding; but go and see that
 
 The First Violin 65 
 
 Miss Wedderburn has everything she wants or rather 
 everything that can be got in her room. She is tired, 
 and shall go to bed." 
 
 I was only too glad to comply with this mandate, but it 
 was long ere I slept. I kept hearing the organ in the 
 cathedral, and that voice of the invisible singer seeing 
 the face beside me, and hearing the words, " Then you 
 have decided that I am to be trusted ? " 
 
 " And he was deceiving me all the time ! " I thought 
 mournfully. 
 
 I breakfasted by myself the following morning, in a 
 room called the Speisesaal. I found I was late. When I 
 came into the room, about nine o'clock, there was no one 
 but myself to be seen. There was a long table with a white 
 cloth upon it, and rows of the thickest cups and saucers 
 it had ever been my fate to see, with distinct evidences 
 that the chief part of the company had already breakfasted. 
 
 Baskets full of Brodchen and pots of butter, a long india- 
 rubber pipe coming from the gas to light a Theemaschine 
 lots of cane-bottomed chairs, an open piano, two cages 
 with canaries in them; the kettle gently simmering above 
 the gas-flame; for the rest, silence and solitude. 
 
 I sat down, having found a clean cup and plate, and 
 glanced timidly at the Theemaschine, not daring to cope 
 with its mysteries, until my doubts were relieved by the 
 entrance of a young person with a trim little figure, a 
 coquettishly cut and elaborately braided apron, and a white 
 frilled Morgenhaube upon her hair, surmounting her round, 
 heavenward-aspiring visage. 
 5
 
 66 The First Violin 
 
 " Guten Morgen, Fraulein" she said, as she marched 
 up to the darkly mysterious Theemaschine and began 
 deftly to prepare coffee for me, and to push the Brodchen 
 towards me. She began to talk to me in broken English, 
 which was very pretty, and while I ate and drank, she 
 industriously scraped little white roots at the same table. 
 She told me she was Clara, the nieoe of Frau Steinmann, 
 and that she was very glad to see me, but was very sorry I 
 had had so long to wait in Koln, yesterday. She liked my 
 dress, and was it echt Englisch also, how much did it cost? 
 
 She was a cheery little person, and I liked her. She 
 seemed to like me too, and repeatedly said she was glad I 
 had come. She liked dancing, she said. Did I ? And 
 she had lately danced at a ball with some one who danced 
 so well aber, quite indescribably well. His name was 
 Karl Linders, and he was, ach ! really a remarkable per- 
 son. A bright blush, and a little sigh, accompanied the 
 remark. Our eyes met, and from that moment Clara and I 
 were very good friends. 
 
 I went upstairs again, and found that Miss Hallam 
 proposed, during the forenoon, to go and find the Eye 
 Hospital, where she was to see the oculist, and arrange 
 for him to visit her, and shortly after eleven we set out. 
 
 The street that I had so dimly seen the night before, 
 showed itself by daylight to be a fair, broad way. Down 
 the middle, after the pleasant fashion of continental towns, 
 was a broad walk, planted with two double-rows of linden, 
 and on either side this Lindenalle'e was the carriage road, 
 private houses, shops, exhibitions, boarding-houses. In the
 
 The First Violin 67 
 
 middle, exactly opposite our dwelling, was the New Theatre, 
 just drawing to the close of its first season. I looked at 
 it without thinking much about it. I had never been in a 
 theatre in my life, and the name was but a name to me. 
 
 Turning off from the pretty allee, and from the green 
 Hofgarten which bounded it at one end, we entered a nar- 
 row, ill-paved street, the aspect of whose gutters and 
 inhabitants alike excited my liveliest disgust. In this 
 street was the Eye Hospital, as was presently testified to us 
 by a board bearing the inscription, Stddtische Augenklinik. 
 
 We were taken to a dimly-lighted room in which many 
 people were waiting, some with bandages over their eyes, 
 others with all kinds of extraordinary spectacles on, which 
 made them look like phantoms out of a bad dream nearly 
 all more or less blind, and the effect was surprisingly 
 depressing. 
 
 Presently Miss Hallam and Merrick were admitted to 
 an inner room, and I was left to await their return. My 
 eye strayed over the different faces, and I felt a sensation 
 of relief when I saw some one come in without either ban- 
 dage or spectacles. The new comer was a young man of 
 middle height, and of proportions slight without being 
 thin. There was nothing the matter with his eyes, unless 
 perhaps a slight shortsightedness : he had, I thought, one 
 of the gentlest, most attractive faces I had ever seen ; 
 boyishly open and innocent at the first glance; at the 
 second, endued with a certain reticent calm and intellec- 
 tual radiance which took away from the first youthfulness 
 of his appearance. Soft, yet luminous brown eyes, loose
 
 68 The First Violin 
 
 brown hair hanging round his face, a certain manner which 
 for me at least had a charm, were the characteristics of 
 this young man. He carried a violin-case, removed his 
 hat as he came in, and being seen by one of the young 
 men who sat at desks, took names down, and attended to 
 people in general, was called by him : 
 
 " Herr Helfen Herr Friedhelm Helfen ! " 
 
 " Ja hier!" he answered, going up to the desk, upon 
 which there ensued a lively conversation, though carried on 
 in a low tone, after which the young man at the desk pre- 
 sented a white card to " Herr Friedhelm Helfen," and the 
 latter, with a pleasant " adieu," went out of the room again. 
 
 Miss Hallam and Merrick presently returned from the 
 consulting-room, and we went out of the dark room into 
 the street, which was filled with spring sunshine and 
 warmth : a contrast something like that between Miss 
 Hallam's life and my own, I have thought since. Far 
 before us, hurrying on, I saw the young man with the 
 violin-case : he turned off by the theatre, and went in at 
 a side door. 
 
 An hour's wandering in the Hofgarten my first view of 
 the Rhine a dull, flat stream it looked, too. I have seen 
 it since then in mightier flow. Then we came home, and 
 it was decided that we should dine together with the rest 
 of the company at one o'clock. 
 
 A bell rang at a few minutes past one. We went down- 
 stairs, into the room in which I had already breakfasted, 
 which, in general, was known as the Saal. As I entered 
 with Miss Hallam, I was conscious that a knot of lads or
 
 The First Violin 
 
 69 
 
 young men stood aside to let us pass, and then giggled and 
 scuffled behind the door before following us into the Saal. 
 
 Two or three ladies were already seated, and an exceed- 
 ingly stout lady ladled out soup at a side table, while 
 Clara and a servant-woman carried the plates round to the 
 different places.. The stout lady turned as she saw us, and 
 greeted us. She was Frau Steinmann, our hostess. She 
 waited until the youths before spoken of had come in, and 
 with a great deal of noise had seated themselves, when she 
 began, aided by the soup-ladle, to introduce us all to each 
 other. 
 
 We, it seemed, were to have the honor and privilege of 
 being the only English ladies of the company. We were 
 
 introduced to one or two others, and I was assigned a 
 place by a lady introduced as Fraulein Anna Sartorius, a 
 brunette, rather stout, with large dark eyes which looked
 
 70 The First Violin 
 
 at me in a way I did not like, a head of curly black hair 
 cropped short, an odd brusque manner, and a something 
 peculiar or, as she said, seltsam in her dress. This young 
 lady sustained the introduction with self-possession and 
 calm. It was otherwise with the young gentlemen, who 
 appeared decidedly mixed. There were some half-dozen 
 of them in all a couple of English, the rest German, 
 Dutch, and Swedish. I had never been in company with 
 so many nationalities before, and was impressed with my 
 situation needlessly so. 
 
 All these young gentlemen made bows which were, in 
 their respective ways, triumphs of awkwardness, with the 
 exception of one of our compatriots, who appeared to 
 believe that himself and his manners were formed to charm 
 and subdue the opposite sex. We then sat down, and Frau- 
 lein Sartorius immediately opened a conversation with me. 
 
 ' ' Sprechen Sie Deutsch, Frdukin ? ' ' was her first venture, 
 and having received my admission that I did not speak a 
 word of it, she continued in good English : 
 
 " Now I can talk to you without offending you. It is 
 so dreadful when English people who don't know German 
 persist in thinking that they do. There was an English- 
 woman here who always said wer when she meant where, 
 and wo when she meant who. She said the sounds con- 
 fused her." 
 
 The boys giggled at this, but the joke was lost upon me. 
 
 "What is your name?" she continued; "I didn't 
 catch what Frau Steinmann said." 
 
 "May Wedderburn," I replied, angry with myself for
 
 The First Violin 71 
 
 blushing so excessively as I saw that all the boys held their 
 spoons suspended, listening for my answer. 
 
 "May das heisst Mai" said she, turning to the as- 
 sembled youths, who testified that they were aware of it, 
 and the Dutch boy, Brinks, inquired gutturally : 
 
 " You haf one zong in your language what calls itself 
 ' Not always Mai,' haf you not ? " 
 
 "Yes," said I, and all the boys began to giggle as if 
 something clever had been said. Taken all in all, what 
 tortures have I not suffered from those dreadful boys ! Shy 
 when they ought to have been bold, and bold where a 
 modest retiringness would better have become them. 
 Giggling inanely at everything and nothing. Noisy and 
 vociferous amongst themselves or with inferiors ; shy, awk- 
 ward, and blushing with ladies or in refined society 
 distressing my feeble efforts to talk to them by their silly 
 explosions of laughter when one of them was addressed. 
 They formed the bane of my life for some time. 
 
 " Will you let me paint you ? " said Fraulein Sartorius, 
 whose big eyes had been surveying me in a manner thai 
 made me nervous. 
 
 " Paint me ?" 
 
 " Your likeness, I mean. You are very pretty, and we 
 never see that color of hair here." 
 
 " Are you a painter ? " 
 
 "No, I'm only a Studentin yet; but I paint from 
 models. Well, will you sit to me ? " 
 
 " Oh, I don't know. If I have time, perhaps." 
 
 " What will you do to make you not have time ? "
 
 72 The First Violin 
 
 I did not feel disposed to gratify her curiosity, and said 
 I did not know yet what I should do. 
 
 For a short time she asked no more questions, then : 
 
 " Do you like town or country best ? " 
 
 " I don't know. I have never lived in a town." 
 
 " Do you like amusements concerts, and theatre, and 
 opera ? ' ' 
 
 " I don't know," I was reluctantly obliged to confess, 
 for I saw that the assembled youths, though not looking at 
 me openly, and apparently entirely engrossed with their 
 dinners, were listening attentively to what passed. 
 
 " You don't know" repeated Fraulein Sartorius, quickly 
 seeing through my thin assumption of indifference, and 
 proceeding to draw me out as much as possible. I wished 
 Adelaide had been there to beat her from the field. She 
 would have done it better than I could. 
 
 " No ; because I have never been to any." 
 
 " Haven't you ? How odd ! How very odd ! Isn't it 
 strange ? " she added, appealing to the boys. " Fraulein 
 has never been to a theatre or a concert." 
 
 I disdained to remark that my words were being per- 
 verted, but the game instinct rose in me. Raising my 
 voice a little, I remarked : 
 
 " It is evident that I have not enjoyed your advantages, 
 but I trust that the gentlemen "(with a bow to the listen- 
 ing boys) "will make allowances for the difference 
 between us." 
 
 The young gentlemen burst into a chorus of delighted 
 giggles, and Anna, shooting a rapid glance at me, made a
 
 The First Violin 73 
 
 slight grimace, but looked not at all displeased. I was, 
 though, mightily; but, elate with victory, I turned to my 
 compatriot at the other end of the table, and asked him at 
 what time of the year Elberthal was pleasantest. 
 
 " Oh," said he, " it's always pleasant to me, but that's 
 owing to myself. I make it so." 
 
 Just then, several of the other lads rose, pushing their 
 chairs back with a great clatter, bowing to the assembled 
 company, and saying " Gesegnete Mahlzeit I" as they went 
 out. 
 
 ' ' Why are you going, and what do they say ? " I 
 inquired of Miss Sartorius, who replied quite amiably : 
 
 " They are students at the Realschulc. They have to be 
 there at two o'clock, and they say, ' Blessed be the meal- 
 time ! ' as they go out." 
 
 " Do they ? How nice ! " I could not help saying. 
 
 " Would you like to go for a walk this afternoon ?" 
 said she. 
 
 "Oh, very much!" I had exclaimed, before I had 
 remembered that I did not like her, and did not intend 
 to like her. " If Miss Hallam can spare me," I added. 
 
 " Oh, I think she will. I shall be ready at half-past 
 two; then we shall return for coffee at four. I will knock 
 at your door at the time." 
 
 On consulting Miss Hallam after dinner, I found she 
 was quite willing for me to go out with Anna, and at the 
 time appointed we set out. 
 
 Anna took me a tour round the town, sliowed me the 
 lions, and gave me topographical details. She showed me
 
 74 The First Violin 
 
 the big, plain barrack, and the desert waste of the Exer- 
 zierplatz spreading before it. She did her best to entertain 
 me, and I, with a childish prejudice against her abrupt 
 manner, and the free, somewhat challenging look of her 
 black eyes, was reserved, unresponsive, stupid. I took a 
 prejudice against her I own it and for that and other 
 sins committed against a woman who would have been my 
 friend if I would have let her, I say humbly, Mea culpa ! 
 
 " It seems a dull kind of place," said I. 
 
 " It need not be. You have advantages here which you 
 can't get everywhere. I have been here several years, and 
 as I have no other home I rather think I shall live here." 
 
 "Oh, indeed." 
 
 " You have a home, I suppose ? " 
 
 "Of course." 
 
 " Brothers and sisters ? " 
 
 "Two sisters," I replied, mightily ruffled by what I 
 chose to consider her curiosity and impertinence; though, 
 when I looked at her, I saw what I could not but confess 
 to be a real, and not unkind interest in her plain face and 
 big eyes. 
 
 " Ah ! I have no brothers and sisters. I have only a 
 little house in the country, and as I have always lived in a 
 town, I don't care for the country. It is so lonely. The 
 people are so stupid too not always though. You were 
 offended with me at dinner, nichtwahr? " 
 
 "Oh dear no!" said I, very awkwardly and very 
 untruly. The truth was, I did not like her, and was too 
 young, too ignorant and gauche to try to smooth over my
 
 The First Violin 75 
 
 dislike. I did not know the pain I was giving, and if I 
 had, should perhaps not have behaved differently. 
 
 "DoehJ" she said, smiling. "But I did not know 
 what a child you were, or I should have let you alone." 
 
 More offended than ever, I maintained silence. If I 
 were certainly touchy and ill to please, Fraulein Sartorius, 
 it must be owned, did not know how to apologize grace- 
 fully. I have since, with wider knowledge of her country 
 and its men and women, got to see that what made her so 
 inharmonious was, that she had a woman's form, and a 
 man's disposition and love of freedom. As her country- 
 women taken in the gross are the most utterly " in bonds " 
 of any women in Europe, this spoiled her life in a manner 
 which cannot be understood here, where women in com- 
 parison are free as air, and gave no little of the brusque- 
 ness and roughness to her manner. In an enlightened 
 English home she would have been an admirable, firm, 
 clever woman; here she was that most dreadful of all 
 abnormal growths a woman with a will of her own. 
 
 " What do they do here ? " I inquired indifferently. 
 
 " Oh many things. Though it is not a large town, 
 there is a School of Art, which brings many painters here. 
 There are a hundred and fifty besides students." 
 
 ' ' And you are a student ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes. One must have something to do some carrier f 
 though my countrywomen say not. I shall go away for 
 a few months soon, but I am waiting for the last great con- 
 cert. It will be the c Paradise Lost ' of Rubinstein." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" said I politely, but without interest. I
 
 76 The First Violin 
 
 had never heard of Rubinstein and the Verlorene Paradies. 
 Before the furore of 1876, how many scores of provincial 
 English had? 
 
 "There is very much music here," she continued. 
 " Are you fond of it ? " 
 
 " Ye-es. I can't play much, but I can sing. I have 
 come here partly to take singing lessons." 
 
 "So!" 
 
 "Who is the best teacher?" was my next ingenuous 
 question. 
 
 She laughed. 
 
 " That depends upon what you want to learn. There 
 are so many; violin, Clavier, that is piano, flute, 'cello, 
 everything." 
 
 " Oh ! " I replied, and asked no more questions about 
 music ; but inquired if it were pleasant at Frau Stein- 
 mann's. 
 
 She shrugged her shoulders. 
 
 " Is it pleasant anywhere ? I don't find many places 
 pleasant, because I cannot be a humbug, so others do not 
 like me. But I believe some people like Elberthal very 
 well. There is the theatre that makes another element. 
 And there are the soldiers and Kaufleute merchants, I 
 mean, so you see there is variety, though it is a small 
 place." 
 
 "Ah, yes!" said I, looking about me as we passed 
 down a very busy street, and I glanced to right and left 
 with the image of Eugen Courvoisier ever distinctly if 
 unconfessedly present to my mental view. Did he live at
 
 The First Violin 77 
 
 Elberthal ? and if so, did he belong to any of those vari- 
 ous callings ? What was he ? An artist who painted 
 pictures for his bread ? I thought that very probable. 
 There was something free and artist-like in his manner, in 
 his loose waving hair and in his keen susceptibility to 
 beauty. I thought of his emotion at hearing that glorious 
 Bach music. Or was he a musician what Anna Sartorius 
 called ein Musiker ? But no. My ideas of musicians 
 were somewhat hazy, not to say utterly chaotic ; they 
 embraced only two classes ; those who performed or gave 
 lessons, and those who composed. I had never formed to 
 myself the faintest idea of a composer, and my experience 
 of teachers and performers was limited to one specimen 
 Mr. Smythe of Darton, whose method and performances 
 would, as I have since learnt, have made the hair of a 
 musician stand horrent on end. No I did not think he 
 was a musician. An actor ? Perish the thought, was my 
 inevitable mental answer. How should I be able to make 
 any better one ? A soldier, then ? At that moment we 
 met a mounted Captain of Uhlans, harness clanking, 
 accoutrements rattling. He was apparently an acquaint- 
 ance of my companion, for he saluted with a grave polite- 
 ness which sat well upon him. 
 
 Decidedly Eugen Courvoisier had the air of a soldier. 
 That accounted for all. No doubt he was a soldier. In 
 my ignorance of the strictness of German military regula- 
 tions as regards the wearing of uniform, I overlooked the 
 fact that he had been in civilian's dress, and remained 
 delighted with my new idea : Captain Courvoisier.
 
 78 The First Violin 
 
 " What is the German for Captain ? " I inquired ab- 
 ruptly. 
 
 " Hauptmann" 
 
 " Thank you. ' ' Hauptmann Eugen Courvoisier a noble 
 and a gallant title, and one which became him. " How 
 much is a thaler ? ' ' was my next question. 
 
 " It is as much as three shillings in your money." 
 
 " Oh, thank you," said I, and did a little sum in my 
 own mind. At that rate then, I owed Herr Courvoisier 
 the sum of ten shillings. How glad I was to find it came 
 within my means. 
 
 As I took off my things, I wondered when Herr Courvoi- 
 sier would " make out his accounts." I trusted soon.
 
 The First Violin 
 
 79 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " Probe zum verlorenen Paradiese.' 
 
 Miss HALLAM fulfilled her promise with regard to my 
 singing lessons. She had a conversation with Fraulein 
 Sartorius, to whom, unpopular as she was, I noticed people 
 constantly and almost instinctively went when in need of 
 precise information or a slight dose of common sense and 
 clear-headedness. I* 
 
 Miss Hallam inquired who was the best master.
 
 8o The First Violin 
 
 "For singing, the Herr Direktor," replied Anna very 
 promptly. " And then he directs the best of the musical 
 Vereine the clubs, societies, whatever you name them. 
 At least he might try Miss Wedderburn's voice." 
 
 "Who is he?" 
 
 " The head of anything belonging to music in the town 
 koniglicher Musikdirektor. He conducts all the great 
 concerts, and though he does not sing himself, yet he is 
 one of the best teachers in the province. Lots of people 
 come and stay here on purpose to learn from him." 
 
 " And what are these Vereine?" 
 
 " Every season there are six great concerts given, and a 
 seventh for the benefit of the Direktor. The orchestra and 
 chorus together are called a Verein Musikverein. The 
 chorus is chiefly composed of ladies and gentlemen ama- 
 teurs, you know Diletantten. The Herr Direktor is very 
 particular about voices. You pay so much for admission, 
 and receive a card for the season. Then you have all the 
 good teaching the Proben." 
 
 " What is a Probe ? " I demanded hastily, remembering 
 that Courvoisier had used the word. 
 
 " What you call a rehearsal." 
 
 Ah ! then he was musical. At last I had found it out. 
 Perhaps he was one of the amateurs who sang at these con- 
 certs, and if so, I might see him again, and if so But 
 Anna went on : 
 
 " It is a very good thing for any one, particularly with 
 such a teacher as von Francius." 
 
 " You must join," said Miss Hallam to me.
 
 The First Violin 81 
 
 " There is Probe to-night to Rubinstein's ' Paradise 
 Lost,' " said Anna. " I shall go, not to sing, but to listen. 
 I can take Miss Wedderburn, if you like, and introduce 
 her to Herr von Francius, whom I know." 
 
 " Very nice ! very much obliged to you. Certainly," 
 said Miss Hal lam. 
 
 The Probe was fixed for seven, and shortly after that 
 time we set off for the Tonhalle, on concert-hall, in which 
 it was held. 
 
 " We shall be much too early," said she. " But the 
 people are shamefully late. Most of them only come to 
 klatsch, and flirt, or try to flirt, with the Herr Direk- 
 tor." 
 
 This threw upon my mind a new light as to the Herr 
 Direktor, and I walked by her side much impressed. She 
 told me that if accepted I might even sing in the concert 
 itself, as there had only been four Proben so far, and there 
 were still several before the " Hauptprobe." 
 
 " What is the ' Hauptprobe ' ? " I inquired. 
 
 " General Rehearsal when Herr von Francius is most 
 unmerciful to his stupid pupils. I always attend that. I 
 like to hear him make sport of them, and then the instru- 
 mentalists laugh at them. Von Francius never flatters." 
 
 Inspired with nightmare-like ideas as to this terrible 
 " Hauptprobe," I found myself, with Anna, turning into a 
 low-fronted building inscribed Stddtische Tonhalle, the 
 concert-hall of the good town of Elberthal. 
 
 " This way," said she. " It is in the Rittersaal. We 
 don't go to the large saal till the Hauptprobe." 
 6
 
 82 The First Violin 
 
 I followed her into a long, rather shabby- looking room, 
 at one end of which was a low orchestra, about which 
 were dotted the desks of the absent instrumentalists, and 
 some stiff-looking Celli and Contrabassi kept watch from a 
 wall. On the orchestra was already assembled a goodly 
 number of young men and women, all in lively conversa- 
 tion, loud laughter, and apparently high good-humor with 
 themselves and everything in the world. 
 
 A young man with a fuzz of hair standing off about a sad 
 and depressed-looking countenance was stealing " in and 
 out and round about," and distributing sheets of score to 
 the company. In the conductor's place was a tall man in 
 gray clothes, who leaned negligently against the rail, and 
 held a conversation with a pretty young lady, who seemed 
 much pleased with his attention. It did not strike me at 
 first that this was the terrible Direktor of whom I had been 
 hearing. He was young, had a slender, graceful figure, 
 and an exceedingly handsome, though (I thought at first) 
 an unpleasing face. There was something in his attitude 
 and manner which at first I did not quite like. Anna 
 walked up the room, and pausing before the estrade, said : 
 
 " Herr Direktor !" 
 
 He turned : his eyes fell upon her face, and left it 
 instantly to look at mine. Gathering himself together 
 into a more ceremonious attitude, he descended from his 
 estrade, and stood beside us, a little to one side, looking 
 at us with a leisurely calmness which made me feel, I knew 
 not why, uncomfortable. Meanwhile, Anna took up her 
 parable.
 
 The First Violin 83 
 
 " May I introduce the young lady ? Miss Wedderburn, 
 Herr Musikdirektor von Francius. Miss Wedderburn 
 wishes to join the Verein, if you think her voice will pass. 
 Perhaps you will allow her to sing to-night ? " 
 
 " Certainly, mein Frdulein," said he to me, not to Anna. 
 He had a long, rather Jewish-looking face, black hair, 
 eyes, and moustache. The features were thin, fine, and 
 pointed. The thing which most struck me then, at any 
 rate, was a certain expression which, conquering all others, 
 dominated them at once a hardness and a hardihood 
 which impressed me disagreeably then, though I afterwards 
 learnt, in knowing the man, to know much more truly the 
 real meaning of that unflinching gaze and iron look. 
 
 " Your voice is what, mein Frdulein ? " he asked. 
 
 " Soprano." 
 
 " Sopran ? We will see. The Soprani sit over there, 
 if you will have the goodness." 
 
 He pointed to the left of the orchestra, and called out 
 to the melancholy-looking young man, " Herr Schonfeld, 
 a chair for the young lady ! " 
 
 Herr von Francius then ascended the orchestra, himself 
 went to the piano, and, after a few directions, gave us the 
 signal to begin. Till that day I confess it with shame 
 I had never heard of the Verlorene Paradies. It came upon 
 me like a revelation. I sang my best, substituting do, re, 
 mi, etc., for the German words. Once or twice, as Herr 
 von Francius' forefinger beat time, I thought I saw his 
 head turn a little in our direction, but I scarcely heeded 
 it. When the first chorus was over, he turned to me :
 
 84 The First Violin 
 
 " You have not sung in a chorus before ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " So ! I should like to hear you sing something sola." 
 He pushed towards me a pile of music, and while the others 
 stood looking on and whispering amongst themselves, he 
 went on, " Those are all sopran songs. Select one, if you 
 please, and try it." 
 
 Not at all aware that the incident was considered un- 
 precedented, and was creating a sensation, I turned over 
 the music, seeking something I knew, but could find 
 nothing. All in German, and all strange. Suddenly I 
 came upon one entitled Blute nur, liebes Herz, the sopran 
 solo which I had heard as I sat with Courvoisier in the 
 cathedral. It seemed almost like an old friend. I opened 
 it, and found it had also English words. That decided me. 
 
 " I will try this," said I, showing it to him. 
 
 He smiled. " 'Sistgut'" Then he read the title of 
 the song aloud, and there was a general titter, as if some 
 very great joke were in agitation, and were much appreci- 
 ated. Indeed I found that in general the jokes of the 
 Herr Direktor, when he condescended to make any, 
 were very keenly relished by at least the lady part of his 
 pupils. 
 
 Not understanding the reason of the titter I took the 
 music in my hand, and waiting for a moment until he 
 gave me the signal, sang it after the best wise I could 
 not very brilliantly, I dare say, but with at least all my 
 heart poured into it. I had one requisite at least of an 
 artist nature I could abstract myself upon occasion com-
 
 The First Violin 85 
 
 pletely from rny surroundings. I did so now. It was too 
 beautiful, too grand. I remembered that afternoon at 
 Koln the golden sunshine streaming through the painted 
 windows, the flood of melody poured forth by the invisible 
 singer; above all, I remembered who had been by my side, 
 and I felt as if again beside him again influenced by the 
 unusual beauty of his face and mien, and by his clear, 
 strange, commanding eyes. It all came back to me 'the 
 strangest, happiest day of my life. I sang as I had never 
 sung before as I had not known I could sing. 
 
 When I stopped, the tittering had ceased : silence saluted 
 me. The young ladies were all looking at me : some of 
 them had put on their eye-glasses ; others stared at me as if 
 I were some strange animal from a menagerie. The young 
 gentlemen were whispering amongst themselves and taking 
 sidelong glances at me. I scarcely heeded anything of it. 
 I fixed my eyes upon the judge who had been listening to 
 my performance upon von Francius. He was pulling his 
 moustache and at first made no remark. 
 
 " You have sung that song before, mein Frdulein ? " 
 
 " No. ,1 have heard it once. I have not seen the music 
 before." 
 
 "So ! " He bowed slightly, and turning once more to 
 the others, said : 
 
 "We will begin the next chorus. Chorus of the 
 Damned. Now, meine Herrschaften, I would wish to im- 
 press upon you one thing, if I can, that is Silence, meine 
 Herren / " he called sharply towards the tenors, who were 
 giggling inanely amongst themselves. " A chorus of
 
 86 The First Violin 
 
 damned souls," he proceeded composedly, "would not 
 sing in the same unruffled manner as a young lady who 
 warbles, ' Spring is come tra la la ! Spring is come lira, 
 lira ! ' in her mamma's drawing-room. Try to imagine 
 yourself struggling in the tortures of hell " (a de- 
 lighted giggle, and a sort of " Oh, you dear, wicked 
 man!" expression on the part of the young ladies; a 
 nudging of each other on that of the young gentlemen), 
 " and sing as if you were damned." 
 
 Scarcely any one seemed to take the matter the least 
 earnestly. The young ladies continued to giggle, and the 
 young gentlemen to nudge each other. Little enough of 
 expression, if plenty of noise, was there in that magnifi- 
 cent and truly difficult passage, the changing choruses of 
 the Condemned and the Blessed ones with its crowning 
 " WEH ! " thundering down from highest sopran to deepest 
 bass. 
 
 " Lots of noise, and no meaning," observed the con- 
 ductor, leaning himself against the rail of the estrade, face 
 to his audience, folding his arms and surveying them all 
 one after the other with cold self-possession. It struck me 
 that he despised them while he condescended to instruct 
 them. The power of the man struck me again. I began 
 to like him better. At least I venerated his thorough 
 understanding of what was to me a splendid mystery. No 
 softening appeared in the master's eyes in answer to the 
 rows of pretty appealing faces turned to him; no smile 
 upon his contemptuous lips responded to the eyes black, 
 brown, gray, blue, yellow all turned with such affecting
 
 The First Violin 87 
 
 devotion to his own. Composing himself in an insouciant 
 attitude, he began in a cool, indifferent voice, which had, 
 however, certain caustic tones in it which stung me at least 
 to the quick : 
 
 " I never heard anything worse, even from you. My 
 honored Frdulein ; my Jungen Herren ; just try once to 
 imagine what you are singing about ! It is not an exercise 
 it is not a love song, either of which you would no doubt 
 perform excellently. Conceive what is happening ! Put 
 yourself back into those mythical times. Believe, for this 
 evening, in the story of the forfeited Paradise. There is 
 strife between the Blessed and the Damned; the obedient 
 and the disobedient. There are thick clouds in the 
 heavens smoke, fire, and sulphur a clashing of swords 
 in the serried ranks of the angels : cannot you see Michael, 
 Gabriel, Raphael, leading the heavenly host ? Cannot some 
 of you, sympathize a little with Satan and his struggle? " 
 
 Looking at him, I thought they must indeed be an 
 unimaginative set ! in that dark face before them was 
 Mephistopheles at least der Get's/ der stets verneint if 
 nothing more violent. His cool, scornful features were 
 lit up with some of the excitement which he could not 
 drill into the assemblage before him. Had he been gifted 
 with the requisite organ he would have acted and sung the 
 chief character in Faust con amore. 
 
 " Ach, um Gotteswillen ! " he went on, shrugging his 
 shoulders, "try to forget what you are ! Try to forget 
 that none of you ever had a wicked thought or an unholy 
 aspiration "
 
 The First Violin 
 
 (" Don't they see how he is laughing at them ? " I won- 
 dered.) 
 
 " You, chorus of the Condemned, try to conjure up every 
 wicked thought you can, and let it come out in your voices 
 you who sing the strains of the blessed ones, think of 
 what blessedness is. Surely each of you has his own idea ! 
 Some of you may agree with Lenore : 
 
 " ' Bei ihm, bei ihm ist Seligkeit, 
 Und ohne Wilhelm Holle ! ' " 
 
 If so, think of him ; think of her only sing it, whatever 
 it is. Remember the strongest of feelings : 
 
 " ' Die Engel nennen es Himmelsfreude, 
 Die Teufel nennen es Hollenqual, 
 Die Menschen nennen es LIEBE ! *' 
 
 And sing it ! " 
 
 He had not become loud or excited in voice or gesticu- 
 lation, but his words, flung at them like so many scornful 
 little bullets, the indifferent resignation of his attitude, 
 had their effect upon the crew of giggling, simpering 
 girls and awkward, self-conscious young men. Some 
 idea seemed vouchsafed to them that perhaps their per- 
 formance had not been quite all that it might have been; 
 they began in a little more earnest, and the chorus went 
 better. 
 
 For my own part, I was deeply moved. A vague excite- 
 ment, a wild, and not altogether a holy one, had stolen 
 over me. I understood now how the man might have in- 
 fluence. I bent to the power of his will, which reached
 
 The First Violin 89 
 
 me where I stood in the background, from his dark eyes, 
 which turned for a moment to me now and then. It was 
 that will of his which put me as it were suddenly into the 
 spirit of the music, and revealed to me depths in my own 
 heart, at which I had never even guessed. Excited, with 
 cheeks burning and my heart hot within me, I followed his 
 words and his gestures, and grew so impatient ot the dull 
 stupidity of the others, that tears came to my eyes. How 
 ^w//c/that young woman, in the midst of the chorus, delib- 
 erately pause, arrange the knot of her necktie, and then, 
 after a smile and a side-glance at the conductor, go on 
 again with a more self-satisfied simper than ever upon her 
 lips ? What might not the thing be with a whole chorus 
 of sympathetic singers ? The very dulness which in fact 
 prevailed revealed to me great regions of possible splendor, 
 almost too vast to think of. 
 
 At last it was over. I turned to the Director, who was 
 still near the piano, and asked timidly : 
 
 " Do you think I may join ? Will my voice do ? " 
 An odd expression crossed his face ; he answered dryly : 
 " You may join the Verein, mein Frdiilein yes. Please 
 come this way with me. Pardon, Fraulein Stockhausen 
 another time. I am sorry to say I have business at 
 present." 
 
 A black look from a pretty brunette, who had advanced 
 with an engaging smile and an open score to ask him some 
 question, greeted this very composed rebuff of her advance. 
 The black look was directed at me guiltless. 
 
 Without taking any notice of the other, he led Anna and
 
 90 The First Violin 
 
 me to a small inner room, where there was a desk and 
 writing materials. 
 
 " Your name, if you will be good enough." 
 
 "Wedderburn." 
 
 " Your Vorname, though your first name."" 
 
 " My Christian name oh, May." 
 
 " M a na ! Perhaps you will be so good as to write it 
 yourself, and the street and number of the house in which 
 you live." 
 
 I complied. 
 
 " Have you been here long ? " 
 
 " Not quite a week." 
 
 " Do you intend to make any stay ? " 
 
 " Some months, probably." 
 
 " Humph ! If you wish to make any progress in music, 
 you must stay much longer." 
 
 " It I it depends upon other people how long I 
 remain." 
 
 He smiled slightly, and his smile was not unpleasant; 
 lighted up the darkness of his face in an agreeable 
 manner. 
 
 " So I should suppose. I will call upon you to-morrow 
 at four in the afternoon. I should like to have a little 
 conversation with you about your voice. Adieu, meine 
 Damen." 
 
 With a slight bow which sufficiently dismissed us, he 
 turned to the desk again, and we went away. 
 
 Our homeward walk was a somewhat silent one. Anna 
 certainly asked me suddenly where I had learnt to sing.
 
 The First Violin 9 1 
 
 " I have not learnt properly. I can't help singing." 
 
 " I did not know that you had a voice like that," said 
 she, again. 
 
 " Like what ?" 
 
 " Herr von Francius will tell you all about it to-mor- 
 row," said she abruptly. 
 
 " What a strange man Herr von Francius is ! " said I. 
 " Is he clever ? " 
 
 " Oh, very clever." 
 
 " At first I did not like him. Now I think I do, 
 though." 
 
 She made no answer for a few minutes ; then said : 
 
 " He is an excellent teacher." 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 Herr von Francius 
 
 WHEN Miss Hallam heard from Anna Sartorius that my 
 singing had evidently struck Herr von Francius, and of his 
 intended visit, she looked pleased so pleased that I was 
 surprised. 
 
 He came the following afternoon, at the time he had 
 specified. Now, in the broad daylight, and apart from his 
 official, professional manner, I found the Herr Direktor 
 still different from the man of last night, and yet the same. 
 He looked even younger now than on the estrade last night, 
 and quiet though his demeanor was, attuned to a gentle- 
 manly calm and evenness, there was still the one thing, the
 
 9 2 The First Violin 
 
 cool, hard glance left, to unite him with the dark, somewhat 
 sinister-looking personage who had cast his eyes round our 
 circle last night, and told us to sing as if we were damned. 
 
 " Miss Hallam, this is Herr von Francius," said I. 
 " He speaks English," I added. 
 
 Von Francius glanced from her to me with a somewhat 
 inquiring expression. 
 
 Miss Hallam received him graciously, and they talked 
 about all sorts of trifles, whilst I sat by in seemly silence, 
 till at last Miss Hallam said : 
 
 " Can you give me any opinion upon Miss Wedderburn's 
 voice ? " 
 
 " Scarcely, until I have given it another trial. She 
 seems to have had no training." 
 
 " No, that is true," she said, and proceeded to inform 
 him casually that she wished me to have every advantage I 
 could get from my stay in Elberthal, and must put the 
 matter into his hands. Von Francius looked pleased. 
 
 For my part, I was deeply moved. Miss Hallam's gen- 
 erosity to one so stupid and ignorant touched me nearly. 
 
 Von Francius, pausing a short time, at last said : 
 
 " I must try her voice again, as I remarked. Last night 
 I was struck with her sense of the dramatic point of what 
 we were singing a quality which I do not too often find 
 in my pupils. I think, mein Frdulein, that with care and 
 study you might take a place on the stage." 
 
 "The stage!" I repeated, startled, and thinking of 
 Courvoisier's words. 
 
 But von Francius had been reckoning without his host.
 
 The First Violin 93 
 
 When Miss Hallam spoke of " putting the matter into his 
 hands," she understood the words in her own sense. 
 
 "The stage!" said she, with a slight shiver. "That 
 is quite out of the question. Miss Wedderburn is a young 
 lady not an actress." 
 
 " So ! Then it is impossible to be both in your coun- 
 try ?" said he, with polite sarcasm. " I spoke as simple 
 Kiinstler artist I was not thinking of anything else. I 
 do not think the gnadige Frdulein will ever make a good 
 singer of mere songs. She requires emotion to bring out 
 her best powers a little passion a little scope for acting 
 and abandon before she can attain the full extent of her 
 talent." 
 
 He spoke in the most perfectly matter-of-fact way, and 
 I trembled. I feared lest this display of what Miss Hal- 
 lam would consider little short of indecent laxity and 
 Bohemianism, would shock her so much that I should lose 
 everything by it. It was not so, however. 
 
 " Passion abandon ! I think you cannot understand 
 what you are talking about ! " said she. " My dear sir, 
 you must understand that those kind of things may be all 
 very well for one set of people, but not for that class to 
 which Miss Wedderburn belongs. Her father is a clergy- 
 man " Von Francius bowed, as if he did not quite see 
 what that had to do with it " in short, that idea is im- 
 possible. I tell you plainly. She may learn as much as 
 she likes, but she will never be allowed to go upon the 
 stage." 
 
 " Then she may teach ? " said he inquiringly.
 
 94 The First Violin 
 
 " Certainly. I believe that is what she wishes to do, in 
 case if necessary." 
 
 " She may teach, but she may not act," said he reflec- 
 tively. " So be it, then ! Only," he added, as if making 
 a last effort, " I would just mention that, apart from 
 artistic considerations, while a lady may wear herself out 
 as a poorly-paid teacher, zprima donna " 
 
 Miss Hallam smiled with calm disdain. 
 
 "It is not of the least use to speak of such a thing. 
 You and I look at the matter from quite different points 
 of view, and to argue about it would only be to waste 
 time." 
 
 Von Francius, with a sarcastic, ambiguous smile, turned 
 to me : 
 
 " And you, mein Frdulein ? " 
 
 " I no. I agree with Miss Hallam," I murmured, not 
 really having found myself able to think about it at all, but 
 conscious that opposition was useless. And, besides, I did 
 shrink away from the ideas conjured up by that word " the 
 stage." 
 
 "So!" said he, with a little bow and a half smile. 
 "A/so! I must try to make the round man fit into the 
 square hole. The first thing will be another trial of your 
 voice; then I must see how many lessons a week you will 
 require, and must give you instructions about practising. 
 You must understand that it is not pleasure or child's play 
 which you are undertaking. It is a work in order to 
 accomplish which you must strain every nerve, and give up 
 everything which in any way interferes with it."
 
 The First Violin 95 
 
 " I don't know whether I shall have time for it," I 
 murmured, looking doubtfully at Miss Hallam. 
 
 "Yes, May; you will have time for it," was all she 
 said. 
 
 "Is there a piano in the house?" said von Francius. 
 "But, yes, certainly. Fraulein Sartorius has one; she 
 will lend it to us for half an hour. If you are at liberty, 
 mein Fraulein, just now " 
 
 "Certainly," said I, following him, as he told Miss 
 Hallam that he would see her again. 
 
 As he knocked at the door of Anna's sitting-room, she 
 came out, dressed for walking. 
 
 " Ach, Fraulein ! will you allow us the use of your 
 piano for a few minutes ? " 
 
 " Bitte / " said she, motioning us into the room. "I 
 am sorry I have an engagement, and must leave you." 
 
 " Do not let us keep you on any account," said he, with 
 touching politeness ; and she went out. 
 
 " Desto besser ! " he observed, shrugging his shoulders. 
 
 He pulled off his gloves with rather an impatient ges- 
 ture, seated himself at the piano, and struck some chords 
 in an annoyed manner. 
 
 "Who is that old lady ?" he inquired, looking up at 
 me. " Any relation of yours ? " 
 
 " No oh no ! I am her companion." 
 
 " So ! And you, mean to let her prevent you from fol- 
 lowing the career you have a talent for ? " 
 
 "If I do not do as she wishes, I shall have no chance 
 of following any career at all," said I. "And, besides;
 
 96 The First Violin 
 
 how does any one know that I have a talent for for 
 what you say ? ' ' 
 
 " I know it; that is why I said it. I wish I could per- 
 suade that old lady to my way of thinking ! " he added. 
 "I wish you were out of her hands and in mine. Na ! we 
 shall see!" 
 
 It was not a very long " trial " that he gave me ; we soon 
 rose from the piano. 
 
 "To-morrow at eleven I come to give you a lesson," 
 said he. " I am going to talk to Miss Hallam now. You 
 please not come. I wish to see her alone ; and I can 
 manage her better by myself, nichtwahrJ" 
 
 " Thank you," said I in a subdued tone. 
 
 "You must have a piano, too," he' added; "and we 
 must have the room to ourselves. I allow no third person 
 to be present at my private lessons ; but go on the prin- 
 ciple of Paul Heyse's hero, Edwin, either in open lecture, 
 or u nter vier Angcn," 
 
 With that he held the door open for me, and as I turned 
 into my room, shook hands with me in a friendly manner, 
 bidding me expect him on the morrow. 
 
 Certainly, I decided, Herr von Franciuswas quite unlike 
 any one I had ever seen before ; and how awfully cool he 
 was, and self-possessed. I liked him well, though. 
 
 The next morning Herr von Francius gave me my first 
 lesson, and after that I had one from him nearly every 
 day. As teacher and as acquaintance he was, as it were, 
 two different men. As teacher he was strict, severe, gave 
 much blame and little praise ; but when he did once
 
 The First Violin 97 
 
 praise me, I remember, I carried the remembrance of it 
 with me for days, as a ray of sunshine. He seemed never 
 surprised to find how much work had been prepared for 
 him, although he would express displeasure sometimes at 
 its quality. He was a teacher whom it was impossible not 
 to respect, whom one obeyed by instinct. As man, as 
 acquaintance, I knew little of him, though I heard much 
 idle tales, which it would be as idle to repeat. They 
 chiefly related to his domineering disposition and deter- 
 mination to go his own way, and disregard that of others 
 In this fashion my life became busy enough. 
 7
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " Lohengrin " 
 
 As time went on, the image of Eugen Cour- 
 voisier, my unspoken-of, unguessed-at, friend 
 did ;w/fade from my memory. It grew stronger. 
 
 !I thought of him every day never went out without 
 a distinct hope that I might see him ; never came 
 in without vivid disappointment that I had not seen 
 him. I carried three thaler ten groschen so arranged in 
 my purse that I could lay my hand upon them at a moment's 
 notice, for as the days went on, it appeared that Herr 
 Courvoisier had not made up his accounts, or if he had, 
 had not chosen to claim that part of them owed by me.
 
 The First Violin 99 
 
 I did not see him. I began dismally to think that after 
 all the whole thing was at an end. He did not live at 
 Elberthal he had certainly never told me that he did, I 
 reminded myself. He had gone about his business and 
 interests had forgotten the waif he had helped one spring 
 afternoon, and I should never see him again. My heart 
 fell, and sank with a reasonless, aimless pang. What did 
 it, could it, ought it to matter to me whether I ever saw 
 him again or not ? Nothing, certainly, and yet I troubled 
 myself about it a great deal. I made little dramas in my 
 mind of how he and I were to meet, and how I would exert 
 my will, and make him take the money. Whenever I saw 
 an unusually large or handsome house, I instantly fell to 
 wondering if it were his, and sometimes made inquiries 
 as to the owner of any particularly eligible residence. I 
 heard of Brauns, Miillers, Piepers, Schmidts, and the like, 
 as owners of the same never the name Courvoisier. He 
 had disappeared I feared for ever. 
 
 Coming in weary one day from the town, where I had 
 been striving to make myself understood in shops, I was 
 met by Anna Sartorius on the stairs. She had not ceased 
 to be civil to me civil, that is, in her way and my 
 unreasoning aversion to her was as great as ever. 
 
 "This is the last opera of the season," said she, dis- 
 playing a pink ticket. " I am glad you will get to see 
 one, as the theatre closes after to-night." 
 
 " But I am not going." 
 
 "Yes, you are.- Miss Hallam has a ticket for you. I 
 am going to chaperon you."
 
 ioo The First Violin 
 
 " I must go and see about that," said I hastily, rushing 
 upstairs. 
 
 The news, incredible though it seemed, was quite true. 
 The ticket lay there. I picked it up and gazed at it 
 fondly. Stadttheater zu Elberthal. Parquet, No. 16. As I 
 had never been in a theatre in my life, this conveyed no 
 distinct idea to my mind, but it was quite enough for me 
 that I was going. The rest of the party, I found, were to 
 consist of Vincent, the Englishman, Anna Sartorius, and 
 the Dutch boy, Brinks. 
 
 It was Friday evening, and the opera was Lohengrin. I 
 knew nothing, then, about different operatic styles, and 
 my ideas of operatic music were based upon duets upon 
 selected airs from La Traviata, La Sonnambula, and 
 Lucia. I thought the story of Lohengrin, as related by 
 Vincent, interesting. I was not in the least aware that 
 my first opera was to be a different one from that of most 
 English girls. Since, I have wondered sometimes what 
 would be the result, upon the musical taste of a person 
 who was put through a course of Wagner i an opera first, and 
 then turned over to the Italian school leaving Mozart, 
 Beethoven, Gluck to take care of themselves, as they may 
 very well do thus exactly reversing the usual (English) 
 process. 
 
 Anna was very quiet that evening. Afterwards I knew 
 that she must have been observing me. We were in the 
 first row of the Parquet, with the orchestra alone between 
 us and the stage. I was fully occupied in looking about 
 me now at the curtain hiding the great mystery, "now
 
 The First Violin 101 
 
 behind and above me at the boxes, in a youthful state of 
 ever-increasing hope and expectation. 
 
 " We are very early," said Vincent, who was next to 
 me, "very early, and very near," he added, but he did 
 not seem much distressed at either circumstance. 
 
 Then the gas was suddenly turned up quite high. The 
 bustle increased cheerfully. The old, young, and middle- 
 aged Ladies who filled the Logen in the Ersten Rang 
 hardened theatre-goers, who came as regularly every night 
 in the week during the eight months of the season as they 
 ate their breakfasts and went to their beds, were gossiping 
 with the utmost violence, exchanging nods and odd little 
 old-fashioned bows with other ladies in all parts of the 
 house, leaning over to look whether the Parquet was well 
 filled, and remarking that there were more people in the 
 Balcon than usual. The musicians were dropping into the 
 orchestra. I was startled to see a face I knew that 
 pleasant-looking young violinist with the brown eyes, 
 whose name I had heard called out at the Eye Hospital. 
 They all seemed very fond of him, particularly a man who 
 struggled about with a violoncello, and who seemed to 
 have a series of jokes to relate to Herr Helfen, exploding 
 with laughter, and every now and then shaking the loose 
 thick hair from his handsome, genial face. Helfen lis- 
 tened to him with a half-smile, screwing up his violin and 
 giving him a quiet look now and then. The inspiring 
 noise of tuning-up had begun, and I was on the very tip- 
 toe of expectation-. 
 
 As I turned once more and looked round, Vincent said,
 
 102 The First Violin 
 
 laughing, " Miss Wedderburn, your hat has hit me three 
 times in the face. ' ' It was, by-the-bye, the brown hat which 
 had graced my head that day at Koln. 
 
 " Oh, has it ? I beg your pardon ! " said I, laughing 
 too, as I brought my eyes again to bear upon the stage. 
 " The seats are too near toge 
 
 Further words were upon my lips, but they were never 
 uttered. In roving across the orchestra to the foot-lights, 
 my eyes were arrested. In the well of the orchestra, 
 immediately before my eyes, was one empty chair, that by 
 right belonging to the leader of the first violins. Fried- 
 helm Helfen sat in the one next below it. All the rest of 
 the musicians were assembled. The conductor was in his 
 place, and looked a little impatiently towards that empty 
 chair. Through the door to the left of the orchestra there 
 came a man, carrying a violin, and made his way, with a 
 nod here, a half -smile there, a tap on the shoulder in 
 another direction. Arrived at the empty chair, he laid his 
 hand upon Helfen's shoulder, and bending over him, spoke 
 to him as he seated himself. He kept his hand on that 
 shoulder, as if he liked it to be there. Helfen's eyes said 
 as plainly as possible that he liked it. Fast friends, on 
 the face of it, were these two men. In this moment, 
 though I sat still, motionless, and quiet, I certainly real- 
 ized as nearly as possible that ////possible sensation, the 
 turning upside down of the world. I did not breathe. I 
 waited, spell-bound, in the vague idea that my eyes might 
 open, and I find that I had been dreaming. After an 
 earnest speech to Helfen the new-comer raised his head,
 
 The First Violin 103 
 
 and as he shouldered his violin, his eyes travelled care- 
 lessly along the first row of the Parquet our row. I did 
 not awake; things did not melt away in mist before my 
 eyes. He was Eugen Courvoisier, and he looked braver, 
 handsomer, gallanter, and more apart from the crowd of 
 men now, in this moment, than even my sentimental 
 dreams had pictured him. I felt it all : I also know now 
 that it was partly the very strength of the feeling I had 
 the very intensity of the admiration which took from me 
 reflection and reason for the moment. I felt as if every 
 one must see how I felt. I remembered that no one knew 
 what had happened. I dreaded lest they should. I 
 did the most cowardly and treacherous thing that circum- 
 stances permitted to me displayed to what an extent 
 my power of folly and stupidity could carry me. I saw 
 these strange, bright eyes, whose power I felt, coming 
 towards me. In one second they would be upon me. 
 I felt myself white with anxiety. His eyes were coming 
 coming slowly, surely. They had fallen upon Vin- 
 cent, and he nodded to him. They fell upon me. It 
 was for the tenth of a second only. I saw a look of rec- 
 ognition flash into his eyes upon his face. I saw he 
 was going to bow to me. With (as it seemed to me) all 
 the blood in my veins rushing to my face, my head swim- 
 ming, my heart beating, I dropped my eyes to the play- 
 bill upon my lap, and stared at the crabbed German 
 characters the names of the players, the characters they 
 took. " Elsa Lohengrin." I read them again and 
 again, while my ears were singing, my heart beating so,
 
 104 The First Violin 
 
 and I thought every one in the theatre knew and was 
 looking at me. 
 
 " Mind you listen to the overture, Miss Wedderburn," 
 said Vincent hastily, in my ear, as the first liquid, yearn- 
 ing, long-drawn notes sounded from the violins. 
 
 " Yes," said I, raising my face at last, and looking, or 
 rather feeling a look compelled from me, to the place 
 where he sat. This time our eyes met fully. I do not 
 know what I felt when I saw him look at me as unrecog- 
 nizingly as if I had been a wooden doll in a shop window. 
 Was he looking past me ? No. His eyes met mine direct 
 glance for glance : not a sign, not a quiver of the mouth, 
 not a waver of the eyelids. I heard no more of the over- 
 ture. When he was playing, and so occupied with his 
 music, I observed him surreptitiously; when he was not 
 playing, I kept my eyes fixed firmly upon my play-bill. I 
 did not know whether to be most distressed at my own dis- 
 loyalty to a kind friend, or most appalled to find that the 
 man with whom I had spent a whole afternoon in the firm 
 conviction that he was outwardly, as well as inwardly, my 
 equal and a gentleman (how the tears, half of shame, half 
 of joy, rise to my eyes now as I think of my poor, pedantic 
 little scruples then /) the man of whom I had assuredly 
 thought and dreamed many and many a time and oft was 
 a professional musician, a man in a band, a German band, 
 playing in the public orchestra of a provincial town. 
 Well ! well ! 
 
 In our village at home, where the population consisted 
 of clergymen's widows, daughters of deceased naval officers,
 
 The First Violin 105 
 
 and old women in general, and those old women ladies of 
 the genteelest description the Army and the Church (for 
 vhich I had been brought up to have the deepest venera- 
 tion and esteem, as the two head powers in our land for 
 we did not take Manchester, Birmingham, and Liverpool 
 into account at Skernford) the Army and the Church, I 
 say, looked down a little upon Medicine and the Law, as 
 being perhaps more necessary, but less select factors in 
 that great sum the Nation. Medicine and the Law looked 
 down very decidedly upon commercial wealth, and Com- 
 merce in her turn turned up her nose at retail establish- 
 ments, while one and all Church and Army, Law and 
 Medicine, Commerce in the gross and Commerce in the 
 little united in pointing the finger at artists, musicians, 
 literati, et id o nine genus, considering them, with some few 
 well-known and orthodox exceptions, as Bohemians, and 
 calling them " persons " a name whose mighty influence 
 is unknown to those who never were and never will be 
 "persons." They were a class with whom we had and 
 could have nothing in common ; so utterly outside our life, 
 that we scarcely ever gave a thought to their existence. 
 We read of pictures, and wished to see them ; heard of 
 musical wonders, and desired to hear them as pictures, 
 as compositions. I do not think it ever entered our heads 
 to remember that a man with a quick life throbbing in 
 his veins, with feelings, hopes, and fears and thoughts, 
 painted the picture, and that in seeing it we also saw him 
 that a consciousness, if possible, yet more keen and 
 vivid produced the combinations of sound which brought
 
 io6 The Firsf Violin 
 
 tears to our eyes when we heard " the band " beautiful 
 abstraction ! play them. Certainly we never considered 
 the performers as anything more than people who couljj 
 play one who blew his breath into a brass tube, another 
 into a wooden pipe ; one who scraped a small fiddle with 
 fine strings, another who scraped a big one with coarse 
 strings. 
 
 I was seventeen, and not having an original mind, had 
 up to now judged things from earlier teaching and im- 
 pressions. I do not ask to be excused. I only say that I 
 was ignorant ; as ignorant as ever even a girl of seventeen 
 was. I did not know the amount of art and culture which 
 lay amongst those rather shabby-looking members of the 
 Elberthal stddtische Kapelle did not know that that little 
 cherubic-faced man, who drew his bow so lovingly across 
 his violin, had played under Mendelssohn's conductorship, 
 and could tell tales about how the master had drilled his 
 band, and what he had said about the first performance of 
 the Lobgesang. The young man to whom I had seen 
 Courvoisier speak, was I learnt it later a performer 
 to ravish the senses, a conductor in the true sense not a 
 mere man who waves a stick up and down, but one who can 
 put some of the meaning of the music into his gestures, 
 and dominate his players. I did not know that the musi- 
 cians before me were nearly all true artists, and some of 
 them undoubted gentlemen to boot, even if their income 
 averaged something under that of a skilled Lancashire 
 operative. But, even if I had known it as well as possible, 
 and had been aware that there could be nothing derogatory
 
 The First Violin 107 
 
 in my knowing or being known by one of them, I could 
 not have been more wretched than I was in having been, 
 as it were, false to a friend. The dreadful thing was, or 
 ought to be I could not quite decide which that such a 
 person should have been my friend. 
 
 " How he must despise me ! " I thought, my cheeks 
 burning, my eyes fastened upon the play-bill. " I owe 
 him ten shillings. If he likes he can point me out to 
 them all and say, 'That is an English girl lady I can- 
 not call her. I found her quite alone and lost at Koln, 
 and I did all I could to help her. I saved her a great 
 deal of anxiety and inconvenience. She was not above 
 accepting my assistance; she confided her story freely to 
 me ; she is nothing very particular has nothing to boast 
 of no money, no knowledge, nothing superior; in fact, 
 she is simple and ignorant to a quite surprising extent ; 
 but she has just cut me dead. What do you think of 
 her?'" 
 
 Until the curtain went up I sat in torture. When the 
 play began, however, even my discomfort vanished in my 
 wonder at the spectacle. It was the first I had seen. Try 
 to picture it, O worn-out and blase" frequenter of play and 
 opera! Try to realize the feelings of an impressionable 
 young person of seventeen when Lohengrin was revealed to 
 her for the first time Lohengrin, the mystic knight, with 
 the glamour of eld upon him Lohengrin, sailing in blue 
 and silver, like a dream, in his swan-drawn boat, stepping 
 majestic forth, and speaking in a voice of purest melody, 
 as he thanks the bird and dismisses it:
 
 io8 The First Violin 
 
 " Dahin, woher mich trug dein Kahn, 
 Kehr' wieder nur zu unserm Gllick ! 
 Drum sei getreu dein Dienst gethan, 
 Leb' wohl, leb' wohl, mein lieber Schwan." 
 
 Elsa, with the wonder, the gratitude, the love, and alas ! 
 the weakness in her eyes ! The astonished Brabantine men 
 and women. They could not have been more astonished 
 than I was. It was all perfectly real to me. What did 
 I know about the stage ? To me, yonder figure in blue 
 mantle and glittering artnor was Lohengrin, the son of 
 Percivale, not Herr Siegei, the first tenor of the company, 
 who acted stiffly, and did not know what to do with his 
 legs. The lady in black velvet and spangles, who gesticu- 
 lated in a corner, was an Edelfrau to me, as the programme 
 called her, not the chorus leader, with two front teeth 
 missing, an inartistically made-up countenance, and large 
 feet. I sat through the first act with my eyes riveted upon 
 the stage. What a thrill shot through me as the tenor 
 embraced the soprano, and warbled melodiously, " Elsa, 
 ich liebe Dich ! " My mouth and eyes were wide open, I 
 have no doubt, till at last the curtain fell. With a long 
 sigh I slowly brought my eyes down, and Lohengrin van- 
 ished like a dream. There was Eugen Courvoisier stand- 
 ing up he had resumed the old attitude was twirling his 
 moustache and surveying the company. Some of the other 
 performers were leaving the orchestra by two little doors. 
 If only he would go too ! As I nervously contemplated a 
 gracefully indifferent remark to Herr Brinks, who sat next 
 to me, I saw Courvoisier step forward. Was he, could he
 
 The First Violin 109 
 
 be going to speak to me ? I should have deserved it, I 
 knew, but I felt as if I should die under the ordeal. I sat 
 preternaturally still, and watched, as if mesmerized, the 
 approach of the musician. He spoke again to the young 
 man whom I had seen before, and they both laughed. 
 Perhaps he had confided the whole story to him, and was 
 telling him to observe what he was going to do. Then 
 Herr Courvoisier tapped the young man on the shoulder 
 and laughed again, and then he came on. He was not 
 looking at me ; he came up to the boarding, leaned his 
 elbow upon it, and said to Eustace Vincent : 
 
 " Good-evening : Wie gehfs Ihnen ? " 
 
 Vincent held out his hand. " Very well, thanks. And 
 you ? I haven't seen you lately." 
 
 " Then you haven't been at the theatre lately," he 
 laughed. He never testified to me by word or look that 
 he had even seen me before. At last I got to understand, 
 as his eyes repeatedly fell upon me without the slightest 
 sign of recognition, that he did not intend to claim my 
 acquaintance. I do not know whether I was most wretched 
 or most relieved at the discovery. It spared me a great 
 deal of embarrassment; it filled me, too, with inward 
 shame beyond all description. And then, too, I was dis- 
 mayed to find how totally I had mistaken the position of 
 the musician. Vincent was talking eagerly to him. They 
 had moved a little nearer the other end of the orchestra. 
 The young man, Helfen, had come up : others had joined 
 them. I, meanwhile, sat still heard every tone of his 
 voice, took in every gesture of his head or his hand, and
 
 i io The First Violin 
 
 felt as I trust never to feel again and yet I lived in some 
 such feeling as that for what at least seemed to me a long 
 time. What was the feeling that clutched me held me 
 fast seemed to burn me ? And what was that I heard ? 
 Vincent speaking : 
 
 " Last Thursday week, Courvoisier why didn't you 
 come ? We were waiting for you." 
 
 " I missed the train." 
 
 Until now he had been speaking German, but he said 
 this distinctly in English, and I heard every word. 
 
 " Missed the train? " cried Vincent in his cracked voice. 
 " Nonsense, man ! Helfen, here, and Alekotte were in 
 time, and they had been at the Probe as much as you." 
 
 " I was detained in Koln and couldn't get back till 
 evening," said he. "Come along, Friedel ; there's the 
 call-bell." 
 
 I raised my eyes met his. I do not know what expres- 
 sion was in mine. His never wavered, though he looked 
 at me long and steadily no glance of recognition no 
 sign still. I would have risked the astonishment of every 
 one of them now, for a sign that he remembered me. 
 None was given. 
 
 Lohengrin had no more attraction forme. I felt in pain 
 that was almost physical, and weak with excitement as at 
 last the curtain fell and we left our places. 
 
 "You were very quiet," said Vincent, as we walked 
 home. " Did you not enjoy it ? " 
 
 " Very much, thank you. It was very beautiful," said 
 I faintly.
 
 The First Violin m 
 
 *' So Herr Courvoisier was not at the Soiree," said the 
 loud rough voice of Anna Sartorius. 
 
 " No," was all Vincent said. 
 
 " Did you have anything new ? Was Herr von Francius 
 there too ? " 
 
 " Yes; he was there too." 
 
 I pondered. Brinks whistled loudly the air of Elsa's 
 Brautzug, and we paced across the Lindenallee. We had 
 not many paces to go. The lamps were lighted, the people 
 were thronging thick as in the day-time. The air was full 
 of laughter, talk, whistling and humming of the airs from 
 the opera. My ear strained eagerly through the confusion. 
 I could have caught the faintest sound of Courvoisier' s 
 voice had it been there, but it was not. And we came 
 home ; Vincent opened the door with his latch-key, said, 
 " It has not been very brilliant, has it? That tenor is a 
 stick," and we all went to our different rooms. It was in 
 such wise that I met Eugen Courvoisier for the second 
 time.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " Will you sing?" 
 
 THE theatre season closed with that evening on which 
 Lohengrin was performed. I ran no risk of meeting Cour- 
 voisier face to face again in that alarming, sudden man 
 ner. But the subject had assumed diseased proportions in 
 my mind. I found myself confronted with him yet, and 
 week after week. My business in Elberthal was music to 
 learn as much music and hear as much music as I could : 
 wherever there was music there was also Eugen Courvoisier 
 naturally. There was only one stddtische Kapelle in 
 Elberthal. Once a week at least each Saturday I saw 
 him, and he saw me at the unfailing Instrumental Concert 
 to which every one in the house went, and to absent myself 
 from which would instantly have set every one wondering 
 what could be my motive for it. My usual companions 
 were Clara Steinrnann, Vincent, the Englishman, and often 
 Frau Steinmann herself. Anna Sartorius and some other 
 girl -students of art usually brought sketch-books, and were 
 far too much occupied in making studies or caricatures of 
 the audience to pay much attention to the music. The
 
 The First Violin 113 
 
 audience were, however, hardened; they were used to it. 
 Anna and her friends were not alone in the practice. 
 There were a dozen or more artists or soi-disant artists 
 busily engaged with their sketch-books. The concert- 
 room offered a rich field to them. One could at least be 
 sure of one thing that they were not taking off the per- 
 sons at whom they looked most intently. There must be 
 quite a gallery hidden away in some old sketch-books of 
 portraits or wicked caricatures of the audience that fre- 
 quented the concerts of the Instrumental Musik Verein. I 
 wonder where they all are ? Who has them ? What has 
 become of the light-hearted sketchers ? I often recall 
 those homely Saturday evening concerts ; the long, shabby 
 saal with it* faded, out-of-date decorations ; its rows of 
 small tables with the well-known groups around them; the 
 mixed and motley audience. How easy, after a little 
 while, to pick out the English, by their look of compla- 
 cent pleasure at the delightful ease and unceremoniousness 
 of the whole affair; their gladness at finding a public 
 entertainment where one's clothes were not obliged to be 
 selected with a view to outshining those of every one else 
 in the room ; the students shrouded in a mystery, sacred 
 and impenetrable, of tobacco smoke. The spruce-looking 
 schoolboys from the Gymnasium and Realschule, the old 
 captains and generals, the Fraulein their daughters, the 
 gnadigen Frauen their wives ; dressed in the disastrous 
 plaids, checks, and stripes, which somehow none but Ger- 
 man women ever get hold of . Shades of Le Follet ! What 
 costumes there were on young and old for an observing 
 8
 
 ii4 The First Violin 
 
 eye ! What bonnets, what boots, what stupendously daring 
 accumulation of colors and styles and periods of dress 
 crammed and piled on the person of one substantial Frau 
 Generalin, or Doctorin, or Professorin ! 
 
 The low orchestra the tall, slight, yet commanding 
 figure of von Francius on the estrade; his dark face with 
 its indescribable mixture of pride, impenetrability, and 
 insouciance ; the musicians behind him every face of 
 them as well known to the audience as those of the audi- 
 ence to them: it was not a mere "concert," which in 
 England is another word for so much expense and so 
 much vanity it was a gathering of friends. We knew the 
 music in which the Kapelle was most at home ; we knew 
 their strong points and their weak ones ; th^ passage in 
 the Pastoral Symphony where the second violins were a 
 little weak; that overture where the Blasinstrumente came 
 out so well the symphonies one heard the divine wealth 
 of undying art and beauty ! Those days are past : despite 
 what I suffered in them they had their joys for me. Yes ; 
 I suffered at those concerts. I must ever see the one face 
 which for me blotted out all others in the room, and 
 endure the silent contempt which I believed I saw upon it. 
 Probably it was my own feeling of inward self-contempt 
 which made me believe I saw that expression there. His 
 face had for me a miserable, basilisk-like attraction. 
 When I was there and he was there, I must look at him 
 and endure the silent, smiling disdain which I at least 
 believed he bestowed upon me. How did he contrive to 
 do it ? How often our eyes met, and every time it hap-
 
 The First Violin "5 
 
 pened he looked me full in the face, and never would give 
 me the faintest gleam of recognition. It was as though I 
 looked at two diamonds, which returned my stare unwink- 
 ingly and unseeingly. I managed to make myself 
 thoroughly miserable pale and thin with anxiety and 
 self-reproach. I let this man, and the speculations con- 
 cerning him, take up my whole thoughts, and I kept 
 silence, because I dreaded so intensely lest any question 
 should bring out the truth. I smiled drearily when I 
 thought that there certainly was no danger of any one but 
 Miss Hallam ever knowing it, for the only person who 
 could have betrayed me chose now, of deliberate purpose, 
 to cut me as completely as I had once cut him. 
 
 As if to show very decidedly that he did intend to cut 
 me, I met him one day, not in the street, but in the house, 
 on the stairs. He sprang up the steps, two at a time, 
 came to a momentary pause on the landing, and looked at 
 me. No look of surprise, none of recognition. He raised 
 his hat, that was nothing; in ordinary politeness he would 
 have done it had he never seen me in his life before. The 
 same cold, bright, hard glance fell upon me, keen as an 
 eagle's, and as devoid of every gentle influence as the same. 
 
 I silently held out my hand. 
 
 He looked at it for a moment, then with a grave cool- 
 ness which chilled me to the soul, murmured something 
 about " not having the honor," bowed slightly, and step- 
 ping forward, walked into Vincent's room. 
 
 I was going to the room in which my piano stood, where 
 I had my music lessons, for they had told me that Herr von
 
 "6 The First Violin 
 
 Francius was waiting. I looked at him as I went into the 
 room. How different he was from that other man : darker, 
 more secret, more scornful-looking, with not less power, 
 but so much less benevolence. 
 
 I was distraite, and sang exceedingly ill. We had been 
 going through the solo sopran part of the Paradise Lost. I 
 believe I sang vilely that morning. I was not thinking 
 of Eva's sin and the serpent, but of other things, which, 
 despite the story related in the Book of Genesis, touched 
 me more nearly. Several times already had he made me 
 sing through Eva's stammering answer to her God's ques- 
 tion : 
 
 "Ah, Lord! . . . The Serpent ! 
 
 The beautiful, glittering Serpent, 
 With his beautiful, glittering words, 
 He, Lord, did lead astray 
 The weak Woman ! " 
 
 " Bah ! " exclaimed von Francius, when I had sung it 
 some three or four times, each time worse, each time more 
 distractedly. He flung the music upon the floor, and his 
 eyes flashed, startling me from my uneasy thoughts back to 
 the present. He was looking at me with a dark cloud 
 upon his face. I stared, stooped meekly, and picked up 
 the music. 
 
 " Fraulein, what are you dreaming about ?" he asked 
 impatiently. " You are not singing Eva's shame and 
 dawning terror as she feels herself undone. You are sing- 
 ing and badly, too a mere sentimental song, such as any 
 schoolgirl might stumble through. I am ashamed of you."
 
 The First Violin "7 
 
 "I I," stammered I, crimsoning, and ashamed for 
 myself too. 
 
 "You were thinking of something else," he said, his 
 brow clearing a little. " JVa / it comes so sometimes. 
 Something has happened to distract your attention. The 
 amiable Miss Hallam has been a little more amiable than 
 usual . ' ' 
 
 "No." 
 
 " Well, well. '5 ist mir egal. But now, as you have 
 wasted half an hour in vanity and vexation, will you be 
 good enough to let your thoughts return here to me and to 
 your duty ? or else I must go, and leave the lesson till 
 you are in the right voice again." 
 
 " I am all right try me," said I, my pride rising in arms 
 as I thought of Courvoisier's behavior a short time ago. 
 
 " Very well. Now. You are Eva, please remember, 
 the first woman, and you have gone wrong. Think of who 
 is questioning you, and " 
 
 " Oh yes, yes, I know. Please begin." 
 
 He began the accompaniment, and I sang for the fifth 
 time Eva's scattered notes of shame and excuse. 
 
 " Brava ! " said he when I had finished, and I was the 
 more startled as he had never before given me the faintest 
 sign of approval, but had found such constant fault with 
 me, that I usually had a fit of weeping after my lesson; 
 weeping with rage and disappointment at my own short- 
 comings. 
 
 " At last you know what it means," said he. " I always 
 told you your forte was dramatic singing."
 
 n8 The First Violin 
 
 " Dramatic ! but this is an oratorio." 
 
 " It may be called an oratorio, but it is a drama all the 
 same. What more dramatic, for instance, than what you 
 have just sung, and all that goes before ? Now suppose 
 we go on. I will take Adam." 
 
 Having given myself up to the music I sang my best 
 with earnestness. When we had finished von Francius 
 closed the book, looked at me, and said : 
 
 " Will you sing the Eva at the concert ? " 
 
 "/.?" 
 
 He bowed silently, and still kept his eyes fixed upon 
 my face, as if to say, " Refuse if you dare ! " 
 
 " I I'm afraid I should make such a mess of it," I 
 murmured at last. 
 
 " Why any more than to-day ? " 
 
 "Oh! but all the people!" said I, expostulating; 
 " it is so different." 
 
 He gave a little laugh of some amusement. 
 
 " How odd ! and yet how like you ! " said he. " Do 
 you suppose that the people who will be at the concert will 
 be half as much alive to your defects as I am ? If you can 
 sing before me, surely you can sing before so many rows 
 of " 
 
 " Cabbages ? I wish I could think they were." 
 
 " Nonsense ! What would be the use, where the pleas- 
 ure in singing to cabbages ? I mean simply inhabitants of 
 Elberthal. What can there be so formidable about them ? " 
 
 I murmured something. 
 
 "Well, will you do it?"
 
 The First Violin 119 
 
 " I am sure I should break down," said I, trying to find 
 some sign of relenting in his eyes. I discovered none. 
 He was not waiting to hear whether I said "yes" or 
 " no " ; he was waiting until I said " yes." 
 
 " If you did," he replied with a friendly smile, " I 
 should never teach you another note." 
 
 "Why not ?" 
 
 " Because you would be a coward, and not worth teach- 
 ing." 
 
 "But Miss Hallam?" 
 
 " Leave her to me." 
 
 I still hesitated. 
 
 " It is the premier pas qui codte" said he, still keep- 
 ing a friendly but determined gaze upon my undecided face. 
 
 " I want to accustom you to appearing in public," he 
 added. " By degrees, you know. There is nothing unu- 
 sual in Germany for one in your position to sing in such 
 a concert." 
 
 " I was not thinking of that; but that it is impossible 
 that I can sing well enough " 
 
 " You sing well enough for my purpose. You will be 
 amazed to find what an impetus to your studies, and what 
 a fillip to your industry will be given by once singing 
 before a number of other people. And then, on the 
 stage " 
 
 " But I am not going on the stage." 
 
 " I think you are. At least, if you do otherwise you 
 will do wrong. You have gifts which are in themselves a 
 responsibility."
 
 120 The First Violin 
 
 "I gifts what gifts?" I asked incredulously. "I 
 am as stupid as a donkey. My sisters always said so, and 
 sisters are sure to know; you may trust them for that." 
 
 " Then you will take the sopran solos ? " 
 
 " Do you think I can ? " 
 
 " I don't think you can; I say you must. I will call 
 upon Miss Hallam this afternoon. And the gage fee 
 what you call it ? is fifty thaler." 
 
 " What!" I cried, my whole attitude changing to one 
 of greedy expectation. " Shall I \yz paid ? " 
 
 " Why, natiirlich" said he, turning over sheets of music, 
 and averting his face to hide a smile. 
 
 "Oh! then I will sing." 
 
 " Good ! Only please to remember that it is my con- 
 cert, and I am responsible for the soloists; and pray 
 think rather more about the beautiful glittering serpent 
 than about the beautiful glittering thaler." 
 
 " I can think about both," was my unholy, time-serving 
 reply. 
 
 Fifty thaler ! Untold gold ! 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter 
 
 IT was the evening of the Hauptprobe, a fine moonlight 
 night in the middle of May a month since I had come 
 to Elberthal, and it seemed so much, so very much 
 more. 
 
 To my astonishment and far from agreeable astonish-
 
 The First Violin 121 
 
 ment Anna Sartorius informed me of her intention to 
 accompany me to the Probe. I put objections in her way 
 as well as I knew how, and said I did not think outsiders 
 were admitted. She laughed and said : 
 
 " That is too funny, that you should instruct me in such 
 a thing. Why, I have a ticket for all the Proben, as any 
 one can have who chooses to pay two thaler at the Casse. 
 I have a mind to hear this. They say the orchestra are 
 going to rebel against von Francius. And I am going to 
 the concert to-morrow, too. One cannot hear too much of 
 such fine music; and when one's friend sings, too " 
 
 " What friend of yours is going to sing ?" I inquired 
 coldly. 
 
 " Why, you, you allerliebster kleiner Engel, " said she, in 
 a tone of familiarity, to which I strongly objected. 
 
 I could say no more against her going, but certainly dis- 
 played no enthusiastic desire for her company. 
 
 The Probe, we found, was to be in the great Saal ; it 
 was half-lighted, and there were perhaps some fifty people, 
 holders of Probe-tickets, seated in the parquet. 
 
 " You are going to sing well to-night," said von Fran- 
 cius, as he handed me up the steps " for my sake and 
 your own, nicht wahr ? ' ' 
 
 " I will try," said I, looking round the great orchestra, 
 and seeing how full it was so many fresh faces, both in 
 chorus and orchestra. 
 
 And as I looked, I saw Courvoisier come in by the little 
 door at the top of the orchestra steps, and descend to his 
 place. His face was clouded very clouded ; I had never
 
 122 The First Violin 
 
 seen him look thus before. He had no smile for those 
 who greeted him. As he took his place beside Helfen, 
 and the latter asked him some question, he stared 
 absently at him, then answered with a look of absence and 
 weariness. 
 
 " Herr Courvoisier," said von Francius and I, being 
 near, heard the whole dialogue, " you always allow your- 
 self to be waited for." 
 
 Courvoisier glanced up. I, with a new, sudden interest, 
 watched the behavior of the two men. In the face of von 
 Francius I thought to discover dislike, contempt. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ; I was detained," answered Cour- 
 voisier composedly. 
 
 " It is unfortunate that you should be so often detained 
 at the time when your work should be beginning." 
 
 Unmoved and unchanging, Courvoisier heard and sub- 
 mitted to the words, and to the tone in which they were 
 spoken sarcastic, sneering, and unbelieving. 
 
 " Now we will begin," pursued von Francius, with a 
 disagreeable smile, as he rapped with his baton upon the 
 rail. I looked at Courvoisier looked at his friend, Fried- 
 helm Helfen. The former was sitting as quietly as pos- 
 sible, rather pale, and with the same clouded look, but not 
 deeper than before ; the latter was flushed, and eyed von 
 Francius with no friendly glance. 
 
 There seemed a kind of slumbering storm in the air. 
 There was none of the lively discussion usual at the Proben. 
 Courvoisier, first of the first violins, and from whom all the 
 others seemed to take their tone, sat silent, grave, and
 
 The First Violin i*3 
 
 still. Von Francius, though quiet, was biting. I felt 
 afraid of him. Something must have happened to put him 
 into that evil mood. 
 
 My part did not come until late in the second part of 
 the oratorio. I had almost forgotten that I was to sing at 
 all, and was watching von Francius, and listening to his 
 sharp speeches. I remembered what Anna Sartorius had 
 said in describing this Hauptprobe to me. It was all just 
 as she had said. He was severe ; his speeches roused the 
 phlegmatic blood, set the professional instrumentalists 
 laughing at their amateur co-operators, but provoked no 
 reply or resentment. It was extraordinary, the effect of 
 this man's will upon those he had to do with upon women 
 in particular. 
 
 There was one haughty-looking blonde a Swede tall, 
 majestic, with long yellow curls, and a face full of pride 
 and high temper, who gave herself decided airs, and 
 trusted to her beauty and insolence to carry off certain 
 radical defects of harshness of voice and want of ear. I 
 never forgot how she stared me down from head to foot on 
 the occasion of my first appearance alone, as if to say, 
 ' ' What do you want here ? ' ' 
 
 It was in vain that she looked haughty and handsome. 
 Addressing her as Fraulein Hiilstrom, von Francius gave 
 her a sharp lecture, imitating the effect of her voice in a 
 particularly soft passage with ludicrous accuracy. The 
 rest of the chorus was tittering audibly, the musicians, with 
 the exception of Courvoisier and his friend, nudging each 
 other and smiling. She bridled haughtily, flashed a furi-
 
 124 The First Violin 
 
 ous glance at her mentor, grew crimson, received a sarcas- 
 tic smile which baffled her, and subsided again. 
 
 So it was with them all. His blame was plentiful ; his 
 praise so rare as to be almost an unknown quantity. His 
 chorus and orchestra were famed for the minute perfection 
 and precision of their play and singing. Perhaps the per- 
 formance lacked something else passion, color. Von 
 Francius, at that time at least, was no genius, though his 
 talent, his power, and his method were undeniably great. 
 He was, however, not popular not the Harold, the 
 " beloved leader" of his people. 
 
 It was to-night that I was first shown how all was not 
 smooth for him ; that in this art union there were splits 
 " little rifts within the lute," which, should they extend, 
 might literally in the end " make the music mute." I 
 heard whispers around me. " Herr von Francius is 
 angry. " " Nicht wahr ?" " Herr Courvoisier looks angry 
 too." " Yes, he does." " There will be an open quarrel 
 there soon." "I think so." "They are both clever; 
 one should be less clever than the other." " They are so 
 opposed." " Yes. They say Courvoisier has a party of 
 his own, and that all the orchestra are on his side." 
 "S0-S" in accents of curiosity and astonishment. "fa 
 wol. ftt And that if von Francius does not mind, he will 
 see Herr Courvoisier in his place, etc., etc., without end. 
 All which excited me much, as the first glimpse into the 
 affairs of those about whom we think much and know little 
 (a form of life well known to women in general) always 
 does interest us.
 
 The First Violin 125 
 
 These things made me forget to be nervous or anxious. 
 I saw myself now as part of the whole, a unit in the sum of 
 a life which interested me. Von Francius gave me a sign 
 of approval when I had finished, but it was a mechanical 
 one. He was thinking of other things. 
 
 The Probe was over. I walked slowly down the room 
 looking for Anna Sartorius, more out of politeness than 
 because I wished for her company. I was relieved to find 
 that she had already gone, probably not finding all the 
 entertainment she expected, and I was able, with a good 
 conscience, to take my way home alone. 
 
 My way home ! not yet. I was to live through some- 
 thing before I could take my way home. 
 
 I went out of the large saal, through the long veranda, 
 into the street. A flood of moonlight silvered it. There 
 was a laughing, chattering crowd about me all the chorus ; 
 men and girls, going to their homes or their lodgings, in 
 ones or twos, or in large cheerful groups. Almost oppo- 
 site the Tonhalle was a tall house, one of a row, and of this 
 house the lowest floor was used as a shop for antiquities, 
 curiosities, and a thousand odds and ends useful or beauti- 
 ful to artists ; costumes, suits of armor, old china, anything 
 and everything. The window was yet lighted. As I 
 paused for a moment before taking my homeward way, I 
 saw two men cross the moonlit street and go in at the open 
 door of the shop. One was Courvoisier; in the other I 
 thought to recognize Friedhelm Helfen, but was not quite 
 sure about it. They did not go into the shop, as I saw by 
 the bright large lamp that burned within, but along the
 
 tz6 The First Violin 
 
 passage and up the stairs. I followed them, resolutely 
 beating down shyness, unwillingness, timidity. My reluc- 
 tant steps took me to the window of the antiquity shop, and 
 I stood looking in before I could make up my mind to enter. 
 Bits of rococo ware stood in the window, majolica jugs, 
 chased metal dishes and bowls, bits of renaissance-work, 
 tapestry, carpet, a helm with the visor up, gaping at me as 
 if tired of being there. I slowly drew my purse from my 
 pocket, put together three thalers and a ten-groschen piece, 
 and with lingering, unwilling steps entered the shop. A 
 pretty young woman in a quaint dress, which somehow 
 harmonized with the place, came forward. She looked at 
 me as if wondering what I could possibly want. My very 
 agitation gave calmness to my voice as I inquired : 
 
 " Does Herr Courvoisier, a Musiker, live here ? " 
 
 "Jo, wol ! " answered the young woman, with a look of 
 still greater surprise. " On the third Mage, straight up- 
 stairs. The name is on the door." 
 
 I turned away, and went slowly up the steep wooden 
 uncarpeted staircase. On the first landing a door opened 
 at the sound of my footsteps, and a head was popped out 
 a rough, fuzzy head, with a pale eager-looking face under 
 the bush of hair. 
 
 " Ugh ! " said the owner of this amiable visage, and shut 
 the door with a bang. I looked at the plate upon it; it 
 bore the legend, Hermann Duntze, Maler. To the second 
 Mage. Another door another plate : Bernhard Knoop, 
 Maler. The house seemed to be a resort of artists. There 
 was a lamp burning on each landing ; and now, at last, with
 
 The First Violin 127 
 
 breath and heart alike failing, I ascended the last flight of 
 stairs, and found myself upon the highest e'tage, before 
 another door, on which was roughly painted up Eugen 
 Courvoisier, I looked at it with my heart beating suffo- 
 catingly. Some one had scribbled in red chalk beneath 
 the Christian name, Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter. Had it 
 been done in jest or earnest ? I wondered, and then 
 knocked. Such a knock ! 
 
 "Herein!" 
 
 I opened the door, and stepped into a large, long, low 
 room. On the table, in the centre, burnt a lamp, and 
 sitting there, with the light falling upon his earnest young 
 face, was Helfen, the violinist, and near to him sat Cour- 
 voisier, with a child upon his knee, a little lad with im- 
 mense dark eyes, tumbled black hair, and flushed, just 
 awakened face. He was clad in his night-dress and a 
 little red dressing-gown, and looked like a spot of almost 
 feverish, quite tropic brightness, in contrast with the grave, 
 pale face which bent over him. Courvoisier held the two 
 delicate little hands in one of his own, and was looking 
 down with love unutterable upon the beautiful, dazzling 
 child-face. Despite the different complexion and a dif- 
 ferent style of feature too, there was so great a likeness in 
 the two faces, particularly in the broad, noble brow, as 
 to leave no doubt of the relationship. My musician and 
 the boy were father and son. 
 
 Courvoisier looked up as I came in. For one half 
 moment there leaped into his eyes a look of surprise and 
 of something more. If it had lasted a second longer I
 
 128 The First Violin 
 
 could have sworn it was welcome then it was gone, lie 
 rose, handed the child over to Helfen, saying, " One 
 moment, Friedel," then turned to me as to some stranger 
 who had come on an errand as yet unknown to him, and 
 did not speak. The little one, from Helfen's knee, stared 
 at me with large, solemn eyes, and Helfen himself looked 
 scarcely less impressed. 
 
 I have no doubt I looked frightened I felt so fright- 
 ened out of my senses. I came tremulously forward, and 
 offering my pieces of silver, said in the smallest voice 
 which I had ever used : 
 
 " I have come to pay my debt. I did not know where 
 you lived, or I should have done it long before." 
 
 He made no motion to take the money, but said I 
 almost started, so altered was the voice from that of my 
 frank companion at Koln, to an icy coldness of ceremony : 
 
 " Mein Frdulein, I do not understand." 
 
 " You you the things you paid for. Do you not 
 remember me ? ' ' 
 
 " Remember a lady who has intimated that she wishes 
 me to forget her ? No, I do not." 
 
 What a horribly complicated revenge ! thought I, as I 
 said, ever lower and lower, more and more shamefacedly, 
 while the young violinist sat with the child on his knee, 
 and his soft brown eyes staring at me in wonder : 
 
 " I think you must remember. You helped me at Koln, 
 and you paid for my ticket to Elberthal, and for something 
 that I had at the hotel. You told me that was what I owed 
 you."
 
 The First Violin i*9 
 
 I again tendered the money ; again he made no effort to 
 receive it, but said : * 
 
 " I am sorry that I do not understand to what you refer. 
 I only know it is impossible that I could ever have told 
 you you owed me three thaler, or three anything, or that 
 there could, under any circumstances, be any question of 
 money between you and me. Suppose we consider the 
 topic at an end." 
 
 Such a voice of ice, and such a manner, to chill the 
 boldest heart, I had never yet encountered. The cool, 
 unspeakable disdain cut me to the quick. 
 
 " You have no right to refuse the money," said I des- 
 perately. " You have no right to insult me by by 
 An appropriate peroration refused itself. 
 
 Again the sweet, proud, courteous smile; not only 
 courteous, but courtly ; again the icy little bow of the 
 head, which would have done credit to a prince in dis- 
 pleasure, and which yet had the deference due from a 
 gentleman to a lady. 
 
 " You will excuse the semblance of rudeness which may 
 appear if I say that if you unfortunately are not of a very 
 decided disposition, I am. It is impossible that I should 
 ever have the slightest intercourse with a lady who has 
 once unequivocally refused my acquaintance. The lady 
 may honor me by changing her mind ; I am sorry that I 
 cannot respond. I do not change mine." 
 
 " You must let us part on equal terms," I reiterated. 
 " It is unjust " 
 
 " Yourself closed all possibility of the faintest attempt 
 9
 
 i 36 The First Violin 
 
 at further acquaintance, mein Frdulein. The matter is at 
 an end." 
 
 " Herr Courvoisier, I " 
 
 "At an end," he repeated calmly, gently, looking at 
 me as he had often looked at me since the night of Lohen- 
 grin, with a glance that baffled and chilled me. 
 
 ". I wished to apologize 
 
 " For what ? " he inquired, with the faintest possible 
 look of indifferent surprise. 
 
 " For my rudeness my surprise I 
 
 " You refer to one} evening at the opera. You exercised 
 your privilege, as a lady, of closing an acquaintance which 
 you did not wish to renew. I now exercise mine, as a 
 gentleman, of saying that I choose to abide by that deci- 
 sion, now, and always." 
 
 I was surprised. Despite my own apologetic frame of 
 mind, I was surprised at his hardness ; at the narrowness 
 and ungenerosity which could so determinedly shut the 
 door in the face of an humble penitent like me. He must 
 see how I had repented the stupid slip I had made; he 
 must see how I desired to atone for it. It was not a slip of 
 the kind one would name irreparable, and yet he behaved 
 to me as if I had committed a crime ; froze me with looks 
 and words. Was he so self-conscious and so vain that he 
 could not get over that small slight to his self-consequence, 
 committed in haste and confusion by an ignorant girl ? 
 Even then, even in that moment I asked myself these ques- 
 tions, my astonishment being almost as great as my pain, 
 for it was the very reverse, the very opposite of what I had
 
 The First Violin 131 
 
 pictured to myself. Once let me see him and speak to 
 him, I had said to myself, and it would be all right ; every 
 lineament of his face, every tone of his voice, bespoke a 
 frank, generous nature one that could forgive. Alas ! 
 and alas ! this was the truth ! 
 
 He had come to the door; he stood by it now, hold- 
 ing it open, looking at me so courteously, so deferentially, 
 with a manner of one who had been a gentleman and lived 
 with gentlemen all his life, but in a way which at the 
 same time ordered me out as plainly as possible. 
 
 I went to the door. I could no longer stand under that 
 chilling glance, nor endure the cool, polished contempt of 
 the manner. I behaved by no means heroically; neither 
 flung my head back, nor muttered any defiance, nor in any way 
 proved myself a person of spirit. All I could do was to look 
 appeal ingly into his face ; to search the bright, steady eyes, 
 without rinding in them any hint of softening or relenting. 
 
 " Will you not take it, please? " I asked in a quivering 
 voice and with trembling lips. 
 
 "Impossible, mein Frditkin," with the same chilly 
 little bow as before. 
 
 Struggling to repress my tears, I said no more, but passed 
 out, cut to the heart. The door was closed gently behind 
 me. I felt as if it had closed upon a bright belief of my 
 youth. I leaned for a moment against the passage wall, 
 and pressed my hand against my eyes. Frm within came 
 the sound of a child's voice, " Papa," and the soft, deep 
 murmur of Eugen's "answer; then I went downstairs and 
 into the open street.
 
 132 The First Violin 
 
 That hated, hateful three thaler ten groschen were still 
 clasped in my hand. What was I to do with it ? Throw it 
 into the Rhine, and wash it away for ever ? Give it to some 
 oneinneed? Fling it into the gutter? Send it him by post? 
 I dismissed that idea for what it was worth. No; I would 
 obey his prohibition. I would keep it those very coins, 
 and when I felt inclined to be proud and conceited about 
 anything on my own account, or disposed to put down super- 
 human charms to the account of others, I would go and 
 look at them, and they would preach me eloquent sermons. 
 
 As I went into the house, up the stairs to my room, the 
 front door opened again, and Anna Sartorius overtook me. 
 
 "I thought you had left the Probe ?" said I, staring 
 at her. 
 
 " So I had, Herzchen" said she, with her usual ambigu- 
 ous,- mocking laugh; "but I was not compelled to come 
 home, like a good little girl, the moment I came out of 
 the Tonhalle. I have been visiting a friend. But where 
 have you been, for the Probe must have been over for some 
 time? We heard the people go past; indeed, some of 
 them were staying in the house where I was. Did you take 
 a walk in the moonlight ? " 
 
 "Good-night," said I, too weary and too indifferent 
 even to answer her. 
 
 "It must have been a tiring walk; you seem weary, 
 quite ermudet" fcaid she mockingly, and I made no answer. 
 
 " A Hauptprobe is a dismal thing, after all," she called 
 out to me from the top of the stairs. 
 
 From my inmost heart I agreed with her.
 
 , , 
 
 . 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 KAFFEEKLATSCH 
 
 " Phillis. I want none o' thy friendship I 
 Lesbia. Then take my enmity ! " 
 
 "WHEN a number of ladies meet together to discuss 
 matters of importance, we call it ' Kaffeeklatsch,' " Cour- 
 voisier had said to me on that never- forgotten afternoon of 
 my adventure at Koln. 
 
 It was my first Kaffeeklatsch which, in a measure, 
 decided my destiny. Hitherto, that is, up to the end of 
 June, I had not been at any entertainment of this kind. 
 At last there came an invitation to Frau Steinmann and to 
 Anna Sartorius, to assist at a " Coffee " of unusual magni- 
 tude, and Frau Steinmann suggested that I should go with 
 them and see what it was like. Nothing loath, I con- 
 sented.
 
 134 The First Violin 
 
 " Bring some work," said Anna Sartorius to me, "or 
 you will find it langweilig slow, I mean." 
 
 " Shall we not have some music ? " 
 
 " Music, yes, the sweetest of all that of our own 
 tongues. You shall hear every one's candid opinion of 
 every one else present company always excepted, and you 
 will see what the state of Elberthal society really is pres- 
 ent company still excepted. By a very strange chance the 
 ladies who meet at a Klatsch are always good, pious, virtu- 
 ous, and, above all, charitable. It is wonderful how well 
 we manage to keep the black sheep out, and have nothing 
 but lambs immaculate." 
 
 "Oh, don't!" 
 
 " Oh, bah ! I know the Elberthal Klatscherei. It has 
 picked me to pieces many a time. After you have partaken 
 to-day of its coffee and its cakes, it will pickjw/ to pieces." 
 
 "But," said I, arranging the ruffles of my very best 
 frock, which I had been told it was de riguenr to wear, " I 
 thought women never gossiped so much amongst men." 
 
 Fraulein Sartorius laughed loud and long. 
 
 " The men ! Du meine Gtite ! Men at a Kaffee- 
 klatsch ! Show me the one that a man dare even look 
 into, and I'll crown you and him too with laurel, and 
 bay, and the wild parsley. A man at a Kaffee mag Gott 
 ihn davor bewahren ! ' ' 
 
 " Oh ! " said I, half disappointed, and with a very poor, 
 mean sense of dissatisfaction at having put on my pretty 
 new dress for the first time only for the edification of a 
 number of virulent gossips.
 
 The First Violin 135 
 
 " Men ! " she reiterated with a harsh laugh as we walked 
 towards the Goldsteinstrasse, our destination. " Men 
 no. We despise their company, you see. We only talk 
 about them directly, or indirectly, from the moment of 
 meeting to that of parting." 
 
 " I'm sorry there are no gentlemen," said I, and I was. 
 I felt I looked well. 
 
 Arrived at the scene of the Kaffee, we were conducted to 
 a bedroom where we laid aside our hats and mantles. I 
 was standing before the glass, drawing a comb through my 
 upturned hair, and contemplating with irrepressible satis- 
 faction the delicate lavender hue of my dress, when I sud- 
 denly saw reflected behind me, the dark, harshly-cut face 
 of Anna Sartorius. She started slightly; then said, with a 
 laugh which had in it something a little forced : 
 
 " We are a contrast, aren't we ? Beauty and the beast, 
 one might almost say. Na ! 's schad 1 1 nix." 
 
 I turned away in a little offended pride. Her familiar- 
 ity annoyed me. What if she were a thousand times 
 cleverer, wittier, better read than I ? I did not like her. 
 A shade crossed her face. 
 
 " Is it that you are thoroughly unamiable ? " said she, 
 in a voice which had reproach in it, " or are all English 
 girls so touchy that they receive a compliment upon their 
 good looks as if it were an offence ? " 
 
 " I wish you would not talk of my ' good looks ' as if I were 
 a dog or a horse ! " said I angrily. " I hate to be flattered. 
 I am no beauty, and do not wish to be treated as if I were." 
 
 " Do you always hate it ? " said she from the window,
 
 136 The First Violin 
 
 whither she had turned. " Ach ! there goes Herr Cour- 
 voisier ! " 
 
 The name startled me like a sudden report. I made an 
 eager step forward before I had time to recollect myself 
 then stopped. 
 
 " He is not out of sight yet," said she, with a curious 
 look, " if you wish to see him." 
 
 I sat down and made no answer. What prompted her to 
 talk in such a manner ? Was it a mere coincidence ? 
 
 " He is a handsome fellow, nicht wahr ?" she said, still 
 watching me, while I thought Frau Steinmann never would 
 manage to arrange her cap in the style that pleased her. 
 " But a Taugenichts all the same," pursued Anna, as I did 
 not speak. " Don't you think so ? " she added. 
 
 " A Taugenichts I don't know what that is." 
 
 " What you call a good-for-nothing." 
 
 "Oh." 
 
 " Nicht wahr ? ' ' she persisted. 
 
 " I know nothing about it." 
 
 " I do. I will tell you all about him sometime." 
 
 " I don't wish to know anything about him." 
 
 " So ! " said she, with a laugh. 
 
 Without further word or look I followed Frau Steinmann 
 downstairs. 
 
 The lady of the house was seated in the midst of a large 
 concourse of old and young ladies, holding her own with a 
 well-seasoned hardihood in the midst of the awful Babel of 
 tongues. What a noise ! It smote upon and stunned my 
 confounded ear. Our hostess advanced and led me with a
 
 The First Violin i37 
 
 wave of the hand into the centre of the room, when she 
 introduced me to about a dozen ladies; and every one in 
 the room stopped talking and working, and stared at me 
 intently and unwinkingly until my name had been pro- 
 nounced, after which some continued still to stare at me, 
 and others audibly repeated or attempted to repeat my 
 name, commenting openly upon it. Meanwhile I was con- 
 ducted to a sofa at the end of the room, and requested in 
 a set phrase, " Bitte, Frdulcin, nehmen Sie Plate, auf detn 
 Sofa, 1 ' with which long custom has since made me familiar, 
 to take my seat upon it. I humbly tried to decline the 
 honor, but Anna Sartorius behind me whispered : 
 
 " Sit down directly, unless you want to be thought an 
 outer barbarian. The place has been kept for you." 
 
 Deeply impressed, and very uncomfortable, I sat down. 
 First one and then another came and spoke and talked to 
 me. Their questions and remarks were very much in this 
 style : 
 
 " Do you like Elberthal ? What is your Christian 
 name ? How old are you ? Have you been or are you 
 engaged to be married ? They break off engagements in 
 England for a mere trifle, don't they ? Schreeklich ! Did 
 you get your dress in Elberthal ? What did it cost the 
 elle ? Young English ladies wear silk much more than 
 young German ladies. You never go to the theatre on 
 Sunday in England you are s\\ pietistisch. How beauti- 
 fully you speak our language ! Really no foreign ac- 
 cent ! " (This repeatedly and unblushingly, in spite of 
 my most flagrant mistakes, and in the face of .my most
 
 138 The First Violin 
 
 feeble, halting, and stammering efforts to make myself 
 understood.) " Do you learn music ? singing ? From 
 whom ? Herrn von Francius ? Ach, so ! " (Pause, while 
 they all look impressively at me. The very name of von 
 Francius calls up emotions of no common order.) " I 
 believe I have seen you at the Proben to the Paradise Lost 
 Perhaps you are the lady who is to take the solos ? Yes ! 
 Du lieber Him me I ! What do you think of Herr von 
 Francius? Is he not nice?" (Nett, though, signifies 
 something feminine and finikin.) " No ? How odd ! 
 There is no accounting for the tastes of Englishwomen. 
 Do you know many people in Elberthal ? No ? Schade ! 
 No officers ? not Hauptmann Sachse ? " (with voice grow- 
 ing gradually shriller), " nor Lieutenant Pieper ? Not 
 know Lieutenant Pieper ! Urn Gotteswillen ! What do 
 you mean ? He is so handsome ! such eyes ! such a mous- 
 tache ! Herrgott ! And you do not know him ? I will 
 tell you something. When he went off to the autumn 
 manoeuvres at Frankfurt (I have it on good authority), 
 twenty young ladies went to see him off." 
 
 " Disgusting!" I exclaimed, unable to control my feel- 
 ings any longer. I saw Anna Sartorius malignantly smil- 
 ing as she rocked herself in an American rocking-chair. 
 
 " How ! disgusting ? You are joking. He had dozens 
 of bouquets. All the girls are in love with him. They 
 compelled the photographer to sell them his photograph, 
 and they all believe he is in love with them. I believe 
 Luise Breidenstein will die if he doesn't propose to her." 
 
 " They ought to be ashamed of themselves."
 
 The First Violin 139 
 
 " But he is so handsome, so delightful. He dances 
 divinely, and knows such good riddles, and acts ach, 
 himmlisch ! ' ' 
 
 " But how absurd to make such a fuss about him ! " I 
 cried, hot and indignant. " The idea of going on so 
 about a man .' ' ' 
 
 A chorus, a shriek, a Babel of expostulations. 
 
 " Hor 'ma// Thckla ! Fraulein does not know Lieuten- 
 ant Pieper, and does not think it right to sehivarm for him." 
 
 " The darling ! No one can help it who knows him ! " 
 said another. ; 
 
 " Let her wait till she does know him," said Thekla, a 
 sentimental young woman, pretty in a certain sentimental 
 way, and graceful too also sentimentally with the senti- 
 ment that lingers about young ladies' albums with leaves 
 of smooth, various-hued note-paper, and about the sonnets 
 which nestle within the same. There was a sudden 
 shriek : 
 
 " There he goes ! There is the Herr Lieutenant riding 
 by. Kommen Sie 'mal her, Fraulein/ See him! Judge 
 for yourself ! ' ' 
 
 A strange hand dragged me, whether I would or no, to 
 the window, and pointed out to me the Herr Lieutenant 
 riding by. An adorable creature in a Hussar uniform ; he 
 had pink cheeks and a straight nose, and the loveliest 
 little model of a moustache ever seen; tightly curling 
 black hair, and the. dearest little feet and hands imagin- 
 able. . 
 
 "Oh, the dear, handsome, delightful fellow!" cried
 
 MO The First Violin 
 
 one enthusiastic young creature, who had scrambled upon a 
 chair in the background and was gazing after him, while 
 another, behind me, murmured in tones of emotion : 
 
 " Look how he salutes divine, isn't it ? " 
 
 I turned away, smiling an irrepressible smile. My 
 musician, with his ample traits and clear, bold eyes, would 
 have looked a wild, rough, untamable creature by the side 
 of that wax-doll beauty that pretty little being who had 
 just ridden by. I thought I saw them side by side Herr 
 Lieutenant Pieper and Eugen Courvoisier. The latter 
 would have been as much more imposing than the former 
 as an oak is more imposing than a spruce fir as Gluck 
 than Lortzing. And could these enthusiastic young ladies 
 have viewed the two they would have been true to their 
 lieutenant ; so much was certain. They would have said 
 that the other was a wild man, who did not cut his hair 
 often enough, who had large hands, whose collar was per- 
 haps chosen more with a view to ease and the free move- 
 ment of the throat than to the smallest number of inches 
 within which it was possible to confine that throat; who 
 did not wear polished kid boots, and was not seen off 
 from the station by twenty devoted admirers of the opposite 
 sex, was not deluged with bouquets. With a feeling as of 
 singing at my heart I went back to my place, smiling 
 still. 
 
 " See ! she is quite charmed with the Herr Lieutenant ! 
 Is he not delightful ?" 
 
 " Oh, very; so is a Dresden-china shepherd, but if you 
 let him fall he breaks."
 
 The First Violin 141 
 
 " Wie komisch ! how odd ! " was the universal comment 
 upon my eccentricity. The conversation then wandered 
 off to other military stars, all of whom were reizend, hubsch 
 or nctt. So it went on until I got heartily tired of it, and 
 then the ladies discussed their female neighbors, but I 
 leave that branch of the subject to the intelligent reader. 
 It was the old tune with the old variations, which were 
 rattled over in the accustomed manner. I listened, half 
 curious, half appalled, and thought of various speeches 
 made by Anna Sartorius. Whether she were amiable or 
 not, she had certainly a keen insight into the hearts and 
 motives of her fellow-creatures. Perhaps the gift had 
 soured her. 
 
 Anna and I walked home alone. Frau Steinmann was, 
 with other elderly ladies of the company, to spend the 
 evening there. As we walked down the Konigsallee how 
 well, to this day, do I remember it ! the chestnuts were 
 beginning to fade, the road was dusty, the sun setting glori- 
 ously, the people thronging in crowds she said suddenly, 
 quietly, and in a tone of the utmost composure : 
 
 " So you don't admire Lieutenant Pieper so much as 
 Herrn Courvoisier ? " 
 
 " What do you mean ?" I cried, astonished, alarmed, 
 and wondering what unlucky chance led her to talk to me 
 of Eugen. 
 
 " I mean what I say; and for my part I agree with you 
 partly. Courvoisier, bad though he maybe, is a man ; the 
 other a mixture of doll and puppy." 
 
 She spoke in a friendly tone; discursive, as if inviting
 
 142 The First Violin 
 
 confidence and comment on my part. I was not inclined 
 to give either. I shrank with morbid nervousness from 
 owning, to any knowledge of Eugen. My pride, nay, my 
 very self-esteem, bled whenever I thought of him or heard 
 him mentioned. Above all, I shrank from the idea of dis- 
 cussing him, or anything pertaining to him, with Anna 
 Sartorius. 
 
 " It will be time for you to agree with me when I give 
 you anything to agree about," said I coldly. " I know noth- 
 ing of either of the gentlemen, and wish to know nothing." 
 
 There was a pause. Looking up, I found Anna's eyes 
 fixed upon my face, amazed, reproachful. I felt myself 
 blushing fierily. My tongue had led me astray; I had 
 lied to her : I knew it. 
 
 " Do not say you know nothing of either of the gentle- 
 men. Herr Courvoisier was your first acquaintance in 
 Elberthal." 
 
 " What ? " I cried, with a great leap of the heart, for I 
 felt as if a veil had suddenly been rent away from before 
 my eyes, and I shown a precipice. 
 
 " I saw you arrive with Herr Courvoisier," said Anna 
 calmly; " at least, I saw you come from the platform with 
 him, and he put you into a droschke. And I saw you 
 cut him at the opera ; and I saw you go into his house 
 after the Generalprobe . Will you tell me again that you 
 know nothing of him ? I should have thought you too 
 proud to tell lies." 
 
 " I wish you would mind your own business," said I, 
 heartily wishing that Anna Sartorius were at the antipodes.
 
 The First Violin 143 
 
 " Listen ! " said she very earnestly, and, I remember it 
 now, though I did not heed it then, with wistful kindness. 
 " I do not bear malice you are so young and inexperienced. 
 I wish you were more friendly, but I care for you too much 
 to be rebuffed by a trifle. I will tell you about Courvoisier." 
 
 "Thank you," said I hastily, " I beg you will do no 
 such thing." 
 
 " I know his story. I can tell you the truth about him." 
 
 " I decline to discuss the subject," said I, thinking of 
 Eugen, and passionately refusing the idea of discussing 
 him, gossiping about him, with any one. 
 
 Anna looked surprised ; then a look of anger crossed her 
 face. 
 
 " You cannot be in earnest," said she. 
 
 " I assure you I am. I wish you would leave me 
 alone," I said, exasperated beyond endurance. 
 
 " You don't wish to know what I can tell you about 
 him ?" 
 
 " No, I don't. What is more, if you begin talking to me 
 about him, I will put my fingers in my ears, and leave you." 
 
 " Then you may learn it for yourself," said she sud- 
 denly, in a voice little more than a whisper. " You shall 
 rue your treatment of me. And when you know the lesson 
 by heart, then you will be sorry." 
 
 " You are officious and impertinent," said I, white with 
 ire. " I don't wish for your society, and will say good- 
 evening to you." 
 
 With that I turned down a side street leading into the 
 Alleestrasse, and left her.
 
 144 The First Violin 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 "So! 
 
 Another chapter read ; with doubtful hand 
 I turn the page ; with doubtful eye I scan 
 The heading of the next." 
 
 FROM that evening Anna let me alone, as I thought, 
 and I was glad of it ; nor did I attempt any reconciliation, 
 for the very good reason that I wished for none. 
 
 Soon after our dispute I found upon my plate at break- 
 fast, one morning, a letter directed in a bold, though 
 unformed hand, which I recognized as Stella's : 
 
 " DEAR MAY, 
 
 " I dare say Adelaide will be writing to you, but I will 
 take time by the forelock, so to speak, and give you my 
 views on the subject first. 
 
 " There is news, strange to say there is some news to 
 tell you. I shall give it without making any remarks. I 
 shall not say whether I think it good, bad, or indifferent. 
 Adelaide is engaged to Sir Peter Le Marchant. It was 
 only made known two days ago. Adelaide thinks he is in 
 love with her. What a strange mistake for her to make ! 
 She thinks she can do anything with him. Also a mon- 
 strous misapprehension on her part. Seriously, May, I 
 am rather uncomfortable about it, or should be, if it were 
 any one else but Adelaide. But she knows so remarkably 
 well what she is about, that perhaps, after all, my fears 
 are needless. And yet but it is no use speculating about 
 it I said I wouldn't. 
 
 " She is a queer girl. I don't know how she can marry 
 Sir Peter, I must say. I suppose he is awfully rich, and 
 Adelaide has always said that poverty was the most horrible
 
 The First Violin 145 
 
 thing in the world. I don't know, I'm sure. I should be 
 inclined to say that Sir Peter was the most horrible thing 
 in the world. Write soon, and tell me what you think 
 about it. 
 
 " Thine, speculatively, 
 
 " STELLA WEDDERBURN." 
 
 I did not feel surprise at this letter. Foreboding, grief, 
 shame, I did experience at finding that Adelaide was 
 bent upon her own misery. But then, I reflected, she can- 
 not be very sensible to misery, or she would not be able to 
 go through with such a purpose. I went upstairs to com- 
 municate this news to Miss Hallam. Soon the rapid 
 movement of events in my own affairs completely drove 
 thoughts of Adelaide for a time, at least, out of my mind. 
 
 Miss Hallam received the information quietly and with 
 a certain contemptuous indifference. I knew she did not 
 like Adelaide, and I spoke of her as seldom as possible. 
 
 I took up some work, glancing at the clock, for I 
 expected von Francius soon, to give me my lesson, and 
 Miss Hallam sat still. I had offered to read to her, and 
 she had declined. I glanced at her now and then. I had 
 grown accustomed to that sarcastic, wrinkled, bitter face, 
 and did not dislike it. Indeed, Miss Hallam had given 
 me abundant proofs that, eccentric though she might be, 
 pessimist in theory, merciless upon human nature, which 
 she spoke of in a manner which sometimes absolutely 
 appalled me, yet in- fact, in deed, she was a warm-hearted, 
 generous woman. She had dealt bountifully by me, and I 
 knew she loved me, though she never said so. 
 
 10
 
 146 The First Violin 
 
 " May," she presently remarked, " yesterday, when you 
 were out, I saw Dr. Mittendorf." 
 
 "Did you, Miss Hallam ?" 
 
 " Yes. He says it is useless my remaining here any 
 longer. I shall never see, and -an operation might cost 
 me my life." 
 
 Half stunned, and not yet quite taking in the whole 
 case, I held my work suspended, and looked at her. She 
 went on : 
 
 " I knew it would be so when I came. I don't intend 
 to try any more experiments. I shall go home next week." 
 
 Now I grasped the truth. 
 
 " Go home, Miss Hallam ! " I repeated faintly. 
 
 "Yes; of course. There is no reason why I should 
 stay, is there ? ' ' 
 
 " N no, I suppose not," I admitted; and contrived to 
 stammer out, " and I am very sorry that Dr. Mittendorf 
 thinks you will not be better." 
 
 Then I left the room quickly I could not stay, I was 
 overwhelmed. It was scarcely ten minutes since I had 
 come upstairs to her. I could have thought it was a week. 
 
 Outside the room, I stood on the landing with my hand 
 pressed to my forehead, for I felt somewhat bewildered. 
 Stella's letter was still in my hand. As I stood there 
 Anna Sartorius came past. 
 
 " Guten Tag, Frdulein," said she, with a mocking kind 
 of good-nature, when she had observed me for a few min- 
 utes. " What is the matter ? Are you ill ? Have you 
 had bad news ? ' '
 
 The First Violin 14? 
 
 " Good-morning, Fraulein," I answered quietly enough, 
 dropping my hand from my brow. 
 
 I went to my room. A maid was there, and the furni- 
 ture might have stood as a type of chaos. I turned away, 
 and went to the empty room in which my piano stood, and 
 where I had my music lessons. I sat down upon a stool in 
 the middle of the room, folded my hands in my lap, and 
 endeavored to realize what had happened what was going 
 to happen. There rang in my head nothing but the words, 
 " I am going home next week." 
 
 Home again ! What a blank yawned before me at the 
 idea ! Leave Elberthal leave this new life which had just 
 begun to grow real to me ! Leave it go away; be whirled 
 rapidly away back to Skernford away from this vivid life, 
 away from Eugen. I drew a long breath, as the wretched 
 ignominious idea intruded itself, and I knew now what it 
 was that gave terror to the prospect before me. My heart 
 quailed and fainted at the bare idea of such a thing. 
 Hobson's choice alone was open to me. There was no 
 alternative I must go. I sat still, and felt myself grow- 
 ing gradually stiller and graver and colder as I looked 
 mentally to every side of my horizon, and found it so 
 bounded myself shut in so fast. 
 
 There was nothing for it but to return home, and spend 
 the rest of my life at Skernford. I was in a mood in which 
 I could smile. I smiled at the idea of myself growing 
 older and older, and this six weeks that I had spent fading 
 back and back into the distance, and the people into whose 
 lives I had had a cursory glance going on their way, and
 
 148 The First Violin 
 
 soon forgetting my existence. Truly, Anna ! if you were 
 anxious for me to be miserable, this moment, could you 
 know it, should be sweet to you ! 
 
 My hands clasped themselves more closely upon my lap, 
 and I sat staring at nothing, vaguely, until a shadow before 
 me caused me to look up. Without my knowing it, von 
 Francius had come in, and was standing by, looking at me. 
 
 " Good-morning ! " said I, with a vast effort, partially 
 collecting my scattered thoughts. 
 
 " Are you ready for your lesson, mein Frdulein ? " 
 
 " N no. I think, Herr Direktor, I will not take any 
 lesson to-day, if you will excuse it." 
 
 " But why ? Are you ill?" 
 
 " No," said I. "At least perhaps I want to accustom 
 myself to do without music-lessons." 
 
 "So?" 
 
 "Yes, and without many other pleasant things," said 
 I, dryly and decidedly. 
 
 " I do not understand," said he, putting his hat down, 
 and leaning one elbow upon the piano, whilst his deep 
 eyes fixed themselves upon my face, and, as usual, began 
 to compel my secrets from me. 
 
 " I am going home," said I. 
 
 A quick look of feeling whether astonishment, regret, 
 or dismay, I should not like to have said flashed across 
 his face. 
 
 " Have you had bad news ? " 
 
 " Yes, very. Miss. Hal lam returns to England next 
 week."
 
 The First Violin 149 
 
 " But why do you go ? Why not remain here ? " 
 
 " Gladly, if I had any money," I said, with a dry smile. 
 " But I have none, and cannot get any." 
 
 " You will return to England now? Do you know what 
 you are giving up ? " 
 
 " Obligation has no choice," said I gracefully. " I 
 would give anything if I could stay here, and not go home 
 again." And with that I burst into tears. I covered my 
 face with my hands, and all the pent-up grief and pain of 
 the coming parting streamed from my eyes. I wept uncon- 
 trollably. 
 
 He did not interrupt my tears for some time. When he 
 did speak, it was in a very gentle voice. 
 
 "Miss Wedderburn, will you try to compose yourself, 
 and listen to something I have to say ? " 
 
 I looked up. I saw his eyes fixed seriously and kindly 
 upon me, with an expression quite apart from their usual 
 indifferent coolness with the look of one friend to 
 another with such a look as I had seen and have since 
 seen exchanged between Courvoisier and his friend Helfen. 
 
 " See," said he, " I take an interest in you, Fraulein 
 May. Why should I hesitate to say so ? You are young 
 you do not know the extent of your own strength, or of your 
 own weakness. I do. I will not flatter it is not my way 
 as I think you know." 
 
 I smiled. I remembered the plentiful* blame and the 
 scant praise which it had often fallen to my lot to receive 
 from him. 
 
 " I am a strict, sarcastic, disagreeable old pedagogue,
 
 15 The First Violin 
 
 as you and so many of my other fair pupils consider," he 
 went on, and I looked up in amaze. I knew that so many 
 of his " fair pupils " considered him exactly the reverse. 
 
 " It is my business to know whether a voice is good for 
 anything or not. Now yours, with training, will be good 
 for a great deal. Have you the means, or the chance, or 
 the possibility of getting that training in England ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I should like to help you, partly from the regard I 
 have for you, partly for my own sake, because I think you 
 would do me credit." 
 
 He paused. I was looking at him with all my senses 
 concentrated upon what he had said. He had been talk- 
 ing round the subject until he saw that he had fairly fixed 
 my attention ; then he said, sharply and rapidly : 
 
 " Fraulein, it lies with you to choose. Will you go 
 home and stagnate there, or will you remain here, fight 
 down your difficulties, and become a worthy artiste ? " 
 
 " Can there be any question as to which I should like to 
 do ? " said I, distracted at the idea of having to give up 
 the prospect he held out. " But it is impossible. Miss 
 Hallam alone can decide." 
 
 " But if Miss Hallam consented, you would remain ?" 
 
 " Oh ! Herrvon Francius ! You should soon see whether 
 I would remain ! " 
 
 " Also ! Miss'Hallam shall consent. Now to our sing- 
 ing! " 
 
 I stood up. A singular apathy had come over me ; I 
 felt no longer my old self. I had a kind of confidence in
 
 The First Violin igi 
 
 von Francius, and yet Despite my recent trouble, I 
 
 felt now a lightness and freedom, and a perfect ability to 
 cast aside all anxieties, and turn to the business of the 
 moment my singing. I had never sung better. Von 
 Francius condescended to say that I had done well. Then 
 he rose. 
 
 " Now I am going to have a private interview with Miss 
 Hallam," said he, smiling. " I am always having private 
 interviews with her, nicht wahr ? Nay, Fraulein May, do 
 not let your eyes fill with tears. Have confidence in your- 
 self and your destiny, as I have." 
 
 With that he was gone, leaving me to practise. How 
 very kind von Francius was to me, I thought not in the 
 least the kind of man people called him, I had great con- 
 fidence in him in his will. I almost believed that he 
 would know the right thing to say to Miss Hallam to get 
 her to let me stay; but then, suppose she were willing, I 
 had no possible means of support. Tired of conjecturing 
 upon a subject upon which I was so utterly in the dark, I 
 soon ceased that foolish pursuit. An hour had passed, 
 when I heard von Francius' step, which I knew quite well, 
 come down the stairs. My heart beat, but I could not 
 move. 
 
 Would he pass, or would he come and speak to me ? 
 He paused. His hand was on the lock. That was he, 
 standing before me, with a slight smile. He did not look 
 like a man defeated but then, could\\z look like a man 
 defeated ? My idea of him was that he held his own way 
 calmly, and that circumstances respectfully bowed to him.
 
 152 The First Violin 
 
 " The day is gained," said he, and paused ; but before I 
 could speak he went on : 
 
 " Go to Miss Hallam; be kind to her. It is hard for 
 her to part from you, and she has behaved like a Spartan. 
 I felt quite sorry to have to give her so much pain." 
 
 Much wondering what could have passed between them, 
 I left von Francius silently, and sought Miss Hallam. 
 
 "Are you there, May?" said she. "What have you 
 been doing all morning ? " 
 
 " Practising and having my lesson." 
 
 " Practising and having your lesson exactly what I 
 have been doing. Practising giving up my own wishes, 
 and taking a lesson in the art of persuasion, by being my- 
 self persuaded. Your singing-master is a wonderful man. 
 He has made me act against my principles." 
 
 ' 'Miss Hallam " 
 
 " You were in great trouble this morning when you 
 heard you were to. leave Elberthal. I knew it instantly. 
 However, you shall not go unless you choose. You shall 
 stay." 
 
 Wondering, I held my tongue. 
 
 " Herr von Francius has showed me my duty." 
 
 " Miss Hallam," said I suddenly, " I will do whatever 
 you wish. After your kindness to me, you have the right 
 to dispose of my doings. I shall be glad to do as you 
 wish." 
 
 " Well," said she composedly, " I wish you to write a 
 letter to your parents, which I will dictate ; of course they 
 must be consulted. Then, if they consent, I intend to
 
 The First Violin 153 
 
 provide you with the means of carrying on your studies in 
 Elberthal under Herr von Francius." 
 
 I almost gasped. Miss Hallam, who had been a byword 
 in Skernford, and in our own family, for eccentricity and 
 stinginess, was indeed heaping coals of fire upon my head. 
 I tried, weakly, and ineffectually, to express my gratitude 
 to her, and at last said : 
 
 " You may trust me never to abuse your kindness, Miss 
 Hallam." 
 
 " I have trusted you ever since you refused Sir Peter Le 
 Marchant, and were ready to leave your home, to get rid of 
 him," said she, with grim humor. 
 
 She then told me that she had settled everything with von 
 Francius, even that I was to remove to different lodgings, 
 more suited for a solitary student than Frau Steinmann's 
 busy house. 
 
 "And," she added, "I shall ask Dr. Mittendorf to 
 have an eye to you now and then, and to write to me of 
 how you go on." 
 
 I could not find many words in which to thank her. The 
 feeling that I was not going, did not need to leave at all, 
 filled my heart with a happiness as deep as it was unfounded 
 and unreasonable. 
 
 At my next lesson von Francius spoke to me of the future. 
 
 " I want you to be a real student no' play one," said 
 he, " or you will never succeed. And for that reason I 
 told Miss Hallam that you had better leave this house. 
 There are too many distractions. I am going to put you in 
 a very different place."
 
 i54 The First Violin 
 
 " Where ? In which part of the town ? " 
 
 " Wehrhahn, 39, is the address," said he. 
 
 I was not quite sure where that was, but did not ask 
 further, for I was occupied in helping Miss Hallam, and 
 wished to be with her as much as I could before she left. 
 
 The day of parting came, as come it must. Miss Hal- 
 lam was gone. I had cried, and she had maintained the 
 grim silence which was her only way of expressing 
 emotion. 
 
 She, was going back home to Skernford, to blindness, 
 now known to be inevitable, to her saddened, joyless life. 
 I was going to remain in Elberthal for what ? When I 
 look back I ask myself was I not as blind as she, in 
 truth ? 
 
 In the afternoon of the day of Miss Hallam's depar- 
 ture, I left Frau Steinmann's house. Clara promised to 
 come and see me sometimes. Frau Steinmann kissed me, 
 and called me liebes Kind. I got into the cab and directed 
 the driver to go to Wehrhahn, 39. He drove me along one 
 or two streets into the one known as the Schadowstrasse, a 
 long wide street, in which stood the Tonhalle. A little 
 past that building, round a corner, and he stopped, on the 
 same side of the road. 
 
 " Not here ! " said I, putting my head out of the win- 
 dow when I saw the window of the curiosity shop exactly 
 opposite. " Not here ! " 
 
 " Wehrhahn, 39, Fraulein," 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "This is it."
 
 The First Violin i55 
 
 I stared around. Yes on the wall stood in plainly-to- 
 be read white letters, Wehrhahn, and on the other door of 
 the house, 39. Yielding to a conviction that it was to be, 
 I murmured " Kismet," and descended from my chariot. 
 
 The woman of the house received me civilly. " The 
 young lady for whom the Herr Direktor had taken lodg- 
 ings ? Schon ! Please to come this way, Fraulein. 'The 
 room was on the third etage." I followed her upstairs 
 steep, dark, narrow stairs, like those of the opposite house. 
 The room was a bare-looking, tolerably large one. There 
 was a little closet of a bedroom opening from it a scrap 
 of carpet upon the floor, and open windows letting in the 
 air. The woman chatted good-naturedly enough. 
 
 " So ! I hope the room will suit, Fraulein. It is truly 
 not to be called richly furnished, but one doesn't need 
 that when one is a Singstudent. I have had many in my 
 time ladies and gentlemen too pupils of Herr von 
 Francius often. Na ! what if they did make a great 
 noise ? I have no children thank the good God ! and 
 one gets used to the screaming just as one gets used to 
 everything else." Here she called me to the window. 
 
 " You might have worse prospects than this, Fraulein, 
 and worse neighbors than those over the way. See ! there 
 is the old furniture shop where so many of the Herren 
 Maler go, and then there is Herr Duntze, the landscape 
 painter, and Herr Knoop who paints Genrebilder and does 
 not make much by it so a picture of a child with a 
 ravelled skein of wool, or a little girl making earrings for 
 herself with bunches of cherries for my part I don't see
 
 i$6 The First Violin 
 
 much in them, and wonder that there are people who will 
 lay down good hard thalers for them. Then there is Herr 
 Courvoisier, the Musiker but perhaps you know who he 
 is ?" 
 
 "Yes," I assented. 
 
 " And his little son ! " Here she threw up her hands. 
 " Ach ! the poor man ! There are people who speak 
 against him, and every one knows he and the Herr Direk- 
 tor are not the best friends, but sehen Sie wol, Frdulein, 
 the Herr Direktor is well off, settled, provided for; Herr 
 Courvoisier has his way to make yet, and the world 
 before him; and what sort of a story it may be with the 
 child, I don't know, but this I will say, let those dare to 
 doubt it or question it who will, he is a good father I 
 know it. And the other young man with Herr Courvoisier 
 his friend, I suppose he is a Musikerioo. I hear them 
 practising a good deal sometimes things without any air 
 or tune to them : for my part I wonder how they can go on 
 with it. Give me a good song with a tune in it Drunten 
 im Unterland, or In Berlin, sagt er, or something one 
 knows. Na! I suppose the fiddling all lies in the way of 
 business, and perhaps they can fall asleep over it some- 
 times, as I do now and then over my knitting, when I'm 
 weary. The young man, Herr Courvoisier's friend, looked 
 ill when they first came ; even now he is not to call a 
 robust-looking person but formerly he looked as if he 
 would go out of the fugue altogether. Entschuldigen, 
 Frdulein, if I use a few professional proverbs. My hus- 
 band, the sainted man ! was a piano-tuner by calling, and
 
 The First Violin 157 
 
 I have picked up some of his musical expressions, and use 
 them, more for his sake than any other reason for I have 
 heard too much music to believe in it so much as ignorant 
 people do. Nun! I will send Fraulein her box up, and 
 then I hope she will feel comfortable and at home, and 
 send for whatever she wants." 
 
 In a few moments my luggage had come upstairs, and 
 when they who brought it had finally disappeared, I went 
 to the window again and looked out. Opposite, on the 
 same etage, were two windows, corresponding to my two, 
 wide open, letting me see into an empty room, in which 
 there seemed to be books and many sheets of white paper, 
 a music desk and a vase of flowers. I also saw a piano in 
 the clear-obscure, and another door, half open, leading 
 into the inner room. All the inhabitants of the rooms 
 were out. No tone came across to me no movement of 
 life. But the influence of the absent ones was there. 
 Strange concourse of circumstances which had placed me 
 as the opposite neighbor, in the same profession too, of 
 Eugen Courvoisier ! Pure chance it certainly was, for von 
 Francius had certainly had no motive in bringing me 
 hither. 
 
 "Kismet!" I murmured once again, and wondered 
 what the future would bring.
 
 BOOK III 
 
 EUGEN COURVOISIER 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " He looks his angel in the face 
 
 Without a blush ; nor heeds disgrace, 
 , Whom nought disgraceful done 
 
 Disgraces. Who knows nothing base 
 Fears nothing known." 
 
 IT was noon. The Probe to Tannhduser was over, and 
 we, the members of the Kapelle, turned out, and stood in 
 a knot around the orchestra entrance to the Elberthal 
 Theatre. 
 
 It was a raw October noontide. The last traces of the 
 bygone summer were being swept away by equinoctial 
 gales, which whirled the remaining yellow leaves from the 
 trees, and strowed with them the walks of the deserted 
 Hofgarien ; a stormy gray sky promised rain at the earli- 
 est opportunity; our Rhine went gliding by like a stream 
 of ruffled lead. 
 
 " Proper theatre weather," observed one of my fellow- 
 musicians; " but it doesn't seem to suit you, Friedhelm. 
 What makes you look so down ? ' '
 
 160 The First Violin 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders. Existence was not at that 
 time very pleasant to me; my life's hues were somewhat 
 of the color of the autumn skies and of the dull river. 
 I scarcely knew why I stood with the others now; it was 
 more a mechanical pause before I took my spiritless way 
 home, than because I felt any interest in what was going on. 
 
 " I should say he will be younger by a long way than old 
 Kdhler," observed Karl Linders, one of the violoncellists, 
 a young man with an unfailing flow of good-nature, good 
 spirits, and eagerness to enjoy every pleasure which came 
 in his way, which qualities were the objects of my deep 
 wonder and mild envy. " And they say," he continued, 
 " that he's coming to-night; so Friedhelm, my boy, you 
 may look out. Your master's on the way." 
 
 "So!" said I, lending but an indifferent attention; 
 " what is his name ? " 
 
 " That's his way of gently intimating that he hasn't got 
 no master," said Karl jocosely, but the general answer to 
 my question was, " I don't know." 
 
 " But they say," said a tall man who wore spectacles 
 and sat behind me in the first violins " they say that 
 von Francius doesn't like the appointment. He wanted 
 some one else, but die Direkiion managed to beat him. 
 He dislikes the new fellow beforehand, whatever he may 
 be." 
 
 "So! Then he will have a roughish time of it!" 
 agreed one or two others. 
 
 The "he" of whom they spoke was the coming man 
 who should take the place of leader of the first violins
 
 The First Violin 161 
 
 \ 
 it followed that he would be at least an excellent pef- 
 
 former possibly a clever man in many other ways, for the 
 post was in many ways a good one. Our Kapelle was no 
 mean one in our own estimation at any rate. Our late 
 first violinist, who had recently died, had been on visiting 
 terms with persons of the highest respectability, had given 
 lessons to the very best families, and might have been seen 
 bowing to young ladies and important dowagers almost any 
 day. No wonder his successor was speculated about with 
 some curiosity. 
 
 " A lie Wetter!" cried Karl Li nders impatiently that 
 young man was much given to impatience " what does 
 von Francius want ? he can't have everything. I suppose 
 this new fellow plays a little too well for his taste. He 
 will have to give him a solo now and then, instead of keep- 
 ing them all for himself." 
 
 " Weiss' s m't," said another, shrugging his shoulders; 
 " I've only heard that von Francius had a row with the 
 Direction, and was outvoted." 
 
 " What a sweet temper he will be in at the Probe to-mor- 
 row ! " laughed Karl. " Won't he give it to the Made hen 
 right and left ! " 
 
 "What time is he coming?" proceeded one of the 
 oboists. 
 
 "Don't know: know nothing about it; perhaps he'll 
 appear in Tannhduser to-night. Look out, Friedhelm." 
 
 "Here comes little Luischen," said Karl, with a win- 
 ning smile, a straightening of his collar, and a general 
 arming-for-conquest expression, as some of the " ladies of 
 ii
 
 162 The First Violin 
 
 the chorus and ballet" appeared from a side door. 
 " Isn't she pretty ? " he went on, in an audible aside to 
 me. "I've a crow to pluck with her too. Tag, Frdu- 
 lein!" he added, advancing to the young lady who had 
 so struck him. 
 
 He was " struck "on an average once a week, every time 
 with the most beautiful and charming of her sex. The 
 others, with one or two exceptions, also turned. I said 
 good-morning to Linders, who wished, with a noble gener- 
 osity, to make me a partaker in his cheerful conversation 
 with Fraulein Luise of the first soprans, slipped from his 
 grasp and took my way homewards. Fraulein Luischen 
 was no doubt very pretty, and in her way a companion- 
 able person. Unfortunately I never could appreciate that 
 way. With every wish to accommodate myself to the 
 only society with which fortune supplied me, it was but 
 ill that I succeeded. 
 
 I, Friedhelm Helfen, was at that time a lonely, soured 
 misanthrope of two and twenty. Let the announcement 
 sound as absurd as it may, it is simply and absolutely true. 
 I was literally alone in the world. My last relative had 
 died and left me entirely without any one who could have 
 even a theoretical reason for taking any interest in me. 
 Gradually, during the last few months, I had fallen into 
 evil places of thought and imagination. There had been 
 a time before, as there has been a time since as it is with 
 me now when I worshipped my art with all my strength 
 as the most beautiful thing on earth; the art of arts the 
 most beautiful and perfect development of beauty which
 
 The First Violin 163 
 
 mankind has yet succeeded in attaining to, and when the 
 very fact of its being so and of my being gifted with some 
 poor power of expressing and interpreting that beauty was 
 enough for me gave me a place in the world with 
 which I was satisfied, and made life understandable to me. 
 At that time this belief my natural and normal state 
 was clouded over; between me and the goddess of my 
 idolatry had fallen a veil; I wasted my brain tissue in 
 trying to philosophize cracked my head, and almost my 
 reason, over the endless, unanswerable question, Cut bono ? 
 that question which may so easily become the destruction 
 of the fool who once allows himself to be drawn into 
 dallying with it. Cut bono? is a mental Delilah who will 
 shear the locks of the most arrogant Samson. And into 
 the arms and to the tender mercies of this Delilah I had 
 given myself. I was in a fair way of being lost for ever 
 in her snares, which she sets for the feet of men. To what 
 use all this toil ? To what use music? After by dint of 
 hard twisting my thoughts and coping desperately- with 
 problems that I did not understand, having managed to 
 extract a conviction that there was use in music a use to 
 beautify, gladden, and elevate I began to ask myself, 
 further: "What is it to me whether mankind is elevated 
 or not ? made better or worse ? higher or lower ? " 
 
 Only one who has asked himself that question, as I did, 
 in bitter earnest, and fairly faced the answer, can know 
 the horror, the blackness, the emptiness of the abyss into 
 which it gives one a glimpse. Blackness of darkness no 
 standpoint, no vantage-ground it is a horror of horrors ;
 
 i6 4 The First Violin 
 
 it haunted me then day and night, and constituted itself 
 not only my companion, but my tyrant. 
 
 I was in bad health too. At night, when the joyless day 
 was over, the work done, the play played out, the smell of 
 the footlights and gas and the dust of the stage dispersed, 
 a deadly weariness used to overcome me : an utter, tired, 
 miserable apathy; and alone, surrounded by loneliness, I 
 let my morbid thoughts carry me whither they would. It 
 had gone so far that I had even begun to say to myself 
 lately : 
 
 " Friedhelm Helfen, you are not wa.ited. On the other 
 side this life is a nothingness so large that you will be as 
 nothing in it. Launch yourself into it. The story that 
 suicide is wrong and immoral is, like other things, to be 
 taken with reservation. There is no absolute right and 
 wrong. Suicide is sometimes the highest form of right 
 and reason." 
 
 This mood was strong upon me on that particular day, 
 and as I paced along the Schadowstrasse towards the Wehr- 
 hahn, where my lodging was, the very stones seemed to cry 
 out, " The world is weary, and you are not wanted in, it." 
 
 A heavy, cold, beating rain began to fall. I entered 
 the room which served me as living and sleeping room. 
 From habit I ate and drank at the same restauration as that 
 frequented by my confreres of the orchestra. I leaned my 
 elbows upon the table, and listened drearily to the beat of 
 the rain upon the pane. Scattered sheets of music con- 
 taining, some great, others lictle thoughts, lay around me. 
 Lately it seemed as if the flavor was gone from them. The
 
 The First Violin 165 
 
 Other night Beethoven himself had failed to move me ; and 
 I accepted it as a sign that all was over with me. In an 
 hour it would be time to go out and seek dinner, if I made 
 up my mind to have any dinner. Then there would be the 
 afternoon the dreary, wet afternoon, the tramp through the 
 soaking streets, with the lamplight shining into the pools 
 of water, to the theatre; the lights, the people, the weary 
 round of painted ballet-girls, and accustomed voices and 
 faces of audience and performers. The same number of 
 bars to play, the same to leave unplayed ; the whole dreary 
 story, gone through so often before, to be gone through so 
 often again. 
 
 The restauration did not see me that day ; I remained in 
 the house. There was to be a great concert in the course 
 of a week or two ; the " Tower of Babel " was to be given 
 at it. I had the music. I practised my part, and I 
 remember being a little touched with the exquisite loveli- 
 ness of one of the choruses, that sung by the " Children of 
 Japhet " as they wander sadly away with their punishment 
 upon them into the Waldeinsamkeit (that lovely and un- 
 translatable word), one of the purest and most pathetic 
 melodies ever composed. 
 
 It was dark that afternoon. I had not stirred from my 
 hole since coming in from the Probe had neither eaten 
 nor drunk, and was in full possession of the uninterrupted 
 solitude coveted by busy men. Once I thought that it 
 would have been pleasant if some one had known and cared 
 for me well enough to run up the stairs, put his head into 
 the room, and talk to me about his affairs.
 
 166 The First Violin 
 
 To the sound of gustily blowing wind and rain beating 
 on the pane, the afternoon hours dragged slowly by, and 
 the world went on outside and around me until about five 
 o'clock. Then there came a knock at my door, an occur- 
 rence so unprecedented that I sat and stared at the said 
 door instead of speaking, as if Edgar Poe's raven had put 
 in a sudden appearance and begun to croak its " never- 
 more ' ' at me. 
 
 The door was opened. A dreadful, dirty-looking young 
 woman, a servant of the house, stood in the doorway. 
 
 " What do you want? " I inquired. 
 
 A gentleman wished to speak to me. 
 
 " Bring him in then," said I, somewhat testily. 
 
 She turned and requested some one to come forward. 
 There 'entered a tall and stately man, with one of those 
 rare faces, beautiful in feature, bright in expression, which 
 one meets sometimes, and having once seen, never forgets. 
 He carried what I took at first for a bundle done up in a 
 dark green plaid, but as I stood up and looked at him I 
 perceived that the plaid was wrapped round a child. Lost 
 in astonishment, I gazed at him in silence. 
 
 " I beg you will excuse my intruding upon you thus," 
 said he, bowing, and I involuntarily returned his bow, won- 
 dering more and more what he could be. His accent was 
 none of the Elberthal one; it was fine, refined, polished. 
 
 "How can I serve you ?" I asked, impressed by his 
 voice, manner, and appearance ; agreeably impressed. A 
 little masterful he looked a little imperious, but not 
 unapproachable, with nothing ungenial in his pride.
 
 The First Violin 167 
 
 " You could serve me very much by giving me one or 
 two pieces of information. In the first place, let me intro- 
 duce myself; you, I think, are Herr Helfen ?" I bowed. 
 " My name is Eugen Courvoisier. I am the new member 
 of your stddtisches Orchester" 
 
 " O/i, was/" said I, within myself. "That our new 
 first violin ! " 
 
 " And this is my son," he added, looking down at the 
 plaid bundle, which he held very carefully and tenderly. 
 " If you will tell me at what time the opera begins, what 
 it is to-night, and finally, if there is a room to be had, 
 perhaps in this house, even for one night. I must find 
 a nest for this Vogelein as soon as I possibly can." 
 
 " I believe the opera begins at seven," said I, still gaz- 
 ing at him in astonishment, with open mouth and incredu- 
 lous eyes. Our orchestra contained amongst its sufficiently 
 varied specimens of nationality and appearance, nothing 
 in the very least like this man, beside whom I felt myself 
 blundering, clumsy and unpolished. It was not mere 
 natural grace of manner. He had that, but it had been 
 cultivated somewhere, and cultivated highly. 
 
 " Yes ?" he said. 
 
 " At seven yes. It is Tannhduser to-night. And the 
 rooms I believe they have rooms in the house." 
 
 "Ah, then I will inquire about it," said he, with an 
 exceedingly open and delightful smile. " I thank you for 
 telling me. Adieu, mein Herr." 
 
 " Is he asleep ?" I asked abruptly, and pointing to the 
 bundle.
 
 168 The First Violin 
 
 "Yes; armes Kerlchen ! just now he is," said the 
 young man. 
 
 He was quite young, I saw. In that half light I sup- 
 posed him even younger than he really was. He looked 
 down at the bundle again and smiled. 
 
 " I should like to see him," said I politely and grace- 
 fully, seized by an impulse of which I felt ashamed, but 
 which I yet could not resist. 
 
 With that I stepped forward and came to examine the 
 bundle. He moved the plaid a little aside and showed 
 me a child a very young, small, helpless child, with 
 closed eyes, immensely long, black, curving lashes, and 
 fine, delicate black brows. The small face was flushed, 
 but even in sleep this child looked melancholy. Yet he 
 was a lovely child most beautiful and most pathetic to 
 see. 
 
 I looked at the small face in silence, and a great desire 
 came upon me to look at it oftener to see it again, then 
 up at that of the father. How unlike the two faces ! Now 
 that I fairly looked at the man, I found he was different 
 from what I had thought; older, sparer, with more 
 sharply-cut features. I could not tell what the child's 
 eyes might be those of the father were piercing as an 
 eagle's ; clear, open, strange. There was sorrow in the 
 face, I saw, as I looked so earnestly into it; and it was 
 worn as if with a keen inner life. This glance was one of 
 those which penetrate deep, not the glance of a moment, 
 but a revelation for life. 
 
 " He is very beautiful," said I.
 
 The First Violin 169 
 
 " Nicht wahr ? " said the other softly. 
 
 "Look here," I added, going to a sofa which was 
 strewn with papers, books, and other paraphernalia; 
 " couldn't we put him here, and then go and see about the 
 rooms ? Such a young, tender child must not be carried 
 about the passages and the house is full of draughts." 
 
 I do not know what had so suddenly supplied me with this 
 wisdom as to what was good for a " young, tender child," 
 nor can I account for the sudden deep interest which pos- 
 sessed me. I dashed the things off the sofa, beat the dust 
 from it, desired him to wait one moment while I rushed 
 to my bed to ravish it of its pillow. Then with the sight 
 of the bed (I was buying my experience) I knew that that, 
 and not the sofa, was the place for the child, and said so. 
 
 " Put him here, do put him here ! " I besought earnestly. 
 " He will sleep for a time here, won't he ? " 
 
 "You are very good," said my visitor, hesitating a 
 moment. 
 
 " Put him there ! " said I, flushed with excitement, and 
 with the hitherto unknown joy of being able to offer hos- 
 pitality. 
 
 Courvoisier looked meditatively at me for a short time, 
 then laid the child upon the bed, and arranged the plaid 
 around it as skilfully and as quickly as a woman would 
 have done it. 
 
 " How clever he must be," I thought, looking at him 
 with awe, and with little less awe contemplating the 
 motionless child. 
 
 (< Wouldn't you like something to put over him ?" I
 
 i?o The First Violin 
 
 asked, looking excitedly about. " I have an overcoat. 
 I'll lend it you." And I was rushing off to fetch it, but 
 he laughingly laid his hand upon my arm. 
 
 " Let him alone," said he; " he's all right." 
 
 " He won't fall off, will he ? " I asked anxiously. 
 
 " No ; don't be alarmed. Now, if you will be so good, 
 we will see about the rooms." 
 
 "Dare you leave him?" I asked, still with anxiety, 
 and looking back as we went towards the door. 
 
 " I dare because I must," replied he. 
 
 He closed the door, and we went downstairs to seek the 
 persons in authority. Courvoisier related his business and 
 condition, and asked to see rooms. The woman hesitated 
 when she heard there was a child. 
 
 " The child will never trouble you, madam," said he 
 quietly, but rather as if the patience of his look were 
 forced. 
 
 " No, never ! " I added fervently. " I will answer for 
 that, Frau Schmidt." 
 
 A quick glance, half gratitude, half amusement, shot 
 from his eyes as the woman went on to say that she only 
 took gentlemen lodgers, and could not do with ladies, 
 children, and nursemaids. They wanted so much attend- 
 ing to, and she did not profess to open her house to them. 
 
 " You will not be troubled with either lady or nurse- 
 maid," said he. " I take charge of the child myself. 
 You will not know that he is in the house." 
 
 " But your wife " she began. 
 
 " There will be no one but myself and my little boy,"
 
 The First Violin i?i 
 
 he replied, ever politely, but ever, as it seemed to me, 
 with repressed pain or irritation. 
 
 " So ! " said the woman, treating him to a long, curi- 
 ous, unsparing look of wonder and inquiry which made me 
 feel hot all over. He returned the glance quietly, and 
 unsmilingly. After a pause, she said : 
 
 " Well, I suppose I must see about it, but it will be the 
 first child I ever took into the house in that way, and only 
 as a favor to Herr Helfen." 
 
 I was greatly astonished, not having known before that 
 I stood in such high esteem. Courvoisier threw me 
 a smiling glance as we followed the woman up the 
 stairs, up to the top of the house, where I lived. Throw- 
 ing open a door, she said there were two rooms which 
 must go together. 
 
 Courvoisier shook his head. 
 
 " I do not want two rooms," said he, "or rather, I 
 don't think I can afford them. What do you charge ? " 
 
 She told him. 
 
 " If it were so much," said he, naming a smaller sum, 
 " I could do it." 
 
 " Nee ! " said the woman curtly; " for that I can't do 
 it. Urn Gotteswillen ! One must live." 
 
 She paused, reflecting, and I watched anxiously. She 
 was going to refuse. My heart sank. Rapidly reviewing 
 my own circumstances and finances, and making a hasty 
 calculation in my mind, I said: 
 
 " Why can't we arrange it ? Here is a big room and a 
 little room. Make the little room into a bedroom, and
 
 1 72 The First Violin 
 
 use the big room fora sitting-room. I will join at it, and 
 so it will come within the price you wish to pay." 
 
 The woman's face cleared a little. She had listened 
 with a clouded expression and her head on one side. 
 Now she straightened herself, drew herself up, smoothed 
 down her apron, and said : 
 
 " Yes, that lets itself be heard. If Herr Helfen agreed 
 to that, she would like it." 
 
 " Oh, but I can't think of putting you to the extra 
 expense," said Courvoisier. 
 
 " I should like it," said I. " I have often wished I had 
 a little more room, but, like you, I couldn't afford the 
 whole expense. We can have a piano, and the child can 
 play there. Don't you see ?" I added, with great eager- 
 ness and touching his arm. "It is a large airy room; 
 he can run about there, and make as much noise as he 
 likes." 
 
 He still seemed to hesitate. 
 
 " I can afford it," said I. " I've no one but myself, 
 unluckily. If you don't object to my company, let us try 
 it. We shall be neighbors in the orchestra." 
 
 "So!" 
 
 " Why not at home too ? I think it is an excellent 
 plan. Let us decide it so." 
 
 I was very urgent about it. An hour ago I could not 
 have conceived anything which could make me so urgent 
 and set my heart beating so. 
 
 "If I did not think it would inconvenience you," he 
 began.
 
 The First Violin 173 
 
 "Then it is settled?" said I. "Now let us go and 
 see what kind of furniture there is in that big room." 
 
 Without allowing him to utter any further objection, I 
 dragged him to the large room, and we surveyed it. The 
 woman, who for some unaccountable reason appeared to 
 have recovered her good temper in a marvellous manner, 
 said quite cheerfully that she would send the maid to make 
 the smaller room ready as a bedroom for two. " One of 
 us won't take much room," said Courvoisier with a laugh, 
 to which she assented with a smile, and then left us. The 
 big room was long, low, and rather dark. Beams were 
 across the ceiling, and two not very large windows looked 
 upon the street below, across to two similar windows of 
 another lodging-house; a little to the left of which was 
 the Tonhalle. The floor was carpetless, but clean; there 
 was a big square table, and some chairs. 
 
 "There," said I, drawing Courvoisier to the window, 
 and pointing across; "there is one scene of your future 
 exertions, the Stddtische Tonhalle." 
 
 " So ! " said he, turning away again from the window : 
 it was as dark as ever outside, and looking round the 
 room again. " This is a dull-looking place," he added, 
 gazing around it. 
 
 "We'll soon make it different," said I, rubbing my 
 hands and gazing round the room with avidity. "I have 
 long wished to be able to inhabit this room. We must 
 make it more cheerful, though, before the child comes to 
 it. We'll have the stove lighted, and we'll knock up some 
 shelves, and we'll have a piano in, and the sofa from my
 
 174 The First Violin 
 
 room, nicht wahr ? Oh, we'll make a place of it, I can 
 tell you." 
 
 He looked at me as if struck with my enthusiasm, and I 
 bustled about. We set to work to make the room habit- 
 able. He was out for a short time at the station, and 
 returned with the luggage which he had left there. While 
 he was away I stole into my room and took a good look at 
 my new treasure ; he still slept peacefully and calmly on. 
 We were deep in impromptu carpentering and contrivances 
 for use and comfort, when it occurred to me to look at my 
 watch. 
 
 " Five minutes to seven ! " I almost yelled, dashing 
 wildly into my room to wash my hands and get my violin. 
 Courvoisier followed me. The child was awake. I felt a 
 horrible sense of guilt as I saw it looking at me with 
 great, soft, solemn," brown eyes, not in the least those of 
 its father, but it did not move. I said apologetically that 
 I feared I had wakened it. 
 
 " Oh no ! He's been awake for some time," said Cour- 
 voisier. The child saw him, and stretched out its arms 
 towards him. 
 
 " Na ! junger Taugenichts ! " he said, taking it up and 
 kissing it. " Thou must stay here till I come back. 
 Wilt be happy till I come ? " 
 
 The answer made by the mournful -looking child was a 
 singular one. It put both tiny arms around the big man's 
 neck, laid its face for a moment against his, and loosed 
 him again. Neither word nor sound did it emit during the 
 process. A feeling altogether new and astonishing over-
 
 The Fir^t Violin 175 
 
 came me. I turned hastily away, and as I picked up my 
 violin-case, was amazed to find my eyes dim. My visitors 
 were something unprecedented to me. 
 
 " You are not compelled to go to the theatre to-night, you 
 know, unless you like," I suggested, as we went down- stairs. 
 
 " Thanks, it is as well to begin at once." 
 
 On the lowest landing we met Frau Schmidt. 
 
 " Where are you going, meine Herren ? " she demanded. 
 
 " To work, madame," he replied, lifting his cap with a 
 courtesy which seemed to disarm her. 
 
 " But the child ? " she demanded. 
 
 " Do not trouble yourself about him." 
 
 "Is he asleep ?" 
 
 " Not just now. He is all right, though." 
 
 She gave us a look which meant volumes. I pulled 
 Courvoisier out. 
 
 " Come along, do ! " cried I. " She will keep you 
 there for half an hour, and it is time now." 
 
 We rushed along the streets too rapidly to have time or 
 breath to speak, and it was five minutes after the time 
 when we scrambled into the orchestra, and found that the 
 overture was already begun. 
 
 Though there is certainly not much time for observing 
 one's fellows when one is helping in the overture to Tann- 
 hduser, yet I saw the many curious and astonished glances 
 which were cast towards our new member, glances of which 
 he took no notice, simply because he apparently did not 
 see them. He had the finest absence of self -consciousness 
 that I ever saw.
 
 1 76 The First Violin 
 
 The first act of the opera was over, and it fell to my 
 share to make Courvoisier known to his fellow-musicians. 
 I introduced him to the Director, who was not von Fran- 
 cius, nor any friend of his. Then we retired to one of the 
 small rooms on one side of the orchestra. 
 
 " Hundewetter ! " said one of the men, shivering. 
 " Have you travelled far to-day ? " he inquired of Cour- 
 voisier. by way of opening the conversation. 
 
 " From Koln only." 
 
 "Live there?" 
 
 " No." 
 
 The man continued his catechism, but in another direc- 
 tion. 
 
 " Are you a friend of Helfen's ? " 
 
 " I rather think Helfen has been a friend to me," said 
 Courvoisier, smiling. 
 
 " Have you found lodgings already ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "So!" said his interlocutor, rather puzzled with the 
 new arrival. I remember the scene well. Half-a-dozen 
 of the men were standing in one corner of the room, 
 smoking, drinking beer, and laughing over some not very 
 brilliant joke ; we three were a little apart. Courvoisier 
 stately and imposing-looking, and with that fine manner 
 of his, politely answering his interrogator, a small, sharp- 
 featured man, who looked up to him, and rattled compla- 
 cently away, while I sat upon the table amongst the 
 fiddle-cases and beer-glasses, my foot on a chair, my chin 
 in my hand, feeling my cheeks glow, and a strange sense of
 
 The First Violin 177 
 
 
 
 dizziness and weakness all over me, a lightness in my head 
 which I could not understand. It had quite escaped me 
 that I had neither eaten nor drunk since my breakfast at 
 eight o'clock, on a cup of coffee and a dry Brodchen, and 
 it was now twelve hours later. 
 
 The pause was not a long one, and we returned to our 
 places. But Tannhduser is not a short opera. As time 
 went on my sensations of illness and faintness increased. 
 During the second pause I remained in my place. Cour- 
 voisier presently came and sat beside me. 
 
 " I'm afraid you feel ill," said he. 
 
 I denied it. But though I struggled on to the end, yet at 
 last a deadly faintness overcame me. As the curtain went 
 down amidst applause, everything reeled around me. I 
 heard the bustle of the others of the audience going away. 
 I myself could not move. 
 
 " Was ist denn mit ihm ? " I heard Courvoisier say as 
 he stooped over me. 
 
 "Is that Friedhelm Helfen ? " asked Karl Linders, 
 surveying me. " Potzblitz ! 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 excel- 
 lent joke. "Look here, alter Narr!" he added;
 
 1 78 The First Violin 
 
 * 
 
 " you've been going without anything to eat, nicht 
 wahr ? " 
 
 " I believe I have," I assented feebly. " But I'm all 
 right; I'll go home." 
 
 Rejecting Karl's pressing entreaties to join him at sup- 
 per at his favorite Wirthschaft, we went home, purchasing 
 our supper on the way. Courvoisier's first step was 
 towards the place where he had left the child. He was 
 gone. 
 
 " Verschwunden ! " cried he, striding off to the sleep- 
 ing-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 
 nursemaids," 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, with- 
 out 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.
 
 The First Violin 179 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 11 Though nothing can bring back the hour 
 Of splendor in the grass, 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 house-keeping: "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 friendship progressed by such quiet, imperceptible 
 degrees, each one knotting the past more closely and inex- 
 tricably 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
 
 i8o The First Violin 
 
 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 towards me, indeed he was passively 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 could never conceal his 
 own mood from the child; it knew let him feign other- 
 wise 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 some- 
 times, 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 : shivered through and through his little
 
 The First Violin tS. 
 
 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, bestial visage portrayed to him. Eugen had trodden 
 noiselessly behind him ; I watched, and he watched, how 
 his two little fists clenched 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 ac- 
 quaintance, 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 passion of his existence his love for 
 his child. It was strange, it was touching, to see the bond
 
 i8 2 The First Violin 
 
 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 den Kleinen. His leisure was I cannot say 
 "given up" to the boy but it was always passed with 
 him. 
 
 Courvoisier soon gained a reputation among our com- 
 rades 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, sym- 
 pathetic 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 the 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 from morning to night
 
 The First Violin 183 
 
 between theatre 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 symphonic ? 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 towards 
 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 sometime. 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. 
 
 Those devices and desires led us straight home, followed 
 by a sneering laugh from 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 burnt pleasantly on the table ; our big 
 room looked homely and charming by these evening lights.
 
 184 The First Violin 
 
 Master Sigmund was wide awake in honor of the occasion, 
 and sat upon my knee whilst 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's fertig mit Allem" 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 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 ques- 
 tion some one knocked at the door, and in answer to our 
 Herein ! appeared a handsome, laughing face, and a head
 
 The First Violin 185 
 
 of wavy hair, which, with a tall, shapely figure, I recog- 
 nized 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 Linders. Amaze- 
 ment 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 diffi- 
 culty preserving my gravity. 
 
 " Oh, indeed ! I I wasn't aware " began Karl, look- 
 ing at Eugen in such a peculiar manner half respectful, 
 half timid, half ashamed that I could no longer contain 
 my feelings, but burst into such a shout of laughter as I 
 had not enjoyed for years. After a moment, Eugen joined
 
 186 The First Violin 
 
 in ; we laughed peal after peal of laughter, while poor Karl 
 stood feebly looking from one to the other of the com- 
 pany speechl ess crestf al 1 en . 
 
 " I beg your pardon," he said at last, " I won't intrude 
 any longer. Good 
 
 He was making for the door, but Eugen made a dash 
 after him, turned him round, and pushed him into a 
 chair. 
 
 " Sit down, man," said he, stifling his laughter. " Sit 
 down, man; do you think the poor little chap will hurt 
 you?" 
 
 Karl cast a distrustful glance sideways at my nursing and 
 spoke not. 
 
 " I'm glad to see you," pursued Eugen. " Why didn't 
 you come before ? ' ' 
 
 At that Karl's lips began to twitch with a humorous 
 smile : presently he too began to laugh, and seemed not to 
 know how or when to stop. 
 
 " It beats all I ever saw or heard or dreamt of," said he 
 at last. " Thaf s what brought you home in such a hurry 
 every night. Let me congratulate you, Friedel ! You 
 make a first-rate nurse; when everything else fails /will 
 give you a character as Kindermddchen ; clean, sober, 
 industrious, and not given to running after young men." 
 With which he roared again, and Sigmund surveyed him 
 with a somewhat severe, though scarcely a disapproving 
 expression. Karl seated himself near him, and, though 
 not yet venturing to address him, cast various glances of 
 blandishment and persuasion upon him.
 
 The First Violin 18; 
 
 Half an hour passed thus, and a second knock was fol- 
 lowed by the entrance of Frau Schmidt. 
 
 "Good-evening, gentlemen," she remarked in a tone 
 which said unutterable things scorn, contempt, pity all 
 finely blended into a withering sneer, as she cast her eyes 
 around, and a slight but awful smile played about her lips. 
 " Half-past eight, and that blessed baby not in bed yet. 
 I knew how it would be. And you all smoking, too 
 natiirlich ! You ought to know better, Herr Courvoisier 
 yon ought, at any rate," she added, scorn dropping into 
 heart-piercing reproach. "Give him tome," she added, 
 taking him from me, and apostrophizing him. " You 
 poor, blessed lamb! Well for you that I'm here to look 
 after you, that have had children of my own, and know a 
 little about the sort of way that you ought to be brought 
 up in." 
 
 Evident signs of uneasiness on Karl's part, as Frau 
 Schmidt, with the same extraordinary contortion of the 
 mouth half smile, half sneer brought Sigmund to his 
 father, to say good-night. That process over, he was 
 brought to me, and then, as if it were a matter which 
 "understood itself," to Karl. Eugen and I, like family 
 men as we were, had gone through the ceremony with will- 
 ing grace. Karl backed his chair a little, looked much 
 alarmed, shot a queer glance at us, at the child, and then 
 appealingly up into the woman's face. We, through our 
 smoke, watched him. 
 
 " He looks so very very " he began. 
 
 " Come, come, mein Herr, what does that mean? Kiss
 
 i88 The First Violin 
 
 the little angel, and be thankful you may. The innocent ! 
 You ought to be delighted," said she, standing with grena- 
 dier-like stiffness beside him. 
 
 " He won't bite you, Karl," I said, reassuringly. 
 " He's quite harmless." 
 
 Thus encouraged, Herr Linders stooped forward, and 
 touched the cheek of the child with his lips; then, as if 
 surprised, stroked it with his finger. 
 
 " Lieber Himmel ! how soft ! Like satin, or rose- 
 leaves ! " he murmured, as the woman carried the child 
 away, shut the door, and disappeared. 
 
 "Does she tackle you in that way every night ?" he 
 inquired next. 
 
 "Every evening," said Eugen. "And. I little dare 
 open my lips before her. You would notice how quiet I 
 kept. It's because I am afraid of her." 
 
 Frau Schmidt, who had at first objected so strongly to 
 the advent of the child, was now devoted to it, and would 
 have resented exceedingly the idea of allowing any one 
 but herself to put it to bed, dress or undress it, or look 
 after it in general. This state of things had crept on 
 very gradually ; she had never said how fond she was of 
 the child, but put her kindness upon the ground that as a 
 Christian woman she could not stand by and see it mis- 
 handled by a couple of men, and oh ! the unutterable con- 
 tempt upon the word " men." Under this disguise she 
 attempted to cover the fact that she delighted to have it 
 with her, to kiss it, fondle it, admire it, and " do for it." 
 We knew now that no sooner had we left the house than

 
 190 The First Violin 
 
 the child would be brought down, and would never leave 
 the care of Frau Schmidt until our return, or until he was 
 in bed and asleep. She said he was a quiet child, and 
 " did not give so much trouble." Indeed the little fellow 
 won a friend in whoever saw him. He had made another 
 conquest to-night. Karl Linders, after puffing away for 
 some time, inquired, with an affectation of indifference : 
 
 " How old is he der kleine Bengel ? " 
 
 " Two a little more." 
 
 " Handsome little fellow ! " 
 
 "Glad you think so." 
 
 " Sure of it. But I didn't know, Courvoisier so sure 
 as I live, I knew nothing about it ! " 
 
 " I dare say not. Did I ever say you did ? " 
 
 I saw that Karl wished to ask another question ; one 
 which had trembled upon my own lips many a time, but 
 which I had never asked: which I knew that I never should 
 ask. 
 
 " The mother of that child is she alive or dead ? 
 Why may we never hear one word of her ? Why this 
 silence, as of the grave ? Was she your wife ? Did you 
 love her ? Did she love you ? " 
 
 Questions which could not fail to come to me, and about 
 which my thoughts would hang for hours. I could imagine 
 a woman being very deeply in love with Courvoisier. 
 Whether he would love very deeply himself, whether love 
 would form a mainspring of his life and actions, or 
 whether it took only a secondary place I speak of the 
 love of woman I could not guess. I could decide upon
 
 The First Violin 191 
 
 many points of his character. He was a good friend, a 
 high-minded and a pure-minded man; his every- day life, 
 the turn of his thoughts and conversation, showed me that 
 as plainly as any great adventure could have done. That 
 he was an ardent musician, an artist in the truest and 
 deepest sense, of a quixotically generous and unselfish 
 nature all this I had already proved. That he loved 
 his child with a love not short of passion was patent 
 to me every day. But upon the past, silence so utter as I 
 never before met with. Not a hint ; not an allusion ; not 
 one syllable. 
 
 Little Sigmund was not yet two and a half. The story 
 upon which his father maintained so deep a silence was 
 not, could not be a very old one. His behavior gave me 
 no clue asjto whether it had been a joyful or a sorrowful 
 one. Mere silence could tell me nothing. Some men are 
 silent about their griefs; some about their joys. I knew 
 not in which direction his disposition lay. 
 
 I saw Karl look at him that evening once or twice, and 
 I trembled lest the blundering, good-natured fellow should 
 make the mistake of asking some question. But he did 
 not ; I need not have feared. People were not in the habit 
 of putting obtrusive questions to Eugen Courvoisier. 
 The danger was somehow quietly tided over, the delipate 
 ground avoided. 
 
 The conversation wandered quietly off to commonplace 
 topics the state of the orchestra ; tales of its doings ; the 
 tempers of our different conductors Malpergof the opera; 
 Woelfl of the ordinary concerts, which took place two or
 
 i9 2 The First Violin 
 
 three times a week, when we fiddled and the public ate, 
 drank, and listened; lastly, von Francius, koniglicher 
 Musikdirektor. 
 
 Karl Linders gave his opinion freely upon the men in 
 authority. He had nothing to do with them, nothing to 
 hope or fear from them ; he filled a quiet place amongst 
 the violoncellists, and had attained his twenty-eighth year 
 without displaying any violent talent or tendency to dis- 
 tinguish himself, otherwise than by getting as much mirth 
 out of life as possible, and living in a perpetual state of 
 " carelesse contente." 
 
 He desired to know what Courvoisier thought of von 
 Francius; for curiosity the fault of those idle persons 
 who afterwards develop into busybodies was already 
 beginning to leave its traces on Herr Linders. It was less 
 known than guessed that the state of things between 
 Courvoisier and von Francius was less peace than armed 
 neutrality. The intense politeness of von Francius to his 
 first violinist, and the punctilious ceremoniousness of the 
 latter towards his chief, were topics of speculation and 
 amusement to the whole orchestra. 
 
 " I think von Francius would be a fiend if he could," 
 said Karl comfortably. " I wouldn't stand it if he spoke 
 to me as he speaks to some people." 
 
 " Oh, they like it ! " said Courvoisier ; and Karl stared. 
 
 " Girls don't object to a little bullying; anything rather 
 than be left quite alone," he went on tranquilly. 
 
 "Girls!" ejaculated Karl. 
 
 " You mean the young ladies in the chorus, don't
 
 The First Violin i03 
 
 you ?" asked Courvoisier, unmovedly. " He does school 
 them, I don't deny; but they come back again." 
 
 " Oh, I see ! " said Karl, accepting the rebuff. 
 
 He had not referred to the young ladies of the chorus. 
 
 " Have you heard von Francius play ? " he began next. 
 
 "NatiirKch/" 
 
 " What do you think of it? " 
 
 " I think it is superb ! " said Courvoisier. 
 
 Baffled again, Karl was silent. 
 
 "The power and the daring of it are grand," went on 
 Eugen heartily. " I could listen to him for hours. To 
 see him seat himself before the piano, as if he were sitting 
 down to read a newspaper, and do what he does, without 
 moving a muscle, is simply superb there's no other word. 
 Other men may play the piano ; he takes the key-board 
 and plays with it, and it says what he likes." 
 
 I looked at him, and was satisfied. He found the same 
 want in von Francius's " superb " manipulation that I did 
 the glitter of a diamond, not the glow of a fire. 
 
 Karl had not the subtlety to retort, " Ah, but does it 
 say what we like ?" He subsided again, merely giving 
 a meek assent to the proposition, and saying suggestively : 
 
 " He's not liked, though he is such a popular fellow." 
 
 " The public is often a great fool." 
 
 " Well, but you can't expect it to kiss the hand that 
 slaps it in the face, as von Francius does," said Karl, 
 driven to metaphor, probably for the first time in his life, 
 and seeming astonished at having discovered a hitherto 
 unknown mental property pertaining to himself. 
 13
 
 i94 The First Violin 
 
 Courvoisier laughed. 
 
 " I'm certain of one thing : von Francius will go on 
 slapping the public's face. I won't say how it will end; 
 but it would^not surprise me in the least to see the public 
 at his feet, as it is now at those of " 
 
 " Humph ! " said Karl reflectively. 
 
 He did not stay much longer, but having finished his 
 cigar, rose. He seemd to feel very apologetic, and out of 
 the fulness of his heart his mouth spake : 
 
 " I really wouldn't have intruded if I had known " 
 
 "Known what?" inquired Eugen, with well-assumed 
 surprise. 
 
 " I thought you were just by yourselves, you know, 
 and " 
 
 " So we are ; but we can do with other society. Friedel 
 here gets very tedious sometimes in fact, langweilig. 
 Come again, nicht wahr ? ' ' 
 
 " If I shan't be in your way," said Karl, looking round 
 the room with somewhat wistful eyes. 
 
 We assured him to the contrary, and he promised, with 
 unnecessary emphasis, to come again. 
 
 " He will return; I know he will ! " sang Eugen, after 
 he had gone. 
 
 The next time that Herr Linders arrived, which was ere 
 many days had passed, he looked excited and important; 
 and after the first greetings were over, he undid a great 
 number of papers, which wrapped and enfolded a parcel of 
 considerable dimensions, and displayed to our enraptured 
 view a white woolly animal of stupendous dimensions,
 
 The First Violin 195 
 
 fastened upon a green stand, which stand, when pressed, 
 caused the creature to give forth a howl, like unto no 
 lowing of oxen nor bleating of sheep ever heard on earth. 
 This inviting-looking creature he held forth towards Sig- 
 mund, who stared at it. 
 
 " Perhaps he's got one already," said Karl, seeing that 
 the child did not display any violent enthusiasm about the 
 treasure. 
 
 " Oh no ! " said Eugen promptly. 
 
 "Perhaps he doesn't know what it is," I suggested 
 rather unkindly, scarcely able to keep my countenance at 
 the idea of that baby playing with such a toy. 
 
 " Perhaps not," said Karl more cheerfully, kneeling 
 down by my side Sigmund sat on my knee and squeez- 
 ing the stand so that the woolly animal howled. " Sieh! 
 Sigmund ! Look at the pretty lamb ! " 
 
 " Oh, come, Karl ! Are you a lamb ? Call it an eagle 
 at once," said I, sceptically. 
 
 "It is a lamb, isn't it?" said he, turning it over. 
 " They called it a lamb at the shop." 
 
 " A very queer lamb : not a German breed, anyhow." 
 
 " Now I think of it, my little sister has one, but she 
 calls it a rabbit, I believe." 
 
 " Very likely. You might call that anything, and no 
 one could contradict you." 
 
 "Well, der Kleine doesn't know the difference: it's a 
 toy" said Karl desperately. 
 
 " Not a toy that seems to take his fancy much," said I, 
 as Sigmund, with evident signs of displeasure, turned
 
 i9 6 The First Violin 
 
 away from the animal on the green stand, and refused to 
 look at it. Karl looked despondent. 
 
 " He doesn't like the look of it," said he plaintively. 
 " I thought I was sure to be right in this. My little sis- 
 ter" (Karl's little sister had certainly never been so often 
 quoted by her brother before) " plays for hours with that 
 thing she calls a rabbit." 
 
 Eugen had come to the rescue, and grasped the woolly 
 animal which Karl had contemptuously thrown aside. 
 After convincing himself by near examination as to which 
 was intended for head, and which for tail, he presented it 
 to his son, remarking that it was " a pretty toy." 
 
 "I'll pray for you after that, Eugen often, and ear- 
 nestly," said I. 
 
 Sigmund looked appeal! ngly at him, but seeing that his 
 father appeared able to endure the presence of the beast, 
 and seemed to wish him to do the same, from some dark 
 and inscrutable reason not to be grasped by so young a 
 mind for he was modest as to his own intelligence he 
 put out his small arm, received the creature into it, and 
 embracing it round the body, held it to his side, and 
 looked at Eugen with a pathetic expression. 
 
 " Pretty plaything, nichtwahr?" said Eugen encourag- 
 ingly. Sigmund nodded, silently. The animal emitted a 
 howl ; the child winced, but looked resigned. Eugen 
 rose and stood at some little distance, looking on. Sig- 
 mund continued to embrace the animal with the same 
 resigned expression, until Karl, stooping, took it away. 
 
 " You mustn't make him, just because I brought it," said
 
 The First Violin 19? 
 
 he. " Better luck next time. I see he's not a common 
 child. I must try to think of something else." 
 
 We commanded our countenances with difficulty, but 
 preserved them. Sigmund's feelings had been severely 
 wounded. For many days he eyed Karl with a strange, 
 cold glance, which the latter used every art in his power 
 to change, and at last succeeded. Woolly lambs became 
 a forbidden subject. Nothing annoyed Karl more than 
 for us to suggest, if Sigmund happened to be a little cross 
 or mournful " Suppose you just go home, Karl, and fetch 
 that ' lamb-rabbit-lion.' I'm sure he would like it." 
 From that time the child had another worshipper, and we 
 a constant visitor in Karl Linders. 
 
 We sat together one evening Eugen and I, after Sig- 
 mund had been in bed a long time, after the opera was 
 over chatting, as we often did, or as often remained silent. 
 He had been reading, and the book from which he read 
 was a volume of English poetry. At last, laying the book 
 aside, he said : 
 
 " The first night we met you fainted away from exhaus- 
 tion and long fasting. You said you would tell me why 
 you had allowed yourself to do so, but you have never kept 
 your word." 
 
 " I didn't care to eat. People eat to live except those 
 who live to eat, and I was not very anxious to live; I 
 didn't care for my life ; in fact, I wished I was dead." 
 
 "Why? An unlucky love ?" 
 
 " /, bewahre ! ' I never knew what it was to be in love 
 in my life," said I, with perfect truth.
 
 198 The First Violin 
 
 "Is that true, Friedel ? " he asked, apparently sur- 
 prised. 
 
 " As true as possible. I think a timely love affair, how- 
 ever unlucky, would have roused me and brought me to my 
 senses again." 
 
 " General melancholy ? " 
 
 " Oh, I was alone in the world. I had been reading, 
 reading, reading: my bruin was one dark and misty muddle 
 of Kant, Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, and a few others. 
 I read them one after another, as quickly as possible : the 
 mixture had the same effect upon my mind as the indis- 
 criminate contents of a toffy-shop would have upon Sig- 
 mund's stomach it made it sick. In my crude, ungainly, 
 unfinished fashion I turned over my information, laying 
 down big generalizations upon a foundation of experience 
 of the smallest possible dimensions, and all upon one 
 side." 
 
 He nodded. " Ei ! I know it." 
 
 " And after considering the state of the human race 
 that is to say the half dozen people I knew, and the miser- 
 ies of the human lot as set forth in the books I had read, 
 and having proved to myself, all up in that little room, 
 you know" I pointed to my bedroom "that there 
 neither was nor could be heaven or hell or any future state, 
 and having decided, also from that room, that there was 
 no place for me in the world, and that I was very likely 
 actually filling the place of some other man, poorer than I 
 was, and able to think life a good thing" (Eugen was 
 smiling to himself in great amusement), " I came to the
 
 The First Violin 199 
 
 conclusion that the best thing I could do was to leave the 
 world." 
 
 " Were you going to starve yourself to death ? That is 
 rather a tedious process, nicht wahr ? " 
 
 " Oh no ! I had not decided upon any means of effacing 
 myself; and it was really your arrival which brought on 
 that fainting fit, for if you hadn't turned up when you did I 
 should probably have thought of my interior some time 
 before seven o'clock. But you came. Eugen, I wonder 
 what sent you up to my room just at that very time, on 
 that very day ! " 
 
 " Von Francius," said Eugen tranquilly. " I had seen 
 him, and he was very busy and referred me to you that's 
 all." 
 
 " Well let us call it von Francius." 
 
 " But what's the end of it ? Is that the whole story ? " 
 
 " I thought I might as well help you a bit," said I rather 
 awkwardly. " You were not like other people, you see 
 it was the child, I think. I was as much amazed as Karl, 
 if I didn't show it so much, and after that " 
 
 "After that ?" 
 
 " Well. There was the child, you see, and things 
 seemed quite different somehow. I've been very com- 
 fortable " (this was my way of putting it) "ever since, 
 and I am curious to see what the boy will be like in a few 
 years. Shall you make him into a musician too ? " 
 
 Courvoisier's brow clouded a little. 
 
 " I don't know," was all he said. Later I learnt the 
 reason of that " don't know."
 
 200 The First Violin 
 
 " So it was no love affair," said Eugen again. " Then 
 I have been wrong all the time. I quite fancied it was 
 some girl " 
 
 "What could make you think so?" I asked, with a 
 whole-hearted laugh. " I tell you I don't know what it is 
 to be in love. The other fellows are always in love. 
 They are in a constant state of Schwdrmerei about some 
 girl or other. It goes in epidemics. They have not each 
 a separate passion. The whole lot of them will go mad 
 about one young woman. I can't understand it. I wish I 
 could, for they seem to enjoy it so much." 
 
 " You heathen ! ' ' said he,but not in a very bantering tone. 
 
 " Why, Eugen, do you mean to say that you are so very 
 susceptible ? Oh, I beg your pardon," I added hastily, 
 shocked and confused to find that I had been so nearly 
 overstepping the boundary which I had always marked out 
 for myself. And I stopped abruptly. 
 
 "That's like you, Friedhelm ! " said he, in a tone 
 which was in some way different from his usual one. " I 
 never knew such a ridiculous, chivalrous, punctilious fel- 
 low as you are. Tell me something did you never specu- 
 late about me ? ' ' 
 
 "Never impertinently, I assure you, Eugen," said I 
 earnestly. 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " You impertinent ! That is amusing, I must say. But 
 surely you have given me a thought now and then, have 
 wondered whether I had a history, or sprang out of noth- 
 ing ?"
 
 The First Violin 201 
 
 "Certainly, and wondered what your story was; but I 
 do not need to know it to " 
 
 " I understand. Well, but it is rather difficult to say 
 this to such an unsympathetic person; you won't under- 
 stand it. I have been in love, Friedel." 
 
 " So I can suppose." 
 
 I waited for the corollary, " and been loved in return," 
 but it did not come. He said, " And received as much 
 regard in return as I deserved perhaps more." 
 
 As I could not cordially assent to this proposition, I 
 remained silent. 
 
 After a pause he went on : "I am eight-and-twenty, and 
 have lived my life. The story won't bear raking up now 
 perhaps never. For a long time I went on my own way, 
 and was satisfied with it blindly, inanely, densely satis- 
 fied with it ; then all at once I was brought to reason " 
 
 He laughed, not a very pleasant laugh. " Brought to rea- 
 son," he resumed, "but how? By waking one morning 
 to find myself a spoiled man, and spoiled by myself, too." 
 
 A pause, while I turned this information over in my 
 mind, and then said composedly : 
 
 " I don't quite believe in your being a spoiled man. 
 Granted that you have made some fiasco even a very bad 
 one what is to prevent your making a life again ? " 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " said he ungenially. " Things not dreamt 
 of, Friedel, by your straightforward philosophy. One 
 night I was, take it all in all, straight with the world and 
 my destiny ; the next night I was an outcast, and justly 
 so. I don't complain. I have no right to complain."
 
 202 The First Violin 
 
 Again he laughed. 
 
 "I once knew some one," said I, "who used to say 
 that many a good man and many a great man was lost to 
 the world simply because nothing interrupted the course of 
 his prosperity." 
 
 " Don't suppose that I am an embryo hero of any 
 description," said he bitterly. " I am merely, as I said, 
 a spoiled man, brought to his senses, and with life before 
 him to go through as best he may, and the knowledge that 
 his own fault has brought him to what he is." 
 
 " But look here ! If it is merely a question of name or 
 money " I began. 
 
 " It is not merely that ; but suppose it were, what then? " 
 
 " It lies with yourself. You may make a name either as 
 a composer or performer your head or your fingers will 
 secure you money and fame." 
 
 " None the less should I be, as I said, a spoiled man," 
 he said quietly. " I should be ashamed to come forward. 
 It was I myself who sent myself and my prospects Capitt,* 
 and for that sort obscurity is the best taste and the right 
 sphere." 
 
 " But there's the boy," I suggested. " Let him have 
 the advantage." 
 
 "Don't, don't!" he said suddenly, and wincing vis- 
 ibly, as if I had touched a raw spot. " No ; my one hope 
 for him is that he may never be known as my son." 
 
 * Caput a German slang expression, with the general significance 
 of the English " gone to smash," but also a hundred other and wider 
 meanings, impossible to render in brief.
 
 The First Violin 203 
 
 " But but- 
 
 " Poor little beggar ! I wonder what will become of 
 him," he uttered, after a pause, during which I did not 
 speak again. 
 
 Eugen puffed fitfully at his cigar, and at last, knocking 
 the ash from it, and avoiding my eyes, he said in a low 
 voice : 
 
 " I suppose sometime I must leave the boy." 
 
 " Leave him ! " I echoed intelligently. 
 
 " When he grows a little older before he is old enough 
 to feel it very much, though, I must part from him. It 
 will be better." 
 
 Another pause. No sign of emotion, no quiver of the 
 lips, no groan, though the heart might be afaint. I sat 
 speechless. 
 
 " I have not come to the conclusion lately. I've always 
 known it," he went on, and spoke slowly. " I have known 
 it and have thought about it so as to get accustomed to 
 it see ?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " At that time as you seem to have a fancy for the child 
 will you give an eye to him sometimes, Friedel that 
 is, if you care enough for me " 
 
 For a moment I did not speak. Then I said : 
 
 " You are quite sure the parting must take place ? " 
 
 He assented. 
 
 " When it does, will you give him to me to my charge 
 altogether ?" 
 
 " What do you mean ? "
 
 $o4 The First Violin 
 
 " If he must lose one father, let me grow as like another 
 to him as I can." 
 
 "Friedhelm " 
 
 " On no other condition," said I. "I will not ' have 
 an eye ' to him occasionally. I will not let him go out 
 alone amongst strangers, and give a look in upon him now 
 and then." 
 
 Eugen had covered his face with his hands, but spoke 
 not. 
 
 " I will have him with me altogether, or not at all," I 
 finished, with a kind of jerk. 
 
 " Impossible ! " said he, looking up, with a pale face 
 and eyes full of anguish the more intense in that he 
 uttered not a word of it. " Impossible ! You are no rela- 
 tion he has not a claim there is not a reason not the 
 wildest reason for such a ' 
 
 " Yes, there is; there is the reason that I won't have it 
 otherwise," said I doggedly. 
 
 " It is fantastic, like your insane self," he said, with a 
 forced smile, which cut me, somehow, more than if he had 
 groaned. 
 
 " Fantastic ! I don't know what you mean. What good 
 would it be to me to see him with strangers ? I should 
 only make myself miserable with wishing to have him. I 
 don't know what you mean by fantastic." 
 
 He drew a long breath. "So be it, then," said he, at 
 last. " And he need know nothing about his father. I 
 may even see him from time to time without his knowing 
 see him growing into a man like you, Friedel ; it would
 
 The First Violin 205 
 
 be worth the separation, even if one had not to make a 
 merit of necessity; yes, well worth it." 
 
 " Like me ? Nee, mein Lieber ; he shall be something 
 rather better than I am, let us hope," said I; " but there 
 is time enough to talk about it." 
 
 " Oh yes ! In a year or two from now," said he, almost 
 inaudibly. " The worst of it is that in a case like this, 
 the years go so fast, so cursedly fast." 
 
 I could make no answer to this, and he added, " Give 
 me thy hand upon it, Friedel." 
 
 I held out my hand. We had risen, and stood looking 
 steadfastly into each other's eyes. 
 
 " I wish I were what I might have been to pay you 
 for this," he said hesitatingly, wringing my hand, and lay- 
 ing his left for a moment on my shoulder; then, without 
 another word, went into his room, shutting the door after 
 him. 
 
 I remained still sadder, gladder than I had ever been 
 before. Never had I so intensely felt the deep, eternal 
 sorrow of life that sorrow which can be avoided by none 
 who rightly live; yet never had life towered before me so 
 rich and so well worth living out, so capable of high exal- 
 tation, pure purpose, full satisfaction, and sufficient 
 reward. My quarrel with existence was made up.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " The merely great are, all in all, 
 No more than what the merely small 
 
 Esteem them. Man's opinion 
 Neither conferred nor can remove 
 This man's dominion." 
 
 THREE years passed an even way. In three years there 
 happened little of importance little, that is, of open 
 importance to either of us. I read that sentence again, 
 and cannot help smiling : " to either of us." It shows the 
 progress that our friendship had made. Yes, it had grown 
 every day. 
 
 I had no past, painful or otherwise, which I could even 
 wish to conceal ; I had no thought that I desired hidden 
 from the man who had become my other self. What there 
 was of good in me, what of evil, he saw. It was laid open 
 to him, and he appeared to consider that the good pre-
 
 The First Violin 207 
 
 dominated over the bad; for, from that first day of meet- 
 ing, our intimacy went on steadily in one direction 
 increasing, deepening. He was six years older than I was. 
 At the end of this time of which I speak he was one and 
 thirty, I five and twenty; but we met on equal ground 
 not that I had anything approaching his capacities in any 
 way. I do not think that had anything to do with it. 
 Our happiness did not depend on mental supremacy. I 
 loved him because I could not help it; he me, because 
 upon my word, I can think of no good reason prob- 
 ably because he did. 
 
 And yet we were as unlike as possible. He had habits 
 of reckless extravagance or what seemed to me reckless 
 extravagance and a lordly manner (when he forgot him- 
 self) of speaking of things, which absolutely appalled my 
 economical burgher-soul. I had certain habits, too the 
 outcomes of my training, and my sparing, middle-class way 
 of living which I saw puzzled him very much. To cite 
 only one insignificant incident. We were both great read- 
 ers, and, despite our sometimes arduous work, contrived 
 to get through a good amount of books in the year. One 
 evening he came home with a brand-new novel, in three 
 volumes, in his hands. 
 
 " Here, Friedel ; here is some mental dissipation for 
 to-night. Drop that Schopenhauer, and study Heyse. 
 Here is the Kinder der Weft it will suit our case exactly, 
 for it is what we are ourselves." 
 
 " How clean it looks ! " I observed innocently. 
 
 " So it ought, seeing that I have just paid for it."
 
 zoS The First Violin 
 
 " Paid for it !" I almost shouted. " Paid for it ! You 
 don't mean that you have bought the book ? " 
 
 " Calm thy troubled spirit ! You don't surely mean 
 that you thought me capable of stealing the book ? " 
 
 " You are hopeless. You have paid at least eighteen 
 marks for it." 
 
 " That's the figure to a pfennig." 
 
 " Well," said I, with conscious superiority, " you might 
 have had the whole three volumes from the library for five 
 or six groschen." 
 
 " I know. But their copy looked so disgustingly greasy 
 I couldn't have touched it; so I ordered a new one." 
 
 " Very well. Your accounts will look well when you 
 come to balance and take stock," I retorted. 
 
 " What a fuss about a miserable eighteen marks ! " said 
 he, stretching himself out, and opening a volume. 
 " Come, Sig, learn how the children of the world are wiser 
 in their generation than the children of light, and leave 
 that low person to prematurely age himself by beginning to 
 balance his accounts before they are ripe for it." 
 
 " I don't know whether you are aware that you are talk- 
 ing the wildest and most utter rubbish that was ever con- 
 ceived," said I, nettled. "There is simply no sense in 
 it. Given an income of " 
 
 " Aber, ich bitte Dich ! " he implored, though laughing ; 
 and I was silent. 
 
 But his three volumes of the Kinder der Welt furnished 
 me with many an opportunity to " point a moral, or adorn 
 a tale," and I believe really warned him off one or two
 
 The First Violin 209 
 
 other similar extravagances. The idea of men in our posi- 
 tion recklessly ordering three-volume novels because the 
 circulating library copy happened to be greasy, was one I 
 could not get over for a long time. 
 
 We still inhabited the same rooms at No. 45, in the 
 Wehrhahn. We had outstayed many other tenants ; men 
 had come and gone, both from our house and from those 
 rooms over the way whose windows faced ours. We passed 
 our time in much the same way hard work at our profes- 
 sion, and, with Eugen at least, hard work out of it ; the 
 education of his boy, whom he made his constant com- 
 panion in every leisure moment, and taught, with a wisdom 
 that I could hardly believe it seemed so like inspiration 
 composition, translation, or writing of his own inces- 
 sant employment of some kind. He never seemed able to 
 pass an idle moment ; and yet there were times when, it 
 seemed to me, his work did not satisfy him, but rather 
 seemed to disgust him. 
 
 Once when I asked him if it were so, he laid down his 
 pen and said, " Yes." 
 
 " Then why do you do it ? " 
 
 " Because for no reason that I know; but because lam 
 an unreasonable fool." 
 
 " An unreasonable fool to work hard ? " 
 
 " No ; but to go on as if hard work now can ever undo 
 what years of idleness have done." 
 
 " Do you believe in work ? " I asked. 
 
 " I believe it i the very highest and holiest thing there 
 is, and the grandest purifier and cleanser in the world. 
 14
 
 210 The First Violin 
 
 But it is not a panacea against every ill. I believe that 
 idleness is sometimes as strong as work, and stronger. 
 You may do that in a few years of idleness which a life- 
 time of afterwork won't cover, mend, or improve. You 
 may make holes in your coat from sheer laziness, and then 
 find that no amount of stitching will patch them up 
 again." 
 
 I seldom answered these mystic monologues. Love gives 
 a wonderful sharpness even to dull wits; it had sharpened 
 mine so that I often felt he indulged in those speeches out 
 of sheer desire to work off some grief or bitterness from 
 his heart, but that a question might, however innocent, 
 overshoot the mark, and touch a sore spot the thing I 
 most dreaded. And I did not feel it essential to my regard 
 for him to know every item of his past. 
 
 In such cases, however, when there is something behind 
 when one knows it, only does not know what it is (and 
 Eugen had never tried to conceal from me that something 
 had happened to him which he did not care to tell) then, 
 even though one accept the fact, as I accepted it, without 
 dispute or resentment, one yet involuntarily builds theo- 
 ries, has ideas, or rather the ideas shape themselves about 
 the object of interest, and take their coloring from him, 
 one cannot refrain from conjectures, surmises. Mine were 
 necessarily of the most vague and shadowy description; 
 more negative than active, less theories as to what he had 
 been or done than inferences from what he let fall in talk 
 or conduct as to what he had not been or done. 
 
 In our three years' acquaintance, it is true, there had not
 
 The First Violin 211 
 
 been much opportunity for any striking display on his part 
 of good or bad qualities; but certainly ample opportunity 
 of testing whether he were, taken all in all, superior, even 
 with, or inferior to the average man of our average ac- 
 quaintance. And, briefly speaking, to me he had become 
 a standing model of a superior man. 
 
 I had by this time learnt to know that when there were 
 many ways of looking at a question, that one, if there 
 were such an one, which was less earthily practical, more 
 ideal and less common than the others, would most inevi- 
 tably be the view taken by Eugen Courvoisier, and advo- 
 cated by him with warmth, energy, and eloquence to the 
 very last. The point from which he surveyed the things 
 and the doings of life was, taken all in all, a higher one 
 than that of other men, and was illumined with some- 
 thing of the purple splendor of that " light that never was 
 on sea or land." A less practical conduct, a more ideal 
 view of right and wrong sometimes a little fantastic even 
 always imbued with something of the knightliness which 
 sat upon him as a natural attribute. Ritterlich, Karl Lin- 
 ders called him, half in jest, half in earnest; and ritterlich 
 he was. 
 
 In his outward demeanor to the world with which he 
 came in contact, he was courteous to men ; to a friend or 
 intimate, as myself, an ever-new delight and joy; to all 
 people, truthful to fantasy ; and to women, on the rare 
 occasions on which I ever saw hirn in their company, he 
 was polite and deferential but rather overwhelmingly so; 
 it was a politeness which raised a barrier, and there was a
 
 212 The First Violin 
 
 glacial surface to the manner. I remarked this, and 
 speculated about it. He seemed to have one manner to 
 every woman with whom he had anything to do, the 
 maidservant who, at her leisure or pleasure, was supposed 
 to answer our behests (though he would often do a thing 
 himself, alleging that he preferred doing so to " seeing 
 that poor creature's apron "), old Frau Henschel who sold 
 the programmes at the Casse at the concerts, to the young 
 ladies who presided behind a counter, to every woman to 
 whom he spoke a chance word, up to Frau Sybel, the wife 
 of the great painter, who came to negotiate about lessons 
 for the lovely Fraulein, her daughter, who wished to play 
 a different instrument from that affected by every one else. 
 The same inimitable courtesy, the same unruffled, unruffl- 
 able quiet indifference, and the same utter unconsciousness 
 that he, or his appearance, or behavior, or anything about 
 him, could possibly interest them. And yet he was a man 
 eminently calculated to attract women, only he never to 
 this day has been got to believe so, and will often depre- 
 cate his poor power of entertaining ladies. 
 
 I often watched this little by-play of behavior from and 
 to the fairer sex with silent amusement, more particularly 
 when Eugen and I made shopping expeditions for Sig- 
 mund's benefit. We once went to buy stockings winter 
 stockings for him; it was a large miscellaneous and small- 
 ware shop, full of young women behind the counters and 
 ladies of all ages before them. 
 
 We found ourselves in the awful position of being the 
 only male creatures in the place, Happy in my insignifi-
 
 The First Violin 213 
 
 cance and plainness, I survived the glances that were 
 thrown upon us ; I did not wonder that they fell upon 
 my companions. Eugen consulted a little piece of 
 paper on which Frau Schmidt had written down what 
 we were to ask for, and, marching straight up to a disen- 
 gaged shopwoman, requested to be shown colored woollen 
 stockings. 
 
 " For yourself, mein Herr?" she inquired, with a fas- 
 cinating smile. 
 
 "No, thank you; for my little boy," says Eugen 
 politely, glancing deferentially round at the piles of wool 
 and packets of hosen around. 
 
 "Ah, so! For the young gentleman? Bitte, meine 
 Herren, be seated." And she gracefully pushes chairs for 
 us ; on one of which I, unable to resist so much affability, 
 sit down. 
 
 Eugen remains standing; and Sigmund, desirous of 
 having a voice in the matter, mounts upon his stool, kneels 
 upon it, and leans his elbows on the counter. 
 
 The affable young woman returns, and with a glance at 
 Eugen that speaks of worlds beyond colored stockings, 
 proceeds to untie a packet and display her wares. He turns 
 them over. Clearly he does not like them, and does not 
 understand them. They are striped ; some are striped 
 latitudinally, others longitudinally. Eugen turns them 
 over, and the young woman murmurs that they are of the 
 ^/quality. 
 
 ' ' Are they ? ' ' says he, and his eyes roam round the 
 shop. " Well, Sigmund, wilt thou have legs like a stork,
 
 214 The First Violin 
 
 as these long stripes will inevitably make them, or wilt 
 thou have legs like a zebra's back ? " 
 
 " I should like legs like a little boy, please," is Sig- 
 mund's modest expression of a reasonable desire. 
 
 Eugen surveys them. 
 
 " Von der besten Qua/i/d/," repeats the young woman 
 impressively. 
 
 "Have you no blue ones?" demands Eugen. "All 
 blue, you know. He wears blue clothes." 
 
 " Assuredly, mein Herr, but of a much dearer descrip- 
 tion ; real English, magnificent." 
 
 She retires to find them, and a young lady who has been 
 standing near us turns and observes : 
 
 " Excuse me you want stockings for your little boy ? " 
 
 We both assent. It is a joint affair, of equal impor- 
 tance to both of us. 
 
 " I wouldn't have those," says she, and I remark her 
 face. 
 
 I have seen her often before moreover, I have seen her 
 look very earnestly at Eugen. I learnt later that her name 
 was Anna Sartorius. Ere she can finish, the shopwoman, 
 with wreathed smiles still lingering about her face, returns 
 and produces stockings fine, blue ribbed stockings, such 
 as the children of rich English parents wear. Their fine- 
 ness, and the smooth quality of the wool, and the good 
 shape appear to soothe Eugen's feelings. He pushes away 
 his heap of striped ones, which look still coarser and com- 
 moner now, observing hopefully and cheerily : 
 
 "Ja wol! That is more what I mean." (The poor
 
 The First Violin 215 
 
 dear fellow had meant nothing, but he knew what he wanted 
 when he saw it.) " These look like thy legs, Sigmund, 
 nichtwahr? I'll take " 
 
 I dig him violently in the ribs. 
 
 " Hold on, Eugen ! How much do they cost the pair, 
 Fraulein ? " 
 
 "Two thaler twenty-five; the very best quality," she 
 says, with a ravishing smile. 
 
 " There ! eight shillings a pair ! " say I. " It is ridic- 
 ulous." 
 
 " Eight shillings ! " he repeats ruefully. " That is too 
 much." 
 
 " They are real English, mein Herr," she says feelingly. 
 
 "But, urn Go tteswillen ! don't we make any like them 
 in Germany ? " 
 
 " Oh, sir ! " she says reproachfully. 
 
 "Those others are such brutes," he remarks, evidently 
 wavering. 
 
 I am in despair. The young woman is annoyed to find 
 that he does not even see the amiable looks she has be- 
 stowed upon him, so she sweeps back the heap of striped 
 stockings and announces that they are-only three marks the 
 pair naturally inferior, but you cannot have the best 
 article for nothing. 
 
 Fraulein Sartorius, about to go, says to Eugen : 
 
 " Mein Herr, ask for such and such an article. I know 
 they keep them, and you will find it what you want." 
 
 Eugen, much touched, and much surprised (as he always 
 is and has been) that any one should take an interest in
 
 216 The First Violin 
 
 him, makes a bow, and a speech, and rushes off to open 
 the door for Fraulein Sartorius, thanking her profusely for 
 her goodness. The young lady behind the counter smiles 
 bitterly, and now looks as if butter would not melt in her 
 mouth. I, assuming the practical, mention the class of 
 goods referred to by Fraulein Sartorius, which she unwill- 
 ingly brings forth, and we straightway purchase. The 
 errand accomplished, Eugen takes Sigmund by the hand, 
 makes a grand bow to the young woman, and instructs his 
 son to take off his hat, and, this process being complete, 
 we sally forth again, and half-way home Eugen remarks 
 that it was very kind of that young lady to help us. 
 
 "Very," I assent dryly, and when Sigmund has con- 
 tributed the artless remark that all the ladies laughed at 
 us and looked at us, and has been told by his father not 
 to be self-conceited, for that no one can possibly wish 
 to look at us, we arrive at home, and the stockings are 
 tried on. 
 
 Constantly I saw this willingness to charm on the part of 
 women : constantly the same utter ignorance of any such 
 thought on the part of Eugen, who was continually express- 
 ing his surprise at the kindness of people, and adding with 
 the gravest simplicity that he had always found it so, at 
 which announcement Karl laughed till he had to hold his 
 sides. 
 
 And Sigmund ? Since the day when Courvoisier had 
 said to me, slowly and with difficulty, the words about 
 parting, he had mentioned the subject twice always with 
 the same intention expressed. Once it was when I had
 
 The First Violin 217 
 
 been out during the evening, and he had not. I came 
 into our sitting-room and found it in darkness. A light 
 came from the inner room, and, going towards it, I found 
 that he had placed the lamp upon a distant stand, and was 
 sitting by the child's crib; his arms folded; his face calm 
 and sad. He rose when he saw me, brought the lamp into 
 the parlor again, and said : 
 
 " Pardon, Friedel, that I left you without light. The 
 time of parting will come, you know, and I was taking a 
 look in anticipation of the time when there will be no one 
 there to look at." 
 
 I bowed. There was a slight smile upon his lips, but I 
 would rather have heard a broken voice and seen a mien 
 less serene. 
 
 The second, and only time, up to now, and the events I 
 am coming to, was once when he had been giving Sigmund 
 a music-lesson, as we called it that is to say, Eugen took 
 his violin and played a melody, but incorrectly, and Sig- 
 mund told him every time a wrong note was played, or 
 false time kept. Eugen sat, giving a look now and then 
 at the boy, whose small, delicate face was bright with 
 intelligence, whose dark eyes blazed with life and fire, and 
 whose every gesture betrayed spirit, grace, and quick 
 understanding. A child for a father to be proud of. No 
 meanness there ; no littleness in the fine, high-bred feat- 
 ures ; everything that the father's heart could wish, except 
 perhaps some little want of robustness ; one might have 
 desired that the limbs were less exquisitely graceful and 
 delicate more stout and robust.
 
 2i8 The First Violin 
 
 As Eugen laid aside his violin, he drew the child towards 
 him arid asked (what I had never heard him ask before) : 
 
 " What wilt thou be, Sigmund, when thou art a man ? ' 
 
 "Ja, lieber Vater, I will be just like thee." 
 
 " How just like me ? " 
 
 " I will do what thou dost." 
 
 " So ! Thou wilt be zMusiker like me and Friedel ? " 
 
 " Ja wolf " said Sigmund; but something else seemed 
 to weigh upon his small mind. He eyed his father with 
 a reflective look, then looked down at his own small 
 hands and slender limbs (his legs were cased in the new 
 stockings). 
 
 " How ? " inquired his father. 
 
 " I should like to be a musician," said Sigmund, who 
 had a fine confidence in his sire, and confided his every 
 thought to him. 
 
 " I don't know how to say it," he went on, resting his 
 elbows upon Eugen's knee, and propping his chin upon his 
 two small fists, he looked up into his father's face. 
 
 " Friedhelm is a musician, but he is not like thee," he 
 pursued. Eugen reddened : I laughed. 
 
 " True as can be, Sigmund," I said. 
 
 " ' I would I were as honest a man,' " said Eugen, 
 slightly altering Hamlet ; but as he spoke English I con- 
 tented myself with shaking my head at him. 
 
 "I like Friedel," went on Sigmund. "I love him: 
 he is good. But thou, mein Vater " 
 
 " Well? " asked Eugen again. 
 
 "I will be like thee," said the boy vehemently, hi
 
 The First Violin 219 
 
 eyes filling with tears. " I will. Thou saidst that men 
 who try can do all they will and I will, I will." 
 
 " Why, my child ?" 
 
 It was a long, earnest look that the child gave the man. 
 Eugen had said to me some few days before, and I had 
 fully agreed with him, 
 
 " That child's life is one strife after the beautiful, in 
 art and nature, and life how will he succeed in the 
 search ? ' ' 
 
 I thought of this it flashed subtly through my mind as 
 Sigmund gazed at his father with a childish adoration 
 then, suddenly springing round his neck, said passionately : 
 
 " Thou art so beautiful so beautiful ! I must be like 
 thee." 
 
 Eugen bit his lip momentarily, saying to me in English : 
 
 " I am his God, you see, Friedel. What will he do 
 when he finds out what a common clay figure it was he 
 worshipped ? " 
 
 But he had not the heart to banter the child : only held 
 the little clinging figure to his breast : the breast which 
 Sigmund recognized as his heaven. 
 
 It was after this that Eugen said to me when we were 
 alone : 
 
 " It must come before he thinks less of me than he does 
 now, Friedel." 
 
 To these speeches I could never make any answer, and 
 he always had the same singular smile the same paleness 
 about the lips, and unnatural light in the eyes when he 
 spoke so.
 
 220 The First Violin 
 
 He had accomplished one great feat in those three years 
 he had won over to himself his comrades, and that with- 
 out, so to speak, actively laying himself out to do so. He 
 had struck us all as something so very different from the 
 rest of us, that on his arrival, and for some time afterwards, 
 there lingered some idea that he must be opposed to us. 
 But I very soon, and the rest by gradual degrees, got to 
 recognize that though in not of us, yet he was no natural 
 enemy of ours : if he made no advances, he never avoided 
 or repulsed any, but, on the very contrary, seemed surprised 
 and pleased that any one should take an interest in him. 
 We soon found that he was extremely modest as to his own 
 merits, and eager to acknowledge those of other people. 
 
 " And," said Karl Linders once, twirling his moustache, 
 and smiling in the consciousness that his own outward pre- 
 sentment was not to be called repulsive, " he can't help 
 his looks : no fellow can." 
 
 At the time of which I speak, his popularity was much 
 greater than he knew, or would have believed if he had 
 been told of it. 
 
 Only between him and von Francius there remained a 
 constant gulf and a continual coldness. Von Francius 
 never stepped aside to make friends ; Eugen most certainly 
 never went out of his way to ingratiate himself with von 
 Francius. Courvoisier had been appointed contrary to the 
 wish of von Francius, which perhaps caused the latter to 
 regard him a little coldly even more coldly than was usual 
 with him, and he was never enthusiastic about any one or 
 anything; while to Eugen there was absolutely nothing in
 
 The First Violin 221 
 
 von Francius which attracted him, save the magnificent 
 power of his musical talent a power which was as calm 
 and cold as himself. 
 
 Max von Francius was a man about whom there were 
 various opinions, expressed and unexpressed : he was a per- 
 son who never spoke of himself, and who contrived to live 
 a life more isolated and apart than any one I have ever 
 known, considering that he went much into society, and 
 mixed a good deal with the world. In every circle in 
 Elberthal which could by any means be called select, his 
 society was eagerly sought, nor did he refuse it. His days 
 were full of engagements ; he was consulted, and his 
 opinion deferred to in a singular manner singular, 
 because he was no sayer of smooth things, but the very 
 contrary : because he hung upon no patron, submitted to 
 no dictation, was in his way an autocrat. This state of 
 things he had brought about entirely by force of his own 
 will, and in utter opposition to precedent, for the former 
 directors had been notoriously under the thumb of certain 
 influential outsiders, who were in reality the directors of 
 the Director. It was the universal feeling that though the 
 Herr Direk'tor was the busiest man, and had the largest 
 circle of acquaintance of any one in Elberthal, yet that he 
 was less really known than many another man of half his 
 importance. His business as Musikdircktor took up much 
 of his time : the rest might have been rilled to overflowing 
 with private lessons, but von Francius was not a man to 
 make himself cheap : it was a distinction to be taught by 
 him, the more so as the position or circumstances of a
 
 222 The First Violin 
 
 would-be pupil appeared to make not the very smallest 
 impression upon him. Distinguished for hard, practical 
 common-sense, a ready sneer at anything high-flown or 
 romantic, discouraging not so much enthusiasm as the 
 outward manifestation of it, which he called melodrama> 
 Max von Francius was the cynosure of all eyes in Elber- 
 thal, and bore the scrutiny with glacial indifference.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " MAKE yourself 
 quite easy, Herr Con- 
 certmeister. No child 
 that was left to my 
 charge was ever 
 known to come 
 to harm." 
 
 Thus Frau Schmidt 
 to Eugen, as she 
 stood with dubious smile and 
 
 folded arms in our parlor, and harangued him, while he 
 and I stood, violin-cases in our hands, in a great hurry, 
 and anxious to be off. 
 
 " You are very kind, Frau Schmidt ; I hope he will not 
 trouble you." 
 
 " He is a well-behaved child, and not nearly so dis- 
 agreeable and bad to do with as most. And at what time 
 will you be back ? " 
 
 " That is uncertain. It just depends upon the length 
 of the Probe." 
 
 " Na ! It is all the same. I am going out for a little 
 excursion this afternoon : to the Grafenberg, and I shall 
 take the boy with me." 
 
 " Oh, thank you," said Eugen; " that will be very kind.
 
 224 The First Violin 
 
 He wants some fresh air, and I've had no time to take him 
 out. You are very kind." 
 
 " Trust to me, Herr Concertmeister trust to me," said 
 she, with the usual imperial wave of her hand, as she at 
 last moved aside from the doorway which she had blocked 
 up, and allowed us to pass out. A last wave of the hand 
 from Eugen to Sigmund, and then we hurried away to the 
 station. We were bound for Cologne, where that year the 
 Ix>wer Rhine Musikfest was to be held. It was then some- 
 what past the middle of April, and the Fest came off at 
 Whitsuntide, in the middle of May. We, amongst others, 
 were engaged to strengthen the Cologne orchestra for the 
 occasion, and we were bidden this morning to the first 
 Probe. 
 
 We just caught our train, seeing one or two faces of com- 
 rades we knew, and in an hour were in Cologne. 
 
 "The Tower of Babel," and Raff's Fifth Symphony, 
 that called " Lenore," were the subjects we had been 
 summoned to practise. They, together with Beethoven's 
 Choral Fantasia and some solos were to come off on the 
 third evening of the Fest. 
 
 The Probe lasted a long time : it was three o'clock when 
 we left the Concert Hall, after five hours' hard work. 
 
 " Come along, Eugen," cried I, "we have just time to 
 catch the three ten, but only just." 
 
 " Don't wait for me," he answered with an absent look. 
 " I don't think I shall come by it. Look after yourself, 
 Friedel, and Auf Wiedersehcn .' " 
 
 I was scarcely surprised, for I had seen that the music
 
 The First Violin 225 
 
 had deeply moved him, and I can understand the wish of 
 any man to be alone with the remembrance or continuance 
 of such emotions. Accordingly I took my way to the sta- 
 tion, and there met one or two of my Elberthal comrades, 
 who had been on the same errand as myself, and, like me, 
 were returning home. 
 
 Lively remarks upon the probable features of the coming 
 Fest, and the circulation of any amount of loose and hazy 
 gossip respecting composers and soloists followed, and we 
 all went to our usual restauration and dined together. 
 There was an opera that night to which we had Probe that 
 afternoon, and I scarcely had time to rush home and give a 
 look at Sigmund before it was time to go again to the 
 theatre. 
 
 Eugen's place remained empty. For the first time since 
 he had come into the orchestra he was absent from his 
 post, and I wondered what could have kept him. 
 
 Taking my way home, very tired, with fragments of airs 
 from Czar und Zimmermann, in which I had just been play- 
 ing, the " March " from " Lenore," and scraps of choruses 
 and airs from the Thurm zu Babel, all ringing in my head 
 in a confused jumble, I sprang up the stairs (up which I 
 used to plod so wearily and so spiritlessly), and went into 
 the sitting-room. Darkness ! After I had stood still and 
 gazed about for a time, my eyes grew accustomed to the 
 obscurity. I perceived that a dim gray light still stole in 
 at the open window, and that some one reposing in an 
 easy-chair was faintly shadowed out against it. 
 
 " Is that you, Friedhelm ? " asked Eugen's voice, 
 is
 
 226 The First Violin 
 
 " Lieber Himmel ! Are you there? What are you 
 doing in the dark ? " 
 
 " Light the lamp, myFriedel ! Dreams belong to dark- 
 ness, and facts to light. Sometimes I wish light and facts 
 had never been invented." 
 
 I found the lamp and lighted it, carried it up to him 
 and stood before him, contemplating him curiously. He 
 lay back in our one easy-chair, his hands clasped behind 
 his head, his legs outstretched. He had been idle for the 
 first time, I think, since I had known him. He had been 
 sitting in the dark, not even pretending to do anything. 
 
 "There are things new under the sun," said I, in 
 mingled amusement and amaze. " Absent from your post, 
 to the alarm and surprise of all who know you, here I find 
 you mooning in the darkness, and when I illuminate you, 
 you smile up at me in a somewhat imbecile manner, and 
 say nothing. What may it portend ? " 
 
 He roused himself, sat up, and looked at me with an 
 ambiguous half smile. 
 
 " Most punctual of men ! most worthy, honest, fidgety 
 old friend," said he, with still the same suppressed smile, 
 " how I honor you ! How I wish I could emulate you ! 
 How I wish I were like you ! and yet, Friedel, old boy, 
 you have missed something this afternoon." 
 
 " So ! I should like to know what you have been doing. 
 Give an account of yourself." 
 
 " I have erred and gone astray, and have found it pleas- 
 ant. I have done that which I ought not to have done, 
 and am sorry, for the sake of morality and propriety, to
 
 The First Violin 227 
 
 have to say that it was delightful ; far more delightful 
 than to go on doing just what one ought to do. Say, good 
 Mentor, does it matter ? For this occasion only. Never 
 again, as I am a living man." 
 
 " I wish you would speak plainly," said I, first putting 
 the lamp and then myself upon the table. I swung my legs 
 about and looked at him. 
 
 " And not go on telling you stories like that of Miinch- 
 hausen, in Arabesks, eh ? I will be explicit ; I will use 
 the indicative mood, present tense. Now then ! I like 
 Cologne, I like the cathedral of that town ; I like the Hotel 
 du Nord; and, above all, I love the railway station." 
 
 " Are you raving ? " 
 
 " Did you ever examine the Cologne railway station ? " 
 he went on, lighting a cigar. " There is a great big wait- 
 ing-room, which they lock up; there is a delightful place 
 in which you may get lost, and find yourself suddenly alone 
 in a deserted wing of the building, with an impertinent 
 porter, who doesn't understand one word of Eng of your 
 native tongue " 
 
 " Are you mad ? " was my varied comment. 
 
 " And while you are in the greatest distress, separated 
 from your friends, who have gone on to Elberthal (like 
 mine), and struggling to make this porter understand you, 
 you may be encountered by a mooning individual a native 
 of the land and you may address him. He drives the 
 fumes of music from his brain, and looks at you, and finds 
 you charming more than charming. My dear Friedhelm, 
 ' the look in your eye is quite painful to see.' By the
 
 228 The First Violin 
 
 exercise of a little diplomacy, which, as you are charmingly 
 naive, you do not see through, he manages to seal an alli- 
 ance by which you and he agree to pass three or four hours 
 in each other's society, for mutual instruction and enter- 
 tainment. The entertainment consists of cutlets, potatoes 
 the kind called Kartoffeln frites, which they give you 
 very good at the Nord and the wine known to us as Doc- 
 torberger. The instruction is varied, and is carried on 
 chiefly in the aisle of the Kolner Dom, to the sound of 
 music. And when he is quite spellbound, in a magic 
 circle, a kind of golden net or cloud, he pulls out an earthly 
 watch, made of dust and dross (' More fool he,' your eye 
 says, and you are quite right), and sees that time is advanc- 
 ing. A whole army of horned things with stings, called 
 feelings of propriety, honor, correctness, the right thing, 
 etc., come in thick battalions in Sturmschritt upon him, and 
 with a hasty word he hurries her he gets off to the station. 
 There is still an hour, for both are coming to Elberthal an 
 hour of unalloyed delight ; then ' ' he snapped his fingers 
 " a droschke, an address, a crack of the whip, and ade ! " 
 I sat and stared at him while he wound up this rhodo- 
 montade by singing : 
 
 " Ade, ade, ade ! 
 Ja, Scheiden und Meiden thut weh ! " 
 
 " You are too young and fair," he presently resumed, 
 "too slight and sober for apoplexy; but a painful fear 
 seizes me that your mental faculties are under some slight 
 cloud. There is a vacant look in your usually radiant eye ; 
 a want of intelligence in the curve of your rosy lip "
 
 The First Violin 229 
 
 " Eugen ! Stop that string of fantastic rubbish ! Where 
 have you been, and what have you been doing ? " 
 
 " I have not deserved that from you. Haven't I been 
 tellingyou all this time where I have been and what I have 
 been doing ? There is a brutality in your behavior which 
 is to a refined mind most lamentable." 
 
 " But where have you been, and what have you done? " 
 
 " Another time, mein Lieber another time ! " 
 
 With this misty promise I had to content myself. I 
 speculated upon the subject for that evening, and came to 
 the conclusion that he had invented the whole story, to see 
 whether I would believe it (for we had all a reprehen- 
 sible habit of that kind) ; and very soon the whole circum- 
 stance dropped from my memory. 
 
 On the following morning I had occasion to go to the 
 public Eye Hospital. Eugen and I had interested ourselves 
 to procure a ticket for free, or almost free, treatment as an 
 out-patient for a youth whom we knew one of the second 
 violins whose sight was threatened, and who, poor boy, 
 could not afford to pay for proper treatment. Eugen being 
 busy, I went to receive the ticket. 
 
 It was the first time I had been in the place. I was 
 shown into a room with the light somewhat obscured, and 
 there had to wait some few minutes. Every one had 
 something the matter with his or her eyes at least, so I 
 thought, until my own fell upon a girl who leaned, look- 
 ing a little tired and a little disappointed, against a tall 
 desk at one side of the room. 
 
 She struck me on the instant, as no feminine appearance
 
 230 The First Violin 
 
 had ever struck me before. She, like myself, seemed to be 
 waiting for some one or something. She was tall and sup- 
 ple in figure, and her face was girlish and very innocent- 
 looking; and yet, both in her attitude and countenance, 
 there was a little pride, some hauteur. It was evidently 
 natural to her, and sat well upon her. A slight, but exqui- 
 sitely-moulded figure, different from those of our stalwart 
 Elberthaler Mddchen finer, more refined and distin- 
 guished, and a face to dream of. I thought it then, and I 
 say it now. Masses, almost too thick and heavy, of dark 
 auburn hair, with here and there a glint of warmer hue, 
 framed that beautiful face half woman's, half child's. 
 Dark gray eyes, with long dark lashes and brows ; cheeks 
 naturally very pale, but sensitive, like some delicate ala- 
 baster, showing the red at every wave of emotion; some- 
 thing racy, piquant, unique, enveloped the whole appear- 
 ance of this young girl. I had never seen anything at all 
 like her before. 
 
 She looked wearily round the room, and sighed a little. 
 Then her eyes met mine ; and, seeing the earnestness with 
 which I looked at her, she turned away, and a slight very 
 slight flush appeared in her cheek. 
 
 I had time to notice (for everything about her interested 
 me) that her dress was of the very plainest and simplest 
 kind so plain as to be almost poor and its fashion not 
 of the newest, even in Elberthal. 
 
 Then my name was called out. I received my ticket, 
 and went to the Probe at the theatre.
 
 -" xW' ' ' ' 
 
 fe^# 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " Wishes are pilgrims to the vale of tears." 
 
 A WEEK ten days passed. I did not see the beautiful 
 girl again nor did I forget her. One night, at the opera, 
 
 I found her. It was Lohengrin but she has told all that 
 
 f 
 story herself how Eugen came in late (he had a trick of 
 
 never coming in till the last minute, and I used to think 
 he had some reason for it) and the recognition and the 
 cut direct, first on her side, then on his. 
 
 Eugen and I walked home together, arm-in-arm, and I 
 felt provoked with him. 
 
 " I say, Eugen, did you see the young lady with Vincent 
 and the others in the first row of the Parquet ? " 
 
 " I saw some six or eight ladies of various ages in the 
 first row of the Parquet. Some were old, and some were 
 young. One had a knitted shawl over her head, which 
 she kept on during the whole of the performance." 
 
 " Don't be so maddening. I said the young lady with 
 Vincent, and Fraulein Sartorius. By-the-bye, Eugen, do 
 you know, or have you ever known her ? ' ' 
 
 "Whom?" 
 
 " Fraulein Sartorius."
 
 232 The First Violin 
 
 "Who is she?" 
 
 "Oh, bother! The young lady I mean sat exactly 
 opposite to you and me a beautiful young girl ; an Eng- 
 Idnderin fair, with that hair that we never see here, 
 and " 
 
 " In a brown hat sitting next to Vincent. I saw her 
 yes." 
 
 " She saw you too." 
 
 " She must have been blind if she hadn't." 
 
 " Have you seen her before ? " 
 
 " I have seen her before yes." 
 
 " And spoken to hei^? " 
 
 " Even spoken to her." 
 
 " Do tell me what it all means." 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 " But, Eugen " 
 
 " Are you so struck with her, Friedel ! Don't lose your 
 heart to her, I warn you." 
 
 "Why?" I inquired wilily, hoping the answer would 
 give me some clue to his acquaintance with her. 
 
 " Because, mein Bester, she is a cut above you and me 
 in a different sphere one that we know nothing about. 
 What is more, she knows it, and shows it. Be glad that 
 you cannot lay yourself open to the snub that I got to- 
 night." 
 
 There was so much bitterness in his tone that I was sur- 
 prised. But a sudden remembrance flashed into my mind 
 of his strange remarks after I had left him that day at 
 Cologne, and I laughed to myself, nor, when he asked me,
 
 The First Violin 233 
 
 would I tell him why. That evening he had very little to 
 say to Karl Linders and myself. 
 
 Eugen never spoke to me of the beautiful girl who had 
 behaved so strangely that evening, though we saw her 
 again and again. 
 
 Sometimes I used to meet her in the street, in company 
 with a dark, plain girl, Anna Sartorius, who, I fancied, 
 always surveyed Eugen with a look of recognition. The 
 two young women formed in appearance an almost star- 
 tling contrast. She came to all the concerts, as if she made 
 music a study generally she was with a stout, good- 
 natured-looking German Fraulein, and the young English- 
 man, Vincent. There was always something rather melan- 
 choly about her grace and beauty. 
 
 Most beautiful she was : with long, slender, artist-like 
 hands, the face a perfect oval, but the features more 
 piquant than regular sometimes a subdued fire glowed in 
 her eyes and compressed her lips, which removed her alto- 
 gether from the category of spiritless beauties a genus 
 for which I never had the least taste. 
 
 One morning, Courvoisier and I, standing just within 
 the entrance to the theatre orchestra, saw two people go 
 by. One, a figure well enough known to every one in 
 Elberthal, and especially to us that of Max von Francius. 
 Did I ever say that von Francius was an exceedingly hand- 
 some fellow, in a certain dark, clean-shaved style ? On 
 that occasion he was speaking with more animation than 
 was usual with him, and the person to whom he had unbent 
 so far was the fair Englishwoman this enigmatical beauty
 
 234 The First Violin 
 
 who had cut my friend at the opera. She also was looking 
 animated and very beautiful : her face turned to his with 
 a smile a glad, gratified smile. He was saying: 
 
 " But in the next lesson, you know 
 
 They passed on. I turned, to ask Eugen if he had seen. 
 I needed not to put the question. He had seen. There 
 was a forced smile upon his lips. Before I could speak he 
 had said : 
 
 "It's time to go in, Friedel ; come along!" With 
 which he turned into the theatre, and I followed thought- 
 fully. 
 
 Then it was rumored that at the coming concert the 
 benefit of von Franci us a new soprano was to appear a 
 young lady of whom report used varied tones : somebeliev-. 
 able facts at least we learnt about her. Her name, they 
 said, was Wedderburn ; she was an Englishwoman, and had 
 a most wonderful voice. The Herr Direktor took a very 
 deep interest in her. He not only gave her lessons ; he 
 had asked to give her lessons, and intended to form of her 
 an artiste who should one day be to the world a kind of 
 Patti, Lucca, or Nilsson. 
 
 I had no doubt in my own mind as to who she was, but 
 for all that I felt considerable excitement on the evening 
 of the Hauptprobe to the Verlorene Paradies. 
 
 Yes I was right. Miss Wedderburn, the pupil of von 
 Francius, of whom so much was prophesied, was the beau- 
 tiful forlorn-looking English girl. The feeling which grew 
 upon me that evening, and which I never found reason 
 afterwards to alter, was that she was modest, gentle, yet
 
 The First Violin 235 
 
 spirited, very gifted, and an artiste by nature and gift, yet 
 sadly ill at ease and out of place in that world into which 
 von Francius wished to lead her. 
 
 She sat quite near to Eugen and me, and I saw how alone 
 she was, and how she seemed to feel her loneliness. I 
 saw how certain young ladies drew themselves together, 
 and looked at her (it was on this occasion that I first began 
 to notice the silent behavior of women towards each other, 
 and the more I have observed, the more has my wonder 
 grown and increased), and whispered behind their music, 
 and shrugged their shoulders when von Francius, seeing 
 how isolated she seemed, bent forward and said a few 
 kind words to her. 
 
 I liked him for it. After all, he was a man. But his 
 distinguishing the child did not add to the delights of her 
 position rather made it worse. I put myself in her place 
 as well as I could, and felt her feelings when von Francius 
 introduced her to one of the young ladies near her, who 
 first stared at him, then at her, then inclined her head a 
 little forward and a little backward, turned her back upon 
 Miss Wedderburn, and appeared lost in conversation of the 
 deepest importance with her neighbor. And I thought of 
 the words which Karl Linders had said to us in haste and 
 anger, after a disappointment he had lately had, " Das 
 Weib ist der Teufel." Yes, Woman is the Devil' some- 
 times, thought I, and a mean kind of devil too. A female 
 Mephistopheles would not have damned Gretchen's soul, 
 nor killed her body; she would have left the latter on 
 this earthly sphere, and damned her reputation.
 
 236 The First Violin 
 
 Von Francius was a clever man, but he made a grand 
 mistake that night, unless he were desirous of making his 
 protegee as uncomfortable as possible. How could those 
 ladies feel otherwise than insulted at seeing the man of ice 
 so suddenly attentive and bland to a nobody, an upstart, 
 and a beautiful one ? 
 
 The Probe continued, and still she sat alone and un- 
 spoken to, her only acquaintance or companion seeming to 
 be Fraulein Sartorius, with whom she had come in. I saw 
 how, when von Francius called upon her to do her part, and 
 the looks which had hitherto been averted from her were 
 now turned pitilessly and unwinkingly upon her, she 
 quailed. She bit her lip ; her hand trembled. I turned 
 to Eugen with a look which said volumes. He sat with 
 his arms folded, and his face perfectly devoid of all 
 expression, gazing straight before him. 
 
 Miss Wedderburn might have been satisfied to the full 
 with her revenge. That was a voice ! such a volume of 
 pure, exquisite melody as I had rarely heard. After hear- 
 ing that, all doubts were settled. The gift might be a 
 blessing or a curse let every one decide that for himself, 
 according to his style of thinking but it was there. She 
 possessed the power which put her out of the category of 
 commonplace, and had the most melodious Open, Sesame ! 
 with which to besiege the doors of the courts in which 
 dwell artists creative and interpretative. 
 
 The performance finished the gap between her and her 
 companions. Their looks said, " You are not one of us." 
 My angry spirit said, " No ; you can never be like her."
 
 The First Violin 237 
 
 She seemed half afraid of what she had done when it 
 was over, and shrank into herself with downcast eyes and 
 nervous quivering of the lips at the subdued applause of the 
 men. I wanted to applaud too, but I looked at Eugen. 
 I had instinctively given him some share in the affairs of 
 this lovely creature a share which he always strenuously 
 repudiated, both tacitly and openly. 
 
 Nevertheless, when I saw him I abstained from applaud- 
 ing, knowing, by a lightning-quick intuition, that it would 
 be highly irritating to him. He showed no emotion; if 
 he had done, I should not have thought the occasion was 
 anything special to him. It was his absurd gravity, stony 
 inexpressiveness, which impressed me with the fact that 
 he was moved moved against his will and his judgment. 
 He could no more help approving both of her and her 
 voice than he could help admiring a perfect, half-opened 
 rose. 
 
 It was over, and we went out of the Saal, across the road, 
 and home. 
 
 Sigmund, who had not been very well that day, was awake, 
 and restless. Eugen took him up, wrapped him in a little 
 bed-gown, carried him into the other room, and sat down 
 with him. The child rested his head on the loved breast, 
 and was soothed. 
 
 ***** 
 
 She had gone ; the door had closed after her. Eugen 
 turned to me, and took Sigmund into his arms again. 
 
 " Papa, who is the beautiful lady, and why did you 
 speak so harshly to her ? Why did you make her cry ? "
 
 238 The First Violin 
 
 The answer, though ostensibly spoken to Sigmund, was a 
 revelation to me. 
 
 " That I may not have to cry myself," said Eugen, kiss- 
 ing him. 
 
 " Could the lady make thee cry ? " demanded Sigmund, 
 sitting up, much excited at the idea. 
 
 Another kiss and a half laugh was the answer. Then he 
 bade him go to sleep, as he did not understand what he 
 was talking about. 
 
 By-and-by Sigmund did drop to sleep. Eugen carried 
 him to his bed, tucked him up, and returned. We sat in 
 silence such an uncomfortable, constrained silence, as 
 had never before been between us. I had a book before 
 me. I saw no word of it. I could not drive the Vision 
 away the lovely, pleading face, the penitence. Good 
 heavens! How could he repulse her as he had done? 
 Her repeated request that he would take that money 
 what did it all mean ? And, moreover, my heart was 
 sore that he had concealed it all from me. About the 
 past I felt no resentment ; there was a secret there which 
 I respected ; but I was cut up at this. The more I thought 
 of it, the keener was the pain I felt. 
 
 " Friedel ! " 
 
 I looked up. Eugen was leaning across the table, and 
 his hand was stretched towards me; his eyes looked full 
 into mine. I answered his look, but I was not clear 
 yet. 
 
 " Forgive me ! " 
 
 " Forgive thee what ? "
 
 The First Violin 239 
 
 * 
 
 "This playing with thy confidence." 
 
 "Don't mention it," I forced myself to say, but the 
 sore feeling still remained. " You have surely a right to 
 keep your affairs to yourself if you choose." 
 
 " You will not shake hands ? Well, perhaps I have no 
 right to ask it ; but I should like to tell you all about it." 
 
 I put my hand into his. 
 
 " I was wounded," said I, " it is true. But it is over." 
 
 "Then listen, Friedel !" 
 
 He told me the story of his meeting with Miss Wedder- 
 burn. All he said of the impression she had made upon 
 him was : 
 
 " I thought her very charming, and the loveliest crea- 
 ture I had ever seen. And about the trains. It stands in 
 this way. I thought a few hours of her society would make 
 me very happy, and would be like oh, well ! I knew that 
 in the future, if she ever should see me again, she would 
 either treat me with distant politeness as an inferior, or, 
 supposing she discovered that I had cheated her, would cut 
 me dead. And as it did not matter, as I could not pos- 
 sibly be an acquaintance of hers in the future, I gave 
 myself that pleasure then. It has turned out a mistake on 
 my part, but that is nothing new ', my whole existence has 
 been a monstrous mistake. However, now she sees what a 
 churl's nature was under my fair-seeming exterior, her pride 
 will show her what to do. She will take a wrong view of 
 my character, but what does that signify ? She will say 
 that to be deceitful first and uncivil afterwards are the 
 main features of the German character, and when she is at
 
 240 The First Violin 
 
 Cologne on her honeymoon, she will tell her bridegroom 
 about this adventure, and he will remark that the fellow 
 wanted horsewhipping, and she " 
 
 " There ! You have exercised your imagination quite 
 sufficiently. Then you intend to keep up this farce of not 
 recognizing her. Why ? " 
 
 He hesitated, looked as nearly awkward as he could, 
 and said a little constrainedly: 
 
 " Because I think it will be for the best." 
 
 " For you or for her ? " I inquired, not very fairly, but 
 I could not resist it. 
 
 Eugen flushed all over his face. 
 
 " What a question ! " was all he said. 
 
 " I do not think it such a remarkable question. Either 
 you have grown exceedingly nervous as to your own strength 
 of resistance, or you fear for hers." 
 
 " Friedhelm," said he in a cutting voice, "that is a 
 tone which I should not have believed you capable of tak- 
 ing. It is vulgar, my dear fellow, and uncalled for; and 
 it is so unlike you that I am astonished. If you had been 
 one of the other fellows " 
 
 I fired up. 
 
 " Excuse me, Eugen, it might be vulgar if I were merely 
 chaffing you, but I'm not ; and I think, after what you have 
 told me, that I have said very little. I am not so sure of 
 her despising you. She looks much more as if she were 
 distressed at your despising her." 
 
 " Pre pos ter ous ! " 
 
 " If you can mention an instance in her behavior this
 
 The First Violin 241 
 
 evening which looked as if she were desirous of snubbing 
 you, I should be obliged by your mentioning it," I con- 
 tinued. 
 
 " Well well " 
 
 " Well well. If she had wished to snub you she would 
 have sent you that money through the post, and made an 
 end of it. She simply desired, as was evident all along, 
 to apologize for having been rude to a person who had 
 been kind to her. /can quite understand it, and I am not 
 sure that your behavior will not have the very opposite 
 effect to that you expect." 
 
 " I think you are mistaken. However, it does not mat- 
 ter; our paths lie quite apart. She will have plenty of 
 other things to take up her time and thoughts. Anyhow I 
 am glad that you and I are quits once more." 
 
 So was I. We said no more upon the subject, but I 
 always felt as if a kind of connecting link existed between 
 my friend and me, and that beautiful, solitary English 
 girl. 
 
 The link was destined to become yet closer. The con- 
 cert was over at which she sang. She had a success. I 
 see she has not mentioned it; a success which isolated 
 her still more from her companions, inasmuch as it made 
 her more distinctly professional and them more severely 
 virtuous. 
 
 One afternoon, when Eugen and I happened to have 
 
 nothing to do, we took Sigmund to the Grafenberg. We 
 
 wandered about in the fir- wood, and at last came to a 
 
 pause and rested. Eugen lay upon his back and gazed up 
 
 16
 
 242 The First Violin 
 
 into the thickness of brown-green fir above, and perhaps 
 guessed at the heaven beyond the dark shade. I sat and 
 stared before me through the straight red-brown stems, 
 across the ground, 
 
 " With sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged," 
 
 to an invisible beyond which had charms forme, and was a 
 kind of symphonic beauty in my mind. Sigmund lay flat 
 upon his stomach, kicked his heels, and made intricate 
 patterns with the fir needles, while he hummed a gentle 
 song to himself in a small, sweet voice, true as a lark's, 
 but sadder. There was utter stillness and utter calm all 
 around. 
 
 Presently Eugen's arm stole around Sigmund and drew 
 him closer and closer to him, and they continued to look at 
 each other until a mutual smile broke upon both faces, 
 and the boy said, his whole small frame as well as his voice 
 quivering (the poor little fellow had nerves that vibrated 
 to the slightest emotion) : " I love thee." 
 
 A light leaped into the father's eyes : a look of pain fol- 
 lowed it quickly. 
 
 " And I shall never leave thee," said Sigmund. 
 
 Eugen parried the necessity of speaking by a kiss. 
 
 " I love thee too, Friedel," continued he, taking my 
 hand. " We are very happy together, aren't we ? " And 
 he laughed placidly to himself. 
 
 Eugen, as if stung by some tormenting thought, sprang 
 up, and we left the wood. 
 
 Oh, far-back, bygone day ! There was a soft light over
 
 The First Violin 243 
 
 you shed by a kindly sun. That was a time in which joy 
 ran a golden thread through the gray homespun of every- 
 day life. 
 
 Back to the restauration at the foot of the Berg, where 
 Sigmund was supplied with milk, and Eugen and I with 
 beer, where we sat at a little wooden table in a garden, 
 and the pleasant clack .of friendly conversation sounded 
 around ; where the women tried to make friends with Sig- 
 mund, and the girls whispered behind their coffee-cups, or 
 (pace, elegant fiction !) their beer glasses, and always hap- 
 pened to be looking up if our eyes roved that way. Two 
 poor Musiker and a little boy : persons of no importance 
 whatever, who could scrape their part in the symphonic 
 with some intelligence, and feel they had done their duty. 
 Well, well ! it is not all of us who can do even so much. 
 1 know some instruments that are always out of tune. Let 
 us be complacent where we justly can. The opportunities 
 are few. 
 
 We took our way home. The days were long, and it was 
 yet light when we returned and found the reproachful face 
 of Frau Schmidt looking for us, and her arms open to 
 receive the weary little lad who had fallen asleep on his 
 father's shoulder. 
 
 I went upstairs, and, by a natural instinct, to the win- 
 dow. Those facing it were open : some one moved in the 
 room. Two chords of a piano were struck. Some one 
 came and stood by the window, shielded her eyes from the 
 rays of the setting sun which streamed down the street, and 
 looked westwards. Eugen was passing behind me. I
 
 244 The First Violin 
 
 pulled him to the window, and we both looked silently, 
 gravely. 
 
 The girl dropped her hand : her eyes fell upon us. The 
 color mounted to her cheek : she turned away and went to 
 the interior of the room. It was May Wedderburn. 
 
 " Also ! " said Eugen, after a pause. " A new neigh- 
 bor; it reminds me of one of Andersen's Mdhrchen, but I 
 don't know which."
 
 BOOK IV 
 
 CHILDREN OF THE WORLD 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " For though he lived aloof from ken, 
 The world's unwitnessed denizen, 
 
 The love within him stirs 
 Abroad, and with the hearts of men 
 
 His own confers." 
 
 " THE story of my life from day to day " was dull 
 enough, same enough for some time after I went to live at 
 the Wehrhahn. I was studying hard, and my only variety 
 was the letters I had from home ; not very cheering, these. 
 One, which I received from Adelaide, puzzled me some- 
 what. After speaking of her coming marriage in a way 
 which made me sad and uncomfortable, she condescended 
 to express her approval of what I was doing, and went on : 
 
 " I am catholic in my tastes. I suppose all our 
 friends would faint at the idea of there being a singer in 
 the family. Now, I should rather like you to be a singer 
 only be a great one not a little twopenny-half-penny 
 person who has t6 advertise for engagements. 
 
 " Now I am going to give you some advice. This Herr
 
 246 The First Violin 
 
 von Francius your teacher or whatever he is. Be cautious 
 what you are about with him. I don't say more, but I say 
 that again. Be cautious ! Don't burn your fingers. Now, 
 I have not much time, and I hate writing letters, as you 
 know. In a week I am to be married, and then nousver- 
 rons. We go to Paris first, and then on to Rome, where 
 we shall winter to gratify my taste, I wonder, or Sir 
 Peter's, for mouldering rains, ancient pictures, and the 
 Coliseum by moonlight ? I have no doubt that we shall do 
 our duty by the respectable old structures. Remember 
 what I said, and write to me now and then. A." 
 
 I frowned and puzzled a little over this letter. Be cau- 
 tious ? In what possible way could I be cautious ? What 
 need could there be for it when all that passed between me 
 and von Francius was the daily singing lesson at which he 
 was so strict and severe, sometimes so sharp and cutting 
 with me. I saw him then : I saw him also at the constant 
 Proben to concerts whose season had already begun ; Pro- 
 ben to the Passionsmusik, the Messiah, etc. At one or 
 two of these concerts I was to sing. I did not like the 
 idea, but I could not make von Francius see it as I did. 
 He said I must sing it was part of my studies, and I was 
 fain to bend to his will. 
 
 Von Francius I looked at Adelaide's letter, and smiled 
 again. Von Francius had kept his word : he had behaved 
 to me as a kind elder brother. He seemed instinctively 
 to understand the wish, which was very strong on my part, 
 not to live entirely at Miss Hallam's expense to provide, 
 partially at any rate, for myself, if possible. He helped
 
 The First Violin *47 
 
 me to do this. Now he brought me some music to be 
 copied : now he told me of a young lady who wanted lessons 
 in English now of one little thing now of another, 
 which kept me, to my pride and joy, in such slender 
 pocket-money as I needed. Truly, I used to think in those 
 days, it does not need much money nor much room for a 
 person like me to keep her place in the world. I wished 
 to trouble no one only to work as hard as I could, and do 
 the work that was set for me as well as I knew how. I had 
 my wish, and so far was not unhappy. 
 
 But what did Adelaide mean ? True, I had once 
 described von Francius to her as young, that is youngish, 
 clever, and handsome. Did she, remembering my well- 
 known susceptibility, fear that I might fall in love with 
 him, and compromise myself by some silly Schwdrmerei? 
 I laughed aloud all by myself, at the very idea of such a 
 thing. Fall in love with von Francius, and my eyes 
 fell upon the two windows over the way. No : my heart 
 was pure of the faintest feeling for him, save that of 
 respect, gratitude, and liking founded at that time more 
 on esteem than spontaneous growth. And he I smiled at 
 that idea too. 
 
 In all my long interviews with von Francius, throughout 
 f our intercourse he maintained one unvaried tone, that of 
 a kind, frank, protecting interest, with something of the 
 patron on his part. He would converse with me about 
 Schiller and Gothe, true ; he would also caution me 
 against such and such shopkeepers as extortioners, and 
 tell me the place where they gave the largest discount on
 
 248 The First Violin 
 
 music paid for on the spot : would discuss the Waldstein 
 or Appassionato, with me, or the beauties of Rubinstein, or 
 the deep meanings of Schumann, also the relative cost of 
 living en pension or providing for oneself. 
 
 No. Adelaide was mistaken. I wished parenthetically 
 that she could make the acquaintance of von Francius, and 
 learn how mistaken and again my eyes fell upon the op- 
 posite windows. Friedhelm Helfen leaned from one, 
 holding fast Courvoisier's boy. The rich Italian coloring 
 of the lovely young face; the dusky hair; the glow upon 
 the cheeks, the deep blue of his serge dress, made the 
 effect of a warmly-tinted southern flower : it was a flower- 
 face too ; delicate and rich at once. 
 
 Adelaide's letter dropped unheeded to the floor. Those 
 two could not see me, and I had a joy in watching them. 
 
 To say, however, that I actually watched my opposite 
 neighbors would not be true. I studiously avoided watch- 
 ing them : never sat in the window; seldom showed myself 
 at it, though in passing I sometimes allowed myself to lin- 
 ger and so had glimpses of those within. They were three 
 and I was one. They were the happier by two. Or if I 
 knew that they were out, that a Probe was going on, or an 
 opera or concert, there was nothing that I liked better 
 than to sit for a time and look to the opposite windows. 
 They were nearly always open, as were also mine, for the 
 heat of the stove was oppressive to me, and I preferred to 
 temper it with a little of the raw outside air. I used 
 sometimes to hear from those opposite rooms the practising 
 or playing of passages on the violin or violoncello scales,
 
 The First Violin 249 
 
 shakes, long complicated flourishes and phrases. Some- 
 times I heard the very strains that I had to sing to. Airs, 
 scraps of airs, snatches from operas, concertos and sym- 
 phonies. They were always humming and singing things. 
 They came home haunted with "The Last Rose," from 
 Martha now some air from Faust, Der Freischiitz, or 
 Tannhduser. 
 
 But one air was particular to Eugen, who seemed to be 
 perfectly possessed by it that which I had heard him 
 humming when I first met him the March from Lenore. 
 He whistled it and sang it; played it on violin, 'cello and 
 piano ; hummed it first thing in the morning and last thing 
 at night; harped upon it until in despair his companion 
 threw books and music at him, and he, dodging them, 
 laughed, begged pardon, was silent for five minutes, and 
 then the March da Capo, set in a halting kind of measure 
 to the ballad. 
 
 By way of a slight and wholesome variety there was the 
 whole repertory of, Volkslieder, from 
 
 " Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen ; 
 Du, du, liegst mir im Sinn," 
 
 up to 
 
 " Madele, ruck, ruck, ruck 
 An meine griine Seite." 
 
 Sometimes they one or both of them with the boy might 
 be seen at the window leaning out, whistling or talking. 
 When doors banged and quick steps rushed up or down 
 the stairs two steps at a time I knew it was Courvoisier. 
 Friedhelm Helfen's movements were slower and more
 
 250 The First Violin 
 
 sedate. I grew to know his face as well as Eugen's, and to 
 like it better the more I saw of it. A quite young, almost 
 boyish face, with an inexpressibly pure, true, and good 
 expression upon the mouth and in the dark brown eyes. 
 Reticent, as most good faces are, but a face which made 
 you desire to know the owner of it, made you feel that you 
 could trust him in any trial. His face reminded me in a 
 distant manner of two others, also faces of musicians, but 
 greater in their craft than he, they being creators and 
 pioneers, while he was only a disciple of Beethoven and 
 of the living master, Rubinstein. A gentle, though far 
 from weak face, and such a contrast in expression and every- 
 thing else to that of my musician, as to make me wonder 
 sometimes whether they had been drawn to each other 
 from very oppositeness of disposition and character. That 
 they were very great friends I could not doubt ; that the 
 leadership was on Courvoisier's side was no less evident. 
 Eugen's affection for Helfen seemed to have something 
 fatherly in it, while I could see that both joined in an 
 absorbing worship of the boy, who was a very Croesus in 
 love if in nothing else. Sigmund had, too, an adorer in a 
 third musician, a violoncellist, one of their comrades, who 
 apparently spent much of his spare substance in purchasing 
 presents of toys and books and other offerings, which he 
 laid at the shrine of St. Sigmund, with what success I 
 could not tell. Beyond this young fellow Karl Linders, 
 they had not many visitors. Young men used occasionally 
 to appear with violin-cases in their hands, coming for les* 
 sons, probably.
 
 The First Violin 251 
 
 All these things I saw without absolutely watching for 
 them ; they made that impression upon me which the most 
 trifling facts connected with a person around whom cling 
 all one's deepest pleasures and deepest pains ever do and 
 must make. I was glad to know them, but at the same 
 time they impressed the loneliness and aloofness of my 
 own life more decidedly upon me. 
 
 I remember one small incident which at the time it 
 happened struck home to me. My windows were open; it 
 was an October afternoon, mild and sunny. The yellow 
 light shone with a peaceful warmth upon the afternoon 
 quietness of the street. Suddenly that quietness was bro- 
 ken. The sound of music, the peculiar blatant noise of 
 trumpets, smote the air. It came nearer, and with it the 
 measured tramp of feet. I rose and went to look out. A 
 Hussar regiment was passing; before them was borne a 
 soldier's coffin : they carried a comrade to his grave. The 
 music they played was the " Funeral March for the Death 
 of a Hero," from the Sinfonia Eroica, Muffled, slow, 
 grand, and mournful, it went wailing and throbbing by. 
 The procession passed slowly on in the October sunshine, 
 along the Schadowstrasse, turning off by the Hofgarten, and 
 so on to the cemetery. I leaned out of the window and 
 looked after it forgotten all outside, till just as the last 
 of the procession passed by my eyes fell upon Courvoisier 
 going into his house, and who presently entered the room. 
 He was unperceived by Friedhelm and Sigmund, who were 
 looking after the procession. The child's face was ear- 
 nest, almost solemn he had not seen his father come up.
 
 252 The First Violin 
 
 I saw Helfen's lips caress Sigmund's loose black hair that 
 waved just beneath them. 
 
 Then I saw a figure only a black shadow to my eyes 
 which were dazzled by the sun come behind them. One 
 hand was laid upon Helfen's shoulder, another turned the 
 child's chin. What a change ! Friedhelm's grave face 
 smiled : Sigmund sprang aside, made a leap to his father 
 who stooped to him, and clasping his arms tight round his 
 neck was raised up in his arms. 
 
 They were all satisfied all smiling all happy. I 
 turned away. That was a home that was a meeting of 
 three affections. What more could they want ? I shut the 
 window shut it all out, and myself with it into the cold, 
 feeling my lips quiver. It was very fine, this life of inde- 
 pendence and self-support, but it was dreadfully lonely. 
 
 The days went on. Adelaide was now Lady Le Mar- 
 chant. She had written to me again, and warned me once 
 more to be careful what I was about. She had said that 
 she liked her life at least she said so in her first two or 
 three letters, and then there fell a sudden utter silence 
 about herself, which seemed to me ominous. 
 
 Adelaide had always acted upon the assumption that Sir 
 Peter was a far from strong-minded individual, with a cer- 
 tain hardness and cunning perhaps, in relation to money 
 matters, but nothing that a clever wife with a strong enough 
 sense of her own privileges could not overcome. 
 
 She said nothing to me about herself. She told me about 
 Rome ; who were there ; what they did and looked like ; what 
 she wore ; what compliments were paid to her that was all.
 
 The First Violin 253 
 
 Stella told me my letters were dull and I dare say they 
 were and that there was no use in her writing, because 
 nothing ever happened in Skernford, which was also true. 
 
 And for Eugen, we were on exactly the same terms or 
 rather no terms as before. Opposite neighbors, and as 
 far removed as if we had lived at the antipodes. 
 
 My life, as time went on, grew into a kind of fossilized 
 dream, in which I rose up and lay down, practised so many 
 hours a day, ate and drank and took my lesson, and it 
 seemed as if I had been living so for years, and should 
 continue to live on so to the end of my days until one 
 morning my eyes would not open again, and for me the 
 world would have come to an end. 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 " And nearer still shall farther be, 
 And words shall plague and vex and buffet thee." 
 
 IT was December, close upon Christmas. Winter at last 
 in real earnest. A black frost. The earth bound in fetters 
 of iron. The land gray ; the sky steel ; the wind a dagger. 
 The trees, leafless and stark, rattled their shrivelled boughs 
 together in that wind. 
 
 It met you at corners, and froze the words out of your 
 mouth ; it whistled a low, fiendish, malignant whistle round 
 the houses; as vicious, and little louder than the buzz of a 
 mosquito. It swept, thin, keen and cutting, down the 
 Konigsalle'e, and blew fine black dust into one's face. 
 
 It cut up the skaters upon the pond in the Neue Anlage,
 
 254 The First Violin 
 
 which was in the centre of the town, and comparatively 
 sheltered; but it was in its glory whistling across the flat 
 fields leading to the great skating-ground of Elberthal in 
 general the Schwanenspiegcl at the Grafenbergerdahl. 
 
 The Grafenberg was a low chain of what, for want of a 
 better name, may be called hills, lying to the north of 
 Elberthal. The country all around this unfortunate apol- 
 ogy for a range of hills was, if possible, flatter than ever. 
 The Grafenbergerdahl was, properly, no " dale " at all, 
 but a broad plain of meadows, with the railway cutting 
 them at one point ; then diverging and running on under 
 the Grafenberg. 
 
 One vast meadow which lay, if possible, a trifle lower 
 than the rest, was flooded regularly by the autumn rains, 
 but not deeply. It was frozen over now, and formed a 
 model skating-place, and so, apparently, thought the towns- 
 people, for they came out, singly or in bodies, and from 
 nine in the morning till dusk, the place was crowded, and 
 the merry music of the iron on the ice ceased not for a 
 second. 
 
 I discovered this place of resort by accident one day, 
 when I was taking a constitutional, and found myself upon 
 the borders of the great frozen mere, covered with skaters. 
 I stood looking at them, and my blood warmed at the 
 sight. If there were one thing one accomplishment upon 
 which I prided myself, it was this very one skating. 
 
 In a drawing-room I might feel awkward confused 
 amongst clever people, bashful amongst accomplished 
 ones; shy about music and painting, diffident as to my
 
 The First Violin 255 
 
 voice, and deprecatory in spirit as to the etiquette to be 
 observed at a dinner-party. Give me my skates and put 
 me on a sheet of ice, and I was at home. 
 
 As I paused and watched the skaters, it struck me that 
 there was no reason at all why I should deny myself 'that 
 seasonable enjoyment. I had my skates, and the mere was 
 large enough to hold me as well as the others indeed, I 
 saw in the distance great tracts of virgin ice to which no 
 skater seemed yet to have reached. 
 
 I went home, and, on the following afternoon, carried 
 out my resolution; though it was after three o'clock before 
 I could set out. 
 
 A long, bleak way. First up the merry Jdgerhofstrasse, 
 then through the Malkasten garden, up a narrow lane, then 
 out upon the open, bleak road, with that bitter wind going 
 ping-ping at one's ears and upon one's cheek. Through a 
 big gateway, and a courtyard pertaining to an orphan 
 asylum along a lane bordered with apple trees, through a 
 rustic arch, and, hurrah ! the field was before me not so 
 thickly covered as yesterday, for it was getting late, and 
 the Elberthalers did not seem to understand the joy of 
 careering over the black ice by moonlight, in the night- 
 wind. It was, however, as yet far from dark, and the 
 moon was rising in silver yonder, in a sky of a pale but 
 clear blue. 
 
 I quickly put on my skates stumbled to the edge, and 
 set off. I took a few turns, circling amongst the people 
 then, seeing several turn to look at me, I fixed my eyes 
 upon a distant clump of reeds rising from the ice, and
 
 256 The First Violin 
 
 resolved to make it my goal. I could only just see it, 
 even with my long-sighted eyes, but struck out for it 
 bravely. Past group after group of the skaters, who 
 turned to look at my scarlet shawl as it flashed past. I 
 glanced at them and skimmed smoothly on, till I came 
 to the outside circle where there was a skater all alone, his 
 hands thrust deep into his great-coat pockets, the collar of 
 the same turned high about his ears, and the inevitable little 
 gray cloth Studentenhut crowning the luxuriance of waving 
 dark hair. He was gliding round in complicated figures 
 and circles, doing the outside edge for his own solitary 
 gratification, so far as I could see; active, graceful, and 
 muscular, with practised ease and assured strength in every 
 turn of every limb. It needed no second glance on my 
 part to assure me who he was even if the dark bright eyes 
 had not been caught by the flash of my shawl, and gravely 
 raised for a moment as I flew by. I dashed on, breasting 
 the wind. To reach the bunch of reeds seemed more than 
 ever desirable now. I would make it my sole companion 
 until it was time to go away. At least he had seen me, 
 and I was safe from any contretemps he would avoid me 
 as strenuously as I avoided him. But the first fresh lust 
 after pleasure was gone. Just one moment's glance into a 
 face had had the power to alter everything so much. I 
 skated on, as fast, as surely as ever, but 
 
 " A joy has taken flight." 
 
 The pleasant sensation of solitude, which I could so easily 
 have felt amongst a thousand people had he not been
 
 The First Violin *57 
 
 counted amongst them, was gone. The roll of my skates 
 upon the ice had lost its music for me : the wind felt 
 colder I sadder. At least I thought so. Should I go 
 away again now that this disturbing element had appeared 
 upon the scene ? No, no, no, said something eagerly 
 within me, and I bit my lip, and choked back a kind of 
 sob of disgust as I realized that despite my gloomy reflec- 
 tions my heart was beating a high, rapid march of joy ! 
 as I skimmed, all alone, far away from the crowd, amongst 
 the dismal withered reeds, and round the little islets of 
 stiffened grass and rushes, which were frozen upright in 
 their places. 
 
 The daylight faded, and the moon rose. The people 
 were going away. The distant buzz of laughter had grown 
 silent. I could dimly discern some few groups, but very 
 few, still left, and one or two solitary figures. Even my 
 preternatural eagerness could not discern who they were. 
 The darkness, the long walk home, the Probe at seven, 
 which I should be too tired to attend, all had quite slipped 
 from my mind : it was possible that amongst those figures 
 which I still dimly saw, was yet remaining that of Cour- 
 voisier, and surely there was no harm in my staying here. 
 
 I struck out in another direction, and flew on in the keen 
 air; the frosty moon shedding a weird light upon the black 
 ice; I saw the railway lines, polished, gleaming too in 
 the light : the belt of dark firs to my right ; the red sand 
 soil frozen hard and silvered over with frost. Flat and 
 tame, but still beautiful. I felt a kind of rejoicing in it : 
 I felt it home. I was probably the first person who had
 
 *5 The First Violin 
 
 been there since the freezing of the mere, thought I, and 
 that idea was soon converted to a certainty in my mind, 
 for in a second my rapid career was interrupted. At the 
 farthest point from help or human presence the ice gave 
 way with a crash, and I shrieked aloud at the shock of the 
 bitter water. Oh, how cold it was ! how piercing, fright- 
 ful, numbing ! It was not deep scarcely above my knees, 
 but the difficulty was how to get out. Put my hand where 
 I would, the ice gave way. I could only plunge in the icy 
 water, feeling the sodden grass under my feet. What sort 
 of things might there not be in that water ? A cold shud- 
 der, worse than any ice, shot through me at the idea of 
 newts and rats and water-serpents, absurd though it was. I 
 screamed again in desperation, and tried to haul myself 
 out by catching at the rushes. They were rotten with the 
 frost, and gave way in my hand. I made a frantic effort at 
 the ice again ; stumbled and fell on my knees in the water. 
 I was wet all over now, and I gasped. My limbs ached 
 agonizingly with the cold. I should be, if not drowned, 
 yet benumbed, frozen to death here alone in the great 
 mere, amongst the frozen reeds and under the steely sky. 
 
 I was pausing, standing still, and rapidly becoming 
 almost too benumbed to think or hold myself up, when I 
 heard the sound of skates and the weird measure of the 
 Lenore March again. I held my breath : I desired in- 
 tensely to call out, shriek aloud for help, but I could not. 
 Not a word would come. 
 
 " I ^ft/hear some one," he muttered, and then in the 
 moonlight he came skating past, saw me, and stopped.
 
 The First Violin 259 
 
 " Sie, Frdulein ! " he began quickly, and then, altering 
 his tone : " The ice has broken. Let me help you." 
 
 " Don't come too near; the ice is very thin it doesn't 
 hold at all, ' ' I chattered, scarcely able to get the words out. 
 
 "You are cold?" he asked, and smiled. I felt the 
 smile cruel ; and realized that I probably looked rather 
 ludicrous. 
 
 " Cold!" I repeated, with an irrepressible short sob. 
 
 He knelt down upon the ice at about a yard's distance 
 from me. 
 
 " Here it is strong," said he, holding out his arms. 
 " Lean this way, mem Frdulein, and I will lift you out." 
 
 " Oh no ! You will certainly fall in yourself." 
 
 " Do as I tell you," he said imperatively, and I obeyed, 
 leaning a little forward. He took me round the waist, 
 lifted me quietly out of the water, and placed me upon 
 the ice at a discreet distance from the hole in which I had 
 been stuck, then rose himself, apparently undisturbed by 
 the effort. 
 
 Miserable, degraded object that I felt ! My clothes 
 clinging round me; icy cold, shivering from head to foot; 
 so aching with cold that I could no longer stand. As he 
 opened his mouth to say something about its being " hap- 
 pily accomplished," I sank upon my knees at his feet. 
 My strength had deserted me ; I could no longer support 
 myself. 
 
 " Frozen ! " he remarked to himself, as he stooped and 
 half raised me. " I see what must be done. Let me 
 take off your skates sonst gehfs nicht"
 
 260 The First Violin 
 
 I sat down upon the ice, half hysterical, partly from the 
 sense of the degrading, ludicrous plight I was in, partly 
 from intense yet painful delight at being thus once more 
 with him, seeing some recognition in his eyes again, and 
 hearing some cordiality in his voice. 
 
 He unfastened my skates deftly and quickly, slung them 
 over his arm, and helped me up again. I essayed feebly 
 to walk, but my limbs were numb with cold. I could not 
 put one foot before the other, but could only cling to his 
 arm in silence. 
 
 " So ! " said he, with a little laugh. " We are all alone 
 Acre ! A fine time for a moonlight skating." 
 
 " Ah ! yes," said I wearily, " but I can't move." 
 
 " You need not," said he. " I am going to carry you 
 away in spite of yourself, like a popular preacher." 
 
 He put his arm round my waist and bade me hold fast 
 to his shoulder. I obeyed, and directly found myself 
 carried along in a swift delightful movement, which 
 seemed to my drowsy, deadened senses, quick as the 
 nimble air, smooth as a swallow's flight. He was a con- 
 summate master in the art of skating that was evident. 
 A strong, unfailing arm held me fast. I felt no sense of 
 danger, no fear lest he should fall or stumble ; no such 
 idea entered my head. 
 
 We had far to go from one end of the great Schwanen- 
 spiegel to the other. Despite the rapid motion, numbness 
 overcame me ; my eyes closed, my head sank upon my 
 hands, which were clasped over his shoulder. A sob rose 
 to my throat. In the midst of the torpor that was stealing
 
 The First Violin 261 
 
 over me, there shot every now and then a shiver of ecstasy 
 so keen as to almost terrify me. But then even that died 
 away. Everything seemed to whirl round me the meadows 
 and trees, the stiff rushes and the great black sheet of ice, 
 and the white moon in the inky heavens became only a 
 confused dream. Was it sleep or faintness, or coma ? 
 What was it that seemed to make my senses as dull as my 
 limbs, and as heavy? I scarcely felt the movement, as he 
 lifted me from the ice to the ground. His shout did not 
 waken me, though he sent the full power of his voice 
 ringing out towards the pile of buildings to our left. 
 
 With the last echo of his voice I lost consciousness 
 entirely; all failed and faded, and then vanished before 
 me, until I opened my eyes again feebly, and found myself 
 in a great stony-looking room, before a big black stove, 
 the door of which was thrown open. I was lying upon a 
 sofa, and a woman was bending over me. At the foot of 
 the sofa, leaning against the wall, was Courvoisier, looking 
 down at me, his arms folded, his face pensive. 
 
 " Oh dear ! " cried I, starting up. " What is the mat- 
 ter ? I must go home. ' ' 
 
 " You shall when you can," said Courvoisier, smiling 
 as he had smiled when I first knew him, before all these 
 miserable misunderstandings had come between us. 
 
 My apprehensions were stilled. It did me good, 
 warmed me, sent the tears trembling to my eyes, when I 
 found that his voice had not resumed the old accent of ice, 
 nor his eyes that cool, unrecognizing stare which had 
 frozen me so many a time in the last few weeks.
 
 262 The First Violin 
 
 " Trinken Sie 'ma/, Fraidein," said the woman, holding 
 a glaas to my lips : it held hot spirits and water, which 
 smoked. 
 
 " Bah ! " replied I gratefully, and turning away. 
 
 "Nee, nee!" she repeated. "You must drink just a 
 Schndppschen, FrauleinS ' 
 
 I pushed it away with some disgust. Courvoisier took 
 it from her hand and held it to me. 
 
 " Don't be so foolish and childish. Think of your 
 voice after this," said he, smiling kindly; and I, with an 
 odd sensation, choked down my tears and drank it. It 
 was bad despite my desire to please, I found it very bad. 
 
 "Yes, I know," said he, with a sympathetic look, as I 
 made a horrible face after drinking it, and he took the 
 glass. " And now this woman will lend you some dry 
 things. Shall I go. straight to Elberthal and send a 
 Droschke here for you, or will you try to walk home ? " 
 
 " Oh, I will walk. I am sure it would be the best if 
 do you think it would ? " 
 
 " Do you feel equal to it? is the question," he answered, 
 and I was surprised to see that though I was looking hard at 
 him, he did not look at me, but only into the glass he held. 
 
 "Yes," said I. " And they say that people who have 
 been nearly drowned should always walk ; it does them 
 good." 
 
 " In that case then," said he, repressing a smile, " I 
 should say it would be better for you to try. But pray 
 make haste and get your wet things off, or you will come 
 to serious harm."
 
 The First Violin 263 
 
 " I will be as quick as ever I can." 
 
 " No hurry," he replied, sitting down, and pulling one 
 of the woman's children towards him. " Come, mein 
 Junge, tell me how old you are ? " 
 
 I followed the woman to an inner room, where she 
 divested me of my dripping things, and attired me in a 
 costume consisting of a short full brown petticoat, a blue 
 woollen jacket, thick blue knitted stockings, and a pair of 
 wide low shoes, which habiliments constituted the uniform 
 of the orphan asylum of which she was matron, and be- 
 longed to her niece. 
 
 She expatiated upon the warmth of the dress, and did 
 not produce any outer wrap or shawl, and I, only anxious 
 to go, said nothing, but twisted up my loose hair, and 
 went back into the large stony room before spoken of, 
 from which a great noise had been proceeding for some 
 time. 
 
 I stood in the doorway and saw Eugen surrounded by 
 other children, in addition to the one he had first called to 
 him. There were likewise two dogs, and they the chil- 
 dren, the dogs, and Herr Concertmeister Courvoisier most 
 of all were making as much noise as \hzy possibly could. 
 I paused for a moment to have the small gratification of 
 watching the scene. One child on his knee, and one on his 
 shoulder pulling his hair, which was all ruffled and on end, 
 a laugh upon his face, a dancing light in his eyes, as if he 
 felt happy and at home amongst all the little flaxen heads. 
 
 Could he be the same man who had behaved so coldly 
 to me ? My heart went out to him in this kinder moment.
 
 264 The First Violin 
 
 Why was he so genial with those children and so harsh to 
 me, who was little better than a child myself ? 
 
 His eye fell upon me as he held a shouting and kicking 
 child high in the air, and his own face laughed all over in 
 mirth and enjoyment. 
 
 " Come here, Miss Wedderbum ; this is Hans, there is 
 Fritz, and here is Franz a jolly trio, aren't they ? " 
 
 He put the child into his mother's arms, who regarded 
 him with an eye of approval, and told him that it was not 
 every one who knew how to ingratiate himself with herc\\\\- 
 dren, who were uncommonly spirited. 
 
 "Ready?" he asked, surveying me and my costume, 
 and laughing. "Don't- you feel a stranger in these gar- 
 ments ? " 
 
 "No! Why?" 
 
 " I should have said silk and lace and velvet, or fine 
 muslins and embroideries, were more in your style." 
 
 " You are quite mistaken. I was just thinking how 
 admirably this costume suits me, and that I should do well 
 to adopt it permanently." 
 
 "Perhaps there was a mirror in the inner room," he 
 suggested. 
 
 "A mirror! Why?" 
 
 " Then your idea would quite be accounted for. Young 
 ladies must of course wish to wear that which becomes 
 them." 
 
 " Very becoming ! " I sneered grandly. 
 
 " Very," he replied emphatically. " It makes me wisK 
 to be an orphan. ' '
 
 The First Violin 265 
 
 " Ah, mein Herr" said the woman reproachfully, for 
 he had spoken German. " Don't jest about that. If you 
 have parents " 
 
 " No, I haven't," he interposed hastily. 
 
 " Or children either ?" 
 
 " I should not else have understood yours so well," he 
 laughed. " Come, my Miss Wedderburn, if you are 
 ready." 
 
 After arranging with the woman that she should dry my 
 things and return them, receiving her own in exchange, 
 we left the house. 
 
 It was quite moonlight now; the last faint streak of 
 twilight had disappeared. The way that we must traverse 
 to reach the town stretched before us, long, straight, and 
 flat. 
 
 " Where is your shawl ? " he asked suddenly. 
 
 " I left it; it was wet through." 
 
 Before I knew what he was doing, he had stripped off 
 his heavy overcoat, and I felt its warmth and thickness 
 about my shoulders. 
 
 " Oh, don't!" I cried in great distress, as I strove to 
 remove it again, and looked imploringly into his face. 
 " Don't do that. You will get cold; you will " 
 
 "Get cold!" he laughed, as if much amused, as he 
 drew the coat around me and fastened it, making no more 
 ado of my resisting hands than if they had been bits of 
 straw. 
 
 " So ! " said he, pushing one of my arms through the 
 sleeve. " Now," as he still held it fastened together, and
 
 266 The First Violin 
 
 looked half-laughingly at me, " do you intend to keep it 
 on or not ? " 
 
 " I suppose I must." 
 
 " I call that gratitude. Take my arm so ! You are 
 weak yet." 
 
 We walked on in silence for some time. I was happy ; 
 for the first time since the night I had heard Lohengrin I 
 was happy and at rest. True, no forgiveness had been 
 asked or extended ; but he had ceased to behave as if I 
 were not forgiven. 
 
 " Am I not going too fast ? " he inquired. 
 
 "N no." 
 
 " Yes, I am, I see. We will moderate the pace a little." 
 
 We walked more slowly. Physically I was inexpressibly 
 weary. The reaction after my drenching had set in; I felt 
 a languor which amounted to pain, and an aching and 
 weakness in every limb. I tried to regret the event, but 
 could not ; tried to wish it were not such a long walk to 
 Elberthal, and found myself perversely regretting that it 
 was such a short one. At length the lights of the town 
 came in sight. I heaved a deep sigh. Soon it would be 
 over " the glory and the dream." 
 
 " I think we are exactly on the way to your house, nicht 
 wahr? " said he. 
 
 " Yes ; and to yours, since we are opposite neighbors." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " You are not as lonely as I am, though - } you have com- 
 panions." 
 
 "I oh Friedhelm; yes."
 
 The First Violin 267 
 
 "And your little boy." 
 
 " Sigmund also," was all he said. 
 
 But " A itch Sigmund" may express more in German 
 than in English. It did so then. 
 
 " And you ? " he added. 
 
 " I am alone," said I. 
 
 I did not mean to be foolishly sentimental. The sigh 
 that followed my words was involuntary. 
 
 " So you are. But I suppose you like it? " 
 
 " Like it. What can make you think so ? " 
 
 " Well, at least you have good friends." 
 
 "Have I ? Oh yes, of course!" said I, thinking of 
 von Francius. 
 
 " Do you get on with your music ? " he next inquired. 
 
 " I hope so. I do you think it strange that I should 
 live there all alone ? " I asked, tormented with a desire to 
 know what he did think of me, and crassly ready to burst 
 into explanations on the least provocation. I was destined 
 to be undeceived. 
 
 " I have not thought about it at all ; it is not my busi- 
 ness. ' ' 
 
 Snub number one. He had spoken quickly, as if to 
 clear himself as much as possible from any semblance of 
 interest in me. 
 
 I went on rashly, plunging into further intricacies of 
 conversation : 
 
 " It is curious that you and I should not only live near 
 to each other, but actually have the same profession at 
 last."
 
 268 The First Violin 
 
 "How?" 
 
 Snub number two. But I persevered. 
 
 " Music. Your profession is music, and mine will be." 
 
 " I do not see the resemblance. There is little point 
 of likeness between a young lady who is in training for a 
 Prima Donna and an obscure Musiker, who contributes his 
 share of shakes and runs to the Symphony." 
 
 " / in training for a Prima Donna ! How can you say 
 so?" 
 
 " Do we not all know the forte of Herr von Francius ? 
 And excuse me are not your windows opposite to ours, 
 and open as a rule ? Can I not hear the music you prac- 
 tise, and shall I not believe my own ears ? " 
 
 " I am sure your own ears do not tell you that a future 
 Prima Donna lives opposite to you," said I, feeling most 
 insanely and unreasonably hurt and cut up at the idea. 
 
 ''Will you tell me that you are not studying for the 
 stage ? ' ' 
 
 " I never said I was not. I said I was not a future 
 Prima Donna. My voice is not half good enough. I am 
 not clever enough, either." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " As if voice or cleverness had anything to do with it. 
 Personal appearance and friends at Court are the chief 
 things. I have known Prime Donne seen them, I mean 
 and from my place below the foot-lights I have had the 
 impertinence to judge them upon their own merits. Pro- 
 vided they were handsome, impudent, and unscrupulous 
 enough, their public seemed gladly to dispense with art,
 
 The First Violin 269 
 
 cultivation, or genius in their performances and concep- 
 tions." 
 
 " And you think that I am, or shall be in time, hand- 
 some, impudent, and unscrupulous enough," said I, in a 
 low, choked tone. 
 
 My fleeting joy was being thrust back by hands most 
 ruthless. Unmixed satisfaction for even the brief space of 
 an hour or so was not to be included in my lot. 
 
 " Oh bewahre!" said he, with a little laugh, that 
 chilled me still further. " I think no such thing. The 
 beauty is there, mein Frdulein pardon me for saying 
 so " 
 
 Indeed, I was well able to pardon it. Had he been 
 informing his grandmother that there were the remains of 
 a handsome woman to be traced in her, he could not have 
 spoken more unenthusiastically. 
 
 "The beauty is there. The rest as I said, when one 
 has friends, these things are arranged for one." 
 
 " But I have no friends." 
 
 "No," with again that dry little laugh. "Perhaps 
 they will be provided at the proper time, as Elijah was 
 fed by the ravens. Some fine night who knows I may 
 sit with my violin in the orchestra at your benefit, and one 
 of the bouquets with which you are smothered may fall at 
 my feet and bring me aus der Fuge. When that happens 
 will you forgive me if I break a rose from the bouquet 
 before I toss it on to the feet of its rightful owner ? I 
 promise that I will seek for no note, nor spy out any ring 
 or bracelet. I will only keep the rose in remembrance of
 
 270 The First Violin 
 
 the night when I skated with you across the Schwanen- 
 spiegel, and prophesied unto you the future. It will be a 
 kind of ' I told you so,' on my part." 
 
 Mock sentiment, mock respect, mock admiration; a 
 sneer in the voice, a dry sarcasm in the words. What was 
 I to think ? Why did he veer round in this way, and from 
 protecting kindness return to a raillery which was more 
 cruel than his silence ? My blood rose, though, at the 
 mockingness of his tone. 
 
 " I don't know what you mean," said I coldly. " I am 
 studying operatic music. If I have any success in that 
 line, I shall devote myself to it. What is there wrong in 
 it ? The person who has her living to gain must use the 
 talents that have been given her. ' My talent is my voice ; 
 it is the only thing I have except, perhaps, some capacity 
 to love those who are kind to me. I can do that, thank 
 God ! Beyond that I have nothing, and I did not make 
 myself." 
 
 "A capacity to love those who are kind to you," he 
 said hastily. "And do you love all who are kind to 
 you?" 
 
 " Yes," said I stoutly, though I felt my face burning. 
 
 " And hate them that despitefully use you ? " 
 
 " Naturally," I said, with a somewhat unsteady laugh. 
 
 A rush of my ruling feeling propriety and decent 
 reserve tied my tongue, and I could not say, " Not all 
 not always." 
 
 He, however, snapped, as it were, at my remark, or 
 admission, and chose to take it as if it were in the deepest
 
 The First Violin 271 
 
 earnest ; for he said, quickly, decisively, and, as I thought, 
 with a kind of exultation : 
 
 " Ah, then /will be disagreeable to you." 
 
 This remark, and the tone in which it was uttered, came 
 upon me with a shock which I cannot express. He would 
 be disagreeable to me because I hated those who were dis- 
 agreeable 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 own 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 under- 
 standing 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 :
 
 27 2 The First Violin 
 
 " 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 /?<?/," I ejaculated passionately, 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 Herrn 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 Frdulein" said he, shrugging his shoulders 
 a little and smiling slightly, " you are under a delusion 
 about that circumstance. How can I forgive that which I 
 never resented ? ' ' 
 
 This was putting the matter in a new, and for me, a 
 humbling light. 
 
 " Never resented ! " I murmured confusedly. 
 
 " Never. Why should I resent it ? I forgot myself, 
 nichtwahr? 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
 
 The First Violin 273 
 
 gentleman." His arm sprang 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 gentle- 
 man ? 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 ex- 
 plained, since he would not own himself offended. I had 
 made a fool of myself and gained nothing by it. While I 
 was racking my brains 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 gehfs schon an ! Excuse me, Frdulein, 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 towards him, strode off hastily 
 towards the theatre, leaving me cold, sick, and miserable, 
 to digest my humble pie with what appetite I might. 
 18
 
 274 The First Violin 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 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 empha- 
 size their solitude to solitary people. 
 
 I had seen such quantities 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 Weihnachtabend. 
 
 Every one had 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 downstairs, 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 downstairs; I declined. The
 
 276 The First Violin 
 
 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 Liitzler, 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 passed. 
 
 Towards 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 up- 
 stairs, or rather Karl went upstairs; his little sister 
 remained below. 
 
 There was a geat 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
 
 The First Violin 277 
 
 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 excit- 
 ing as if I had been joining in the play more so, for to 
 me everything was svrPimprfou 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 fir, covered with little twinkling tapers : the 
 orthodox waxen angels, and strings of balls and bonbons 
 hanging about the white Christkind '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 sup- 
 pressed 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 attitude 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 prob-
 
 278 The First Violin 
 
 ably cheap ones : the gifts that hung upon the boughs or 
 lay on the table must have been measured by the avail- 
 able 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 caure 
 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 pro- 
 ceedings of the commission respectfully alluded to. 
 
 The little girl, who was a head taller than Sigmund, had 
 quantities 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 of 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
 
 The First Violin 279 
 
 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 com- 
 pany 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. 
 
 Great gravity, eager attention on the part of the chil- 
 dren, who pressed up to him as he opened it; then the last 
 wrapper was torn off, and to my utter amazement and 
 bewilderment Karl drew forth a white woolly animal of 
 indefinite race, on a green stand. The look which crossed 
 his face was indescribable ; the shout of laughter which 
 greeted the discovery penetrated even to my ears. 
 
 With my face pressed against the window I watched; it 
 was really too interesting. But my spying was put an end 
 to. A speech appeared to be made to Frau Schmidt, to 
 which she answered by a frosty smile and an elaborate 
 courtesy. She was apparently saying good-night, but, with
 
 aSo The First Violin 
 
 the instinct of a housekeeper, set a few chairs straight, 
 pulled a table-cloth, and pushed a footstool to its place, 
 and in her tour round the room, her eyes fell upon the 
 windows. She came and put the shutters to. In one 
 moment it had all flashed from my sight tree and faces 
 and lamplight and brightness. 
 
 I raised my chin from my hands, and found that I was 
 cold, numb, and stiff. I lighted the lamp, and passed my 
 hands over my eyes ; but could not quite find myself, and 
 instead of getting to some occupation of my own, I sat 
 with Richter's " Thorough Bass and Harmony" before 
 me ; and a pen in my hand, and wondered what they were 
 doing now. 
 
 It was with the remembrance of this evening in my mind 
 to emphasize my loneliness that I woke on Christmas 
 morning. 
 
 At post time my landlady brought me a letter, scented, 
 monogrammed, with the Roman post-mark. Adelaide 
 wrote : 
 
 " I won't wish you a merry Christmas. I think it is 
 such nonsense. Who does have a merry Christmas now, 
 except children and paupers ? And, all being well or 
 rather ill, so far as I am concerned we shall meet before 
 long. We are coming to Elberthal. I will tell you why 
 when we meet. It is too long to write and too vexa- 
 tious " (this word was half-erased), " troublesome. I will 
 let you know when we come, and our address. How are 
 you getting on ? 
 
 " ADELAIDE."
 
 The First Violin 281 
 
 I was much puzzled with this letter, and meditated long 
 over it. Something lay in the background. Adelaide was 
 not happy. It surely could not be that Sir Peter gave her 
 any cause for discomfort. Impossible ! Did he not dote 
 upon her ? Was not the being able to " turn him round 
 her finger ' ' one of the principal advantages of her mar- 
 riage ? And yet, that she should be coming to Elberthal 
 of her own will, was an idea which my understanding 
 declined to accept. She must have been compelled to it 
 and by nothing pleasant. This threw another shadow 
 over my spirit. 
 
 Going to the window, I saw again how lonely I was. 
 The people were passing in groups and throngs : it was 
 Christmas-time; they were glad. They had nothing in 
 common with me. I looked inside my room bare, meagre 
 chamber that it was the piano the only thing in it that 
 was more than barely necessary ; and a great wonder came 
 over me. 
 
 " What is the iise of it all ? What is the use of working 
 hard ? Why am I leading this life ? To earn money, 
 and perhaps applause sometime. Well, and when I have 
 got it even supposing, which is extremely improbable, 
 that I win it while I am young and can enjoy it what 
 good will it do me ? I don't believe it will make me very 
 happy. I don't know that I long for it very much. I 
 don't know why I am working for it, except because Herr 
 von Francius has a stronger will than I have, and rather 
 compels me to it. Otherwise 
 
 "Well, what should I like ? What do I wish for ?"
 
 282 The First Violin 
 
 At the moment I seemed to feel myself free from all pre- 
 judice and all influence, and surveying with a calm, 
 impartial eye, possibilities and prospects, 1 could not dis- 
 cover that there was anything I particularly wished for. 
 Had something within me changed during the last night ? 
 
 I had been so eager before ; I felt so apathetic now. I 
 looked across the way. I dimly sawCourvoisier snatch up 
 his boy, hold him in the air, and then, gathering him to 
 him, cover him with kisses. I smiled. At the moment I 
 felt neutral experienced neither pleasure nor pain from 
 the sight. I had loved the man so eagerly and intensely 
 with such warmth, fervor, and humility. It seemed as 
 if now a pause had come (only for a time, I knew, but still 
 a pause) in the warm current of delusion, and I contem- 
 plated facts with a dry, unmoved eye. After all what 
 was he ? A man who seemed quite content with his sta- 
 tion not a particularly good or noble man that I could 
 see : with some musical talent which he turned to account 
 to earn his bread. He had a fine figure, a handsome face, 
 a winning smile, plenty of presence of' mind, and an excel- 
 lent opinion of himself. 
 
 Stay ! Let me be fair he had only asserted his right to 
 be treated as a gentleman by one whom he had treated in 
 every respect as a lady. He did not want me nor to know 
 anything about me else why could he laugh for very glee 
 as his boy's eyes met his ? Want me ? No ! he was rich 
 already. What he had was sufficient for him, and no 
 wonder, I thought, with a jealous pang. 
 
 Who would want to have anything to do with grown-up
 
 The First Violin 283 
 
 people, with their larger selfishnesses, more developed 
 self-seeking robust jealousies, and full-grown exactions 
 and sophistications, when they had a beautiful little one 
 like that ? A child of one's own not any child, but that 
 very child to love in that ideal way. It was a relation 
 that one scarcely sees out of a romance : it was the most 
 beautiful thing I ever saw. 
 
 His life was sufficient to him. He did not suffer as I 
 had been suffering. Suppose some one were to offer him a 
 better post than that he now had. He would be glad, and 
 would take it without a scruple. Perhaps, for a little 
 while some casual thought of me might now and then cross 
 his mind but not for long, certainly in no importunate or 
 troublesome manner. While I why was I there, if not 
 for his sake ? What, when I accepted the proposal of von 
 Francius, had been my chief thought ? It had been, 
 though all unspoken, scarcely acknowledged yet a whis- 
 pered force " I shall not lose sight of him of Eugen 
 Courvoisier." I was rightly punished. 
 
 I felt no great pain just now, in thinking of this. I saw 
 myself, and judged myself, and remembered how Faust had 
 said once, in an immortal passage, half to himself, half to 
 Mephisto : 
 
 " Entbehren sollst du ; sollst entbehren." 
 
 And that read both ways, it comes to the same thing. 
 " Entbehren sollst du ; sollst entbehren." 
 
 It flitted rhythmically through my mind on this dream- 
 ful morning, when I seemed a stranger to myself, or rather,
 
 284 The First Violin 
 
 when I seemed to stand outside myself, and contemplate, 
 calmly and judicially, the heart which had of late beaten 
 and throbbed with such vivid, and such unreasoning, 
 unconnected pangs. It is as painful and as humiliating a 
 description of self-vivisection as there is, and one not 
 without its peculiar merits. 
 
 The end of my reflections was the same as that which is, 
 I believe, often arrived at by the talented class called 
 philosophers, who spend much learning and science in 
 going into the questions about whose skirts I skimmed : 
 many of them, like me, after summing up, say, Cm bono ? 
 
 So passed the morning, and the gray cloud still hung 
 over my spirits. My landlady brought me a slice of 
 Kuchen at dinner-time, for Christmas; and wished me 
 guten Appetit to it, for which I thanked her with gravity. 
 
 In the afternoon I turned to the piano. After all it was 
 Christmas-day. After beginning a bravura singing-exer- 
 cise, I suddenly stopped myself, and found myself, before 
 I knew what I was about, singing the Adeste Fidelis till I 
 could not sing any more. Something rose in my throat | 
 ceasing abruptly, I burst into tears, and cried plentifully 
 over the piano keys. 
 
 * ' In tears, Fraulein May ! Aber what does that mean ? ' ' 
 
 I looked up. Von Francius stood in the doorway, look- 
 ing not unkindly at me, with a bouquet in his hand of 
 Christmas roses and ferns. 
 
 " It is only because it is Christmas," said I. 
 
 " Are you quite alone ? " 
 
 "Yes."
 
 The First Violin 285 
 
 "So am I." 
 
 " You ! But you have so many friends." 
 
 " Have I ? It is true, that if friends count by the num- 
 ber of invitations that one has, I have many. Unfortu- 
 nately I could not make up my mind to accept any. As I 
 passed through the flower-market this morning I thought 
 of you naturally. It struck me that perhaps you had no 
 one to come and wish you the Merry Christmas and Happy 
 New Year which belongs to you of right, so /came, and 
 have the pleasure to wish it you now, with these flowers, 
 though truly they are not Maiblumchen." 
 
 He raised my hand to his lips, and I was quite amazed 
 at the sense of strength, healthiness, and new life which 
 his presence brought. 
 
 "I am very foolish," I remarked; "I ought to know 
 better. But I am unhappy about my sister, and also I 
 have been foolishly thinking of old times, when she and 
 I were at home together." 
 
 "EH That is foolish. Those things old times and 
 all that are the very deuce for making one miserable. 
 Strauss he who writes dance music has made a waltz, 
 and called it 'The Good Old Times.' Lieber Himmel ! 
 Fancy waltzing to the memory of old times! A requiem 
 or a funeral march would have been intelligible." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, you must not sit here and let these old times say 
 what they like to you. Will you come out with me ? " 
 
 "Go out !" I echoed, with unwilling shrinking from 
 it. My soul preferred rather to shut herself up in her case
 
 286 The First Violin 
 
 and turn surlily away from the light outside. But, as usual, 
 he had his way. 
 
 " Yes out. The two loneliest people in Elberthal will 
 make a little Zauberfest for themselves. I will show you 
 some pictures. There are some new ones at the Exhibi- 
 tion. Make haste." 
 
 So calm, so matter-of-fact was his manner, so indisput- 
 able did he seem to think his proposition, that I half rose ; 
 then I sat down again. 
 
 " I don't want to go out, Herr von Francius." 
 
 " That is foolish. Quick ! before the daylight fades, 
 and it grows too dark for the pictures." 
 
 Scarcely knowing why ,1 complied, I went to my room 
 and put on my things. What a shabby sight I looked ! I 
 felt it keenly; so much, that when I came back and found 
 him seated at the piano, and playing a wonderful in and 
 out fugue of immense learning and immense difficulty, and 
 quite without pathos or tenderness, I interrupted him 
 incontinently. 
 
 " Here I am, Herr von Francius. You have asked the 
 most shabbily-dressed person in Elberthal to be your com- 
 panion. I have a mind to make you hold to your bargain, 
 whether you like it or not." 
 
 Von Francius turned, surveying me from head to foot, 
 with a smile. All the pedagogue was put off. It was 
 holiday-time. I was half vexed at myself for beginning 
 to feel as if it were holiday-time with me too. 
 
 We went out together. The wind was raw and cold, the 
 day dreary, the streets not so full as they had been. We
 
 The First Violin 287 
 
 went along the street past the Tonhalle, and there we met 
 Courvoisier alone. He looked at us, but though von 
 Francius raised his hat, he did not notice us. There was 
 a pallid change upon his face, a fixed look in his eyes, a 
 strange, drawn, subdued expression upon his whole coun- 
 tenance. My heart leaped with an answering pang. That 
 mood of the morning had fled. I had " found myself 
 again," but again not " happily." 
 
 I followed von Francius up the Stairs of the picture 
 exhibition. No one was in the room. All the world had 
 other occupations on Christmas afternoon, or preferred 
 the stove-side and the family circle. 
 
 Von Francius showed me a picture which he said every 
 one was talking about. 
 
 " Why ? " I inquired when I had contemplated it, and 
 failed to find it lovely. 
 
 "The drawing, the grouping, are admirable, as you 
 must see. The art displayed is wonderful. I find the 
 picture excellent." 
 
 " But the subject ? " said I. 
 
 It was not a large picture, and represented the interior 
 of an artist's atelier. In the foreground a dissipated- 
 looking young man tilted his chair backwards as he held 
 his gloves in one hand, and with the other stroked his 
 moustache, while he contemplated a picture standing on 
 an easel before him. The face was hard, worn, blast / the 
 features originally good, and even beautiful, had had all 
 the latent loveliness worn out of them by a wrong, unbeau- 
 tiful life. He wore a tall hat, very much to one side, as if
 
 288 The First Violin 
 
 to accent the fact that the rest of the company, upon whom 
 he had turned his back, certainly did not merit that he 
 should be at the trouble of baring his head to them. And 
 the rest of the company a girl, a model, seated on a 
 chair upon a raised dais, dressed in a long, flounced white 
 skirt, not of the freshest, some kind of oriental wrap fall- 
 ing negligently about it arms, models of shapeliness, 
 folded, and she crouching herself together as if wearied, 
 or contemptuous, or perhaps a little chilly. Upon a divan 
 near her a man presumably the artist to whom the estab- 
 lishment pertained stretched at full length, looking ~up 
 carelessly into her face, a pipe in his mouth, with indiffer- 
 ence and scarcely impertinence it did not take the 
 trouble to be a fully-developed impertinence in every 
 gesture. This was the picture; faithful to life, significant 
 in its very insignificance, before which von Francius sat, 
 and declared that the drawing, coloring, and grouping were 
 perfect.* 
 
 " The subject ? " he echoed after a pause. " It is only 
 a scrap of artist-life." 
 
 " Is that artist-life ? " said I, shrugging my shoulders. 
 "I do not like it at all; it is common, low, vulgar. 
 There is no romance about it ; it only reminds one of stale 
 tobacco and flat champagne." 
 
 "You are too particular," said von Francius after a 
 pause, and with a flavor of some feeling which I did not 
 quite understand, tincturing his voice. 
 
 For my part, I was looking at the picture and thinking 
 * The original is by Charles Herman, of Brussels.
 
 The First Violin 289 
 
 of what Courvoisier had said : " Beauty, impudence, 
 assurance, and an admiring public." That girl was beau- 
 tiful at least, she had the battered remains of a decided 
 beauty ; she had impudence certainly, and assurance too, 
 and an admiring public, I supposed, which testified its 
 admiration by lolling on a couch and staring at her, or 
 keeping its hat on and turning its back to her. 
 
 " Do you really admire the picture, Herr von Fran- 
 cius ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Indeed I do. It is so admirably true. That is the 
 kind of life into which I was born, and in which I was for 
 a long time brought up ; but I escaped from it." 
 
 I looked at him in astonishment. It seemed so extra- 
 ordinary that that model of reticence should speak to 
 me, above all, upon himself. It struck me for the very 
 first time that no one ever spoke of von Francius as if he 
 had any one belonging to him. Calm, cold, lonely, self- 
 sufficing and self-sufficing, too, because he must be so, 
 because he had none other to whom to turn that was his 
 character, and viewing him in that manner I had always 
 judged him. But what might the truth be ? 
 
 " Were you not happy when you were young ? " I asked, 
 on a quick impulse. 
 
 " Happy ! Who expects to be happy ? If I had been 
 simply not miserable, I should have counted my childhood 
 a good one ; but " 
 
 He paused a moment, then went on : 
 
 " Your great novelist, Dickens, had a poor, sordid kind 
 of childhood, in outward circumstances. But mine was 
 19
 
 290 The First Violin 
 
 spiritually sordid hideous, repulsive. There are some 
 plants which spring from and flourish in mud and slime; 
 they are but a flabby, pestiferous growth, as you may sup- 
 pose. I was, to begin with, a human specimen of that 
 kind; I was in an atmosphere of moral mud, an intellec- 
 tual hot-bed. I don't know what there was in me that set 
 me against the life ; that I never can tell. It was a sort of 
 hell on earth that I was living in. One day something 
 happened I was twelve years old then something hap- 
 pened, and it seemed as if all my nature its good and its 
 evil, its energies and indolences, its pride and humility 
 all ran together, welded by the furnace of passion into 
 one furious, white-hot rage of anger, rebellion. In an 
 instant I had decided my course; in an hour I had acted 
 upon it. I am an odd kind of fellow, I- believe. I 
 quitted that scene, and have never visited it since. I can- 
 not describe to you the anger I then felt, and to which I 
 yielded. Twelve years old I was then. I fought hard for 
 many years ; but, mein FrdTrtein ' ' (he looked at me, and 
 paused a moment) " that was the ffrst occasion upon 
 which I ever was really angry; it has been the last. I 
 have never felt the sensation of anger since I mean per- 
 sonal anger. Artistic anger I have known ; the anger at 
 bad work, at false interpretations, at charlatanry in art ; 
 but I have never been angry with the anger that resents. 
 I tell you this as a curiosity of character. With that brief 
 flash, all resentment seemed to evaporate from me to 
 exhaust itself in one brief, resolute, effective attempt at 
 self-cleansing, self-government."
 
 The First Violin 291 
 
 He paused. 
 
 "Tell me more, Herr von Francius ? " I besought. 
 " Do not leave off there. Afterwards ? " 
 
 " You really care to hear ? Afterwards I lived through 
 hardships in plenty; but I had effectually severed the whole 
 connection with that which dragged me down. I used all 
 my will to rise. I am not boasting, but simply stating a 
 peculiarity of my temperament when I tell you that what I 
 determine upon I always accomplish. I determined upon 
 rising, and I have risen to what I am. I set it, or some- 
 thing like it, before me as my goal, and I have attained 
 it." 
 
 "Well ?" I asked, with some eagerness; for I, after 
 all my unfulfilled strivings, had asked myself Cut bono ? 
 " And what is the end of it ? Are you satisfied ? " 
 
 " How quickly and how easily you see ! " said he with a 
 smile. " I value the position I have, in a certain way 
 that is, I see the advantage it gives me, and the influence. 
 But that deep inner happiness, which lies outside of con- 
 dition and circumstances that feeling of the poet in Faust 
 don't you remember ? 
 
 " ' I nothing had, and yet enough* 
 
 all that is unknown to me. For I ask myself, Cut bono?" 
 
 " Like me," I could not help saying. 
 
 He added : 
 
 " Fraulein May, the nearest feeling I have had to happi- 
 ness has been the knowing you. Do you know that you are 
 a person who makes joy ? ' '
 
 292 The First Violin 
 
 "No, indeed I did not." 
 
 " It is true, though. I should like, if you do not mind 
 if you can say it truly to hear from your lips that you 
 look upon me as your friend." 
 
 "Indeed, Herr von Francius, I feel you my very best 
 friend, and I would not lose your regard for anything," I 
 was able to assure him. 
 
 And then, as it was growing dark, the woman from the 
 receipt of custom by the door came in and told us that she 
 must close the rooms. 
 
 We then got up and went out. In the street the lamps 
 were lighted, and the people going up and down. 
 
 Von Francius left me at the door of my lodgings. 
 
 " Good-evening, liebes Frdulein ; and thank you for your 
 company this afternoon." 
 
 A light burnt steadily all evening in the sitting-room of 
 my opposite neighbors ; but the shutters were closed. I 
 only saw a thin stream coming through a chink.
 
 PART II 
 THE FIRST VIOLIN
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " Es ist bestimmt in Gottes Rath, 
 Dass man vom Liebsten, was man hat, 
 Muss scheiden." 
 
 OUR merry little Zauberfest of Christmas eve was over. 
 Christmas morning came. I remember that morning well 
 a gray, neutral kind of day, whose monotony outside 
 emphasized the keenness of emotion within. 
 
 On that morning the postman came a rather rare occur- 
 rence with us ; for, except with notes from pupils, notices 
 of Proben, or other official communications, he seldom 
 troubled us. 
 
 It was Sigmund who opened the door; it was he who 
 took the letter, and wished the postman " good-morning " 
 in his courteous little way. I dare say that the incident 
 gave an additional pang afterwards to the father if he
 
 2 The First Violin 
 
 marked it, and seldom did the smallest act or movement 
 of his child escape him. 
 
 " Father, here is a letter," he said, giving it into 
 Eugen 's hand. 
 
 " Perhaps it is for Friedel ; thou art too ready to think 
 that everything appertains to thy father," said Eugen 
 with a smile, as he took the letter and looked at it; but 
 before he had finished speaking the smile had faded. 
 There remained a whiteness, a blank, a haggardness. 
 
 I had caught a glimpse of the letter j it was large, 
 square, massive, and there was a seal upon the envelope 
 a regular letter of fate out of a romance. 
 
 Eugen took it into his hand, and for once he made no 
 answer to the caress of his child, who put his arms round 
 his neck and wanted to climb upon his knee. He allowed 
 the action, but passively. 
 
 " Let me open it ! " cried Sigmund. " Let me open 
 thy letter! " 
 
 " No, no, child ! " said Eugen, in a sharp, pained tone. 
 " Let it alone." 
 
 Sigmund looked surprised, and recoiled a little ; a shock 
 clouding his eyes. It was all right if his father said no, 
 but a shade presently crossed his young face. His father 
 did not usually speak so; did not usually have that white 
 and pallid look about the eyes above all, did not look at 
 his son with a look that meant nothing. 
 
 Eugen was usually prompt enough in all he did, but he 
 laid aside that letter, and proposed in a subdued tone that 
 we should have breakfast. Which we had, and still the
 
 The First Violin 3 
 
 letter lay unopened. And when breakfast was over he even 
 took up his violin and played runs and shakes and scales 
 and the air of a drinking song, which sounded grotesque in 
 contrast with the surroundings. This lasted for some time, 
 and yet the letter was not opened. It seemed as if he 
 could not open it. I knew that it was with a desperate 
 effort that he at last took it up, and went into his room 
 and shut the door. 
 
 I was reading that is, I had a book in my hands, and 
 was stretched out in the full luxury of an unexpected holi- 
 day upon the couch ; but I could no more have read under 
 the new influence, could no more have helped watching 
 Sigmund, than I could help breathing and feeling. 
 
 He, Sigmund, stood still for a moment, looking at the 
 closed door; gazing at it as if he expected it to open, and 
 a loved hand to beckon him within. But it remained 
 pitilessly shut, and the little boy had to accommodate 
 himself as well as he could to a new phase in his mental 
 history the being excluded left out in the cold. After 
 making an impulsive step towards the door he turned ; 
 plunged his hands into his pockets as if to keep them from 
 attacking the handle of that closed door, and walking to 
 the window, gazed out, silent and motionless. I watched : 
 I was compelled to watch. He was listening with every 
 faculty, every fibre, for the least noise, the faintest move- 
 ment from the room from which he was shut out. I did 
 not dare to speak to him. I was very miserable myself; 
 and a sense of coming loss and disaster was driven firmly 
 into my mind and fixed there a heavy prevision of inevi-
 
 4 The First Violin 
 
 table sorrow and pain overhung my mind. I turned to my 
 book and tried to read. It was one of the most delightful 
 of romances that I held no other than the Kinder der 
 Welt and the scene was that in which Edwin and Toi- 
 nette make that delightful, irregular Sunday excursion to 
 Charlottenburg, but I understood none of it. With that 
 pathetic little real figure taking up so much of my con- 
 sciousness, and every moment more insistently so, I could 
 think of nothing else. 
 
 Dead silence from the room within; utter and entire 
 silence, which lasted so long that my misery grew acute, 
 and still that little figure, which was now growing terrible 
 to me, neither spoke nor stirred. I do not know how long 
 by the clock we remained in these relative positions; by 
 my feelings it was a week; by those of Sigmund, I doubt 
 not, a hundred years. But he turned at last, and with a 
 face from which all trace of color had fled walked slowly 
 towards the closed door. 
 
 " Sigmund ! " I cried in a loud whisper. " Come here, 
 my child ! Stay here, with me." 
 
 " I must go in," said he. He did not knock. He 
 opened the door softly, and went in, closing it after him. 
 I know not what passed. There was silence as deep as 
 before, after one short, inarticulate murmur. There are 
 some moments in this our life which are at once sacrificial, 
 sacramental, and strong with the virtue of absolution for sins 
 past ; moments which are a crucible from which a stained 
 soul may come out white again. Such were these I know 
 it now in which father and son were alone together.
 
 The First Violin 5 
 
 After a short silence, during which my book hung un- 
 heeded from my hand, I left the house, out of a sort of 
 respect for my two friends. I had nothing particular to 
 do, and so strolled aimlessly about, first into the Hofgar- 
 fcn, where I watched the Rhine, and looked Hollandwards 
 along its low, flat shores, to where there was a bend, and 
 beyond the bend, Kaiserswerth. . It is now long since I 
 saw the river. Fair are his banks higher up not at Elber- 
 thal would he have struck the stranger as being a stream for 
 which to fight and die; but to me there is no part of his 
 banks so lovely as the poor old Schone Aussicht in the 
 Elberthal Hofgarten from whence I have watched the sun 
 set flaming over the broad water, and felt my heart beat 
 to the sense of precious possessions in the homely town 
 behind. Then I strolled through the town, and coming 
 down the Konigsallee, beheld some bustle in front of a 
 large, imposing-looking house, which had long been shut 
 up and uninhabited. It had been a venture by a too 
 shortly successful banker. He had built the house, lived 
 in it three months, and finding himself bankrupt, had one 
 morning disposed of himself by cutting his throat. Since 
 then the house had been closed, and had had an ill-name, 
 though it was the handsomest building in the most fashion- 
 able part of the town, with a grand porte-cochere in front, 
 and a pleasant, enticing kind of bowery garden behind 
 the house faced the Exerzierplatz, and was on the prome- 
 nade of Klberthal . A fine chestnut avenue made the street 
 into a pleasant wood, and yet KonigsaUe'e No. 3, always 
 looked deserted and depressing. I paused to watch the
 
 6 The First Violin 
 
 workmen who were throwing open the shutters and uncov- 
 ering the furniture. There were some women-servants 
 busy with brush and duster in the hall, and a splendid 
 barouche was being pushed through the porte-cochere into 
 the back premises : a couple of trim-looking English 
 grooms with four horses followed. 
 
 " Is some one coming to live here ? " I demanded of a 
 workman, who made answer : 
 
 " 'Ja wol ! A rich English milord has taken the house 
 furnished for six months Sir Le Marchant, oder so ehvas. 
 I do not know the name quite correctly. He comes in a 
 few days." . 
 
 "So!" said I, wondering what attraction Elberthal 
 could offer to a rich English sir or milord, and feeling at 
 the same time a mild glow of curiosity as to him and his 
 circumstances, for I humbly confess it I had never seen 
 an authentic milord. Elberthal and Kolnwere almost the 
 extent of my travels, and I only remembered that at the 
 Niederrheinische Musikfest last year, some one had pointed 
 out to me a decrepit-looking old gentleman, with a bottle- 
 nose and a meaningless eye, as a milord very, very rich, 
 and exceedingly good. I had sorrowed a little at the time 
 in thinking that he did not personally better grace his 
 circumstances and character, but until this moment I had 
 never thought of him again. 
 
 " That is his secretary," pursued the workman to me, in 
 an undertone, as he pointed out a young man who was 
 standing in the middle of the hall, note-book in hand, 
 " Herr Arkwright. He is looking after us."
 
 The First Violin 
 
 " When does the Engldnder come ? " 
 
 " In a few days, with his servants and milady, and mi- 
 iady's maid and dogs and bags and everything. And she 
 milady is to have those rooms "he pointed overhead, 
 and grinned " those, where Banquier Klein was found 
 with his throat cut. He ! " 
 
 He laughed, and began to sing lustily, " In Berlin, 
 sagf er." 
 
 After giving one more short survey to the house, and won- 
 dering why the apartments of a suicide should be assigned 
 to a young and beautiful woman (for I instinctively judged 
 her to be young and beautiful), I went on my way, and my 
 thoughts soon returned to Eugen and Sigmund, and that 
 trouble which I felt was hanging inevitably over us. 
 ***** 
 
 Eugen was, that evening, in a mood of utter, cool aloof- 
 ness. His trouble did not appear to be one that he could 
 confide at present, at least. He took up his violin, and 
 discoursed most eloquent music, in the dark, to which 
 music Sigmund and I listened. Sigmund sat upon my knee, 
 and Eugen went on playing improvising, or rather speak- 
 ing the thoughts which were uppermost in his heart. It 
 was wild, strange, melancholy, sometimes sweet, but ever 
 with a ringing note of woe so piercing as to stab, recur- 
 ring perpetually such a note as comes throbbing to life 
 now and then in the Sonate Pathe'tique, or in Raff's Fifth 
 Symphony. 
 
 Eugen always went to Sigmund after he had gone to bed, 
 and talked to him or listened to him. I do not know if he
 
 The First Violin 9 
 
 taught him something like a prayer at such times, or spoke 
 to him of supernatural things, or upon what they dis- 
 coursed. I only know that it was an interchange of soul, 
 and that usually he came away from it looking glad. But 
 to-night, after remaining longer than usual, he returned 
 with a face more haggard than I had seen it yet. 
 
 He sat down opposite me at the table, and there was 
 silence, with an ever-deepening, sympathetic pain on my 
 part. At last I raised my eyes to his face; one elbow 
 rested upon the table, and his head leaned upon his hand. 
 The lamplight fell full upon his face, and there was that 
 in it which would let me be silent no longer, any more 
 than one could see a comrade bleeding to death, and not 
 try to stanch the wound. I stepped up to him, and laid 
 my hand upon his shoulder. He looked up drearily, 
 unrecognizingly, unsmilingly at me. 
 
 " Eugen, what hast thou ? " 
 
 " La mart dans rdme" he answered, quoting from a 
 poem which we had both been reading. 
 
 " And what has caused it ? " 
 
 " Must you know, friend ? " he asked. " If I did not 
 need to tell it, I should be very glad." 
 
 " I must know it, or or leave you to it ! " said I, choking 
 back some emotion. " I cannot pass another day like this." 
 
 " And I had no right to let you spend such a day as 
 this," he answered. " Forgive me once again, Friedel 
 you who have forgiven so much and so often." 
 
 " Well," said I, " let us have the worst, Eugen. It is 
 something about "
 
 io The First Violin 
 
 I glanced towards the door, on the other side of which 
 Sigmund was sleeping. 
 
 His face became set, as if of stone. One word, and one 
 alone, after a short pause, passed his lips " Ja. f " 
 
 I breathed again. It was so then. 
 
 " I told you, Friedel, that I should have to leave him." 
 
 The words dropped out one by one from his lips, dis- 
 tinct, short, steady. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " That was bad, very bad. The worst, I thought, that 
 could befall ; but it seems that my imagination was 
 limited." 
 
 " Eugen, what is it? " 
 
 " I shall not have to leave him. I shall have to send 
 him away from me." 
 
 As if with the utterance of the words, the very core and 
 fibre of resolution melted away and vanished, and the 
 broken spirit turned writhing and shuddering from the 
 phantom that extended its arms for the sacrifice, he flung 
 his arms upon the table; his shoulders heaved. I heard 
 two suppressed, choked-down sobs the sobs of a strong 
 man strong alike in body and mind: strongest of all in 
 the heart and spirit and purpose to love and cherish. 
 
 " La mort dans Fame." indeed ! He could have chosen 
 no fitter expression. 
 
 " Send him away ! " I echoed, beneath my breath. 
 
 " Send my child away from me as if I did not want 
 him," said Courvoisier slowly, and in a voice made low 
 and halting with anguish, as he lifted his gaze, dim with
 
 The First Violin " 
 
 the desperate pain of coming parting, and looked me in 
 the face. 
 
 I had begun in an aimless manner to pace the room; 
 my heart on fire, my brain reaching wildly after some 
 escape from the fetters of circumstance, invisible but iron- 
 strong, relentless as clamps and glaives of tempered steel. 
 I knew no reason, of course. I knew no outward circum- 
 stances of my friend's Itfe or destiny. I did not wish to 
 learn any. I did know that since he said it was so it must 
 be so. Sigmund must be sent away ! He we must be 
 left alone ; two poor men, with the brightness gone from 
 our lives. 
 
 The scene does not let me rightly describe it. It was 
 an anguish allied in its intensity to that of Gethsemane. 
 Let me relate it as briefly as I can. 
 
 I made no spoken assurance of my sympathy. I winced 
 almost at the idea of speaking to him. I knew then that 
 we may contemplate, or believe we contemplate, some 
 coming catastrophe for years, believing that so the suffer- 
 ing, when it finally falls, will be lessened. This is a 
 delusion. Let the blow rather come short, sharp, and with- 
 out forewarning : preparation heightens the agony. 
 
 " Friedel," said he at last, " you do not ask why must 
 this be." 
 
 " I do not need to ask why. I know that it must be, or 
 you would not do it." 
 
 " I would tell you if I could if I might." 
 
 " For heaven's sake, don't suppose that I wish to 
 pry " I began. He interrupted me.
 
 iz The First Violin 
 
 "You will make me laugh in spite of myself," said 
 he. " You wish to pry ! Now, let me see how much 
 more I can tell you. You perhaps think it wrong, in an 
 abstract light, for a father to send his voung son away 
 from him. That is because you do not know what I do. 
 If you did, you would say, as I do, that it must be so 
 I never saw it till now. That letter was a revelation. It 
 is now all as clear as sunshine." 
 
 I assented. 
 
 " Then you consent to take my word that it must be so, 
 without more." 
 
 " Indeed, Eugen, I wish for no more." 
 
 He looked at me. " If I were to tell you," said he 
 suddenly, and an impulsive light beamed in his eyes. A 
 look of relief- it was nothing else of hope, crossed his 
 face. Then he sank again into his former attitude as if 
 tired and wearied with some hard battle : exhausted, or 
 what we more expressively call niedergeschiagen. 
 
 "Now something more," he went on; and I saw the 
 frown of desperation that gathered upon his brow. He 
 went on quickly, as if othenvise he could not say what had 
 to be said : " When he goes from me, he goes to learn to 
 become a stranger to me. I promise not to see him, nor 
 write to him, nor in any way communicate with him, or 
 influence him. We part utterly and entirely." 
 
 "Eugen! Impossible! Herrgott ! Impossible ! :> 
 cried I, coming to a stop, and looking incredulously at 
 him. That I did not believe. " Impossible ! " I repeated 
 beneath my breath.
 
 The First Violin 13 
 
 " By faith men can move mountains," he retorted. 
 
 This, then, was the flavoring which made the cup so 
 intolerable. 
 
 " You say that that is, and must be, wrong under all 
 circumstances," said Eugen, eying me steadily. 
 
 I paused. I could almost have found it in my heart to 
 say " Yes, I do." But my faith in, and love for this man 
 had grown with me : as a daily prayer grows part of one's 
 thoughts, so was my confidence in him part of my mind. 
 He looked as if he were appealing to me to say that it must 
 be wrong, and so give him some excuse to push it aside. 
 But I could not. After wavering for a moment I answered : 
 
 " No. I am sure you have sufficient reasons." 
 
 " I have. God knows I have." 
 
 In the silence that ensued, my mind was busy. Eugen 
 Courvoisier was not a religious man, as the popular mean- 
 ing of religious runs. He did not say of his misfortune, 
 *' It is God's will," nor did he add, " and therefore sweet 
 to me." He said nothing of whose will it was; but I felt 
 that had that cause been a living thing had it been a 
 man, for instance, he would have gripped it and fastened 
 to it until it lay dead and impotent, and he could set his 
 heel upon it. 
 
 But it was no strong, living, tangible thing. It was a 
 breathless abstraction a something existing in the minds 
 of men, and which they call " Right ! " and being that 
 not an outside law which an officer of the law could enforce 
 upon him : being that abstraction, he obeyed it. 
 As for saying that because it was right he liked it, or
 
 14 The First Violin 
 
 felt any consolation from the knowledge he never once 
 pretended to any such thing ; but, true to his character of 
 Child of the World, hated it with a hatred as strong as his 
 love to the creature which it deprived him of. Only he 
 did it. He is not alone in such circumstances. Others 
 have obeyed and will again obey this invisible law in cir- 
 cumstances as anguishing as those in which he stood : will 
 steel their hearts to hardness while every fibre cries out, 
 " Relent ! " or will like him writhe under the lash, shake 
 their chained hands at heaven, and submit. 
 
 " One more question, Eugen. When ? " 
 
 "Soon." 
 
 " A year would seem soon to any of us three." 
 
 " In a very short time. It may be in weeks : it may be 
 in days. Now, Friedhelm, have a little pity and don't 
 probe any further." 
 
 But I had no need to ask any more questions. The 
 dreary evening passed somehow over and bedtime came, 
 and the morrow dawned. 
 
 For us three it brought the knowledge that for an 
 indefinite time retrospective happiness must play the part 
 of sun on our mental horizon.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 " My Lady's Glory" 
 " KONIGSALL^E, No. 3,'" 
 
 wrote Adelaide to me, " is 
 the house which has been taken 
 for us. We shall be there on Tues- 
 day evening." 
 I accepted this communication in my own sense, and
 
 16 The First Violin 
 
 did not go to meet Adelaide, nor visit her that evening, 
 but wrote a ard, saying I would come on the following 
 morning. I had seen the house which had been taken for 
 Sir Peter and Lady I,e Marchant a large, gloomy-looking 
 house, with a tragedy attached to it, which had stood 
 empty ever since I had come to Elberthal. 
 
 Up the- fashionable Konigsallee, under the naked chest- 
 nut avenue, and past the great long Caserne and Exerzier- 
 platz a way on which I did not as a rule intrude my 
 ancient and poverty-stricken garments, I went, on the 
 morning after Adelaide's arrival. Lady Le Marchant had 
 not yet left her room, but if I were Miss Wedderburn I 
 was to be taken to her immediately. Then I was taken 
 upstairs, and had time to remark upon the contrast between 
 my sister's surroundings and my own, before I was deliv- 
 ered over to a lady's-maid French in nationality who 
 opened a door and announced me as Mademoiselle Ved- 
 dairebairne. 
 
 I had a rapid, dim impression that it was quite the 
 chamber of a grande dame, in the midst of which stood my 
 lady herself, having slowly risen as I came in. 
 
 " At last you have condescended to come," said the old 
 proud curt voice. 
 
 " How are you, Adelaide ?" said I originally, feeling 
 that any display of emotion would be unwelcome and in- 
 appropriate, and moreover, feeling any desire to indulge 
 in the same suddenly evaporate. 
 
 She took my hand loosely, gave me a little chilly kiss on 
 the cheek, and then held me off at arm's length to look at me.
 
 The First Violin 17 
 
 I did not speak. I could think of nothing agreeable to 
 say. The only words that rose to my lips were " How 
 very ill you look!" and I wisely concluded not to say 
 them. She was very beautiful, and looked prouder and 
 more imperious than ever. But she was changed. I 
 could not tell what it was. I could find no name for the 
 subtle alteration : ere long I knew only too well what it 
 was. Then, I only knew that she was different from what 
 she had been, and different in a way that aroused tenfold 
 all my vague forebodings. 
 
 She was wasted too had gone, for her, quite thin ; and 
 the repressed restlessness of her eyes made a disagreeable 
 impression upon me. Was she perhaps wasted with pas- 
 sion and wicked thoughts ? She looked as if it would not 
 have taken much to bring the smouldering fire into a blaze 
 of full fury as if fire and not blood ran in her veins. 
 
 She was in a loose silk dressing-gown, which fell in long 
 folds about her stately figure. Her thick black hair was 
 twisted into a knot about her head. She was surrounded 
 on all sides with rich and costly things. All the old severe 
 simplicity of style had vanished it seemed as if she had 
 gratified every passing fantastic wish or whim of her rest- 
 less, reckless spirit, and the result was a curious medley of 
 , the ugly, grotesque, ludicrous and beautiful a feverish 
 dream of Cleopatra-like luxury, in the midst of which she 
 stood, as beautiful and sinuous as a serpent, and looking 
 as if she could be, upon occasion, as poisonous as the same. 
 
 She looked me over from head to foot with piercing eyes, 
 and then said, half -scornfully, half-enviously :
 
 i3 The First Violin 
 
 " How well a stagnant life seems to suit some people. 
 Now you you are immensely improved unspeakably im- 
 proved. You have grown into a pretty woman more than 
 a pretty woman. I shouldn't have thought a few months 
 <:#/</ make such an alteration in any one." 
 
 Her words struck me as a kind of satire upon herself. 
 
 " I might say the same to you," said I, constrainedly. 
 " I think you are very much altered." 
 
 Indeed I felt strangely ill at ease with the beautiful 
 creature who, I kept trying to convince myself, was my 
 sister Adelaide, but who seemed farther apart from me 
 than ever. But the old sense of fascination which she had 
 been wont to exercise over me returned again in all or in 
 more than its primitive strength. 
 
 " I want to talk to you," said she, forcing me into a 
 deep easy-chair. " I have millions of things to ask you. 
 Take off your hat and mantle. You must stay all day. 
 Heavens ! how shabby you are ! I never saw anything so 
 worn out and yet your dress suits you, and you look nice 
 in it." (She sighed deeply.) " Nothing suits me now. 
 Formerly I looked well in everything. I should have looked 
 well in rags, and people would have turned to look after 
 me. Now, whatever I put on makes me look hideous." 
 
 " Nonsense ! " 
 
 " It does And I am glad of it," she added, clos- 
 ing her lips as if she closed in some bitter joy. 
 
 " I wish you would tell me why you have come here," I 
 inquired innocently. " I was so astonished. It was the 
 last place I should have thought of your coming to."
 
 The First Violin '9 
 
 " Naturally. But you see Sir Peter adores me so that 
 he hastens to gratify my smallest wish. I expressed a 
 desire one day to see you, and two days afterwards we were 
 en route. He said I should have my wish. Sisterly love 
 was a beautiful thing, and he felt it his duty to encourage 
 it." 
 
 I looked at her, and could not decide whether she were 
 in jest or earnest. If she were in jest, it was but a sorry 
 kind of joke if in earnest, she chose a disagreeably flip- 
 pant manner of expressing herself. 
 
 " Sir Peter has great faith in annoying and thwarting 
 me," she went on. " He has been looking better and 
 more cheerful ever since we left Rome." 
 
 " But Adelaide if you wished to leave Rome " 
 
 " But I did not wish to leave Rome. I wished to stay 
 so we came away, you know." 
 
 The suppressed rage and hatred in her tone made me 
 feel uncomfortable. I avoided speaking, but I could not 
 altogether avoid looking at her. Our eyes met, and Ade- 
 laide burst into a peal of harsh laughter. 
 
 " Oh, your face, May ! It is a study. I had a particu- 
 lar objection to coming to Elberthal, therefore Sir Peter 
 instantly experienced a particular desire to come. When 
 you are married you will understand these things. I was 
 almost enjoying myself in Rome : I suppose Sir Peter was 
 afraid that familiarity might bring dislike, or that if we 
 stayed too long I might feel it dull. This is a* gay, lively 
 place, I believe we came here, and for aught I know 
 we are going to stay here,"
 
 20 The First Violin 
 
 She laughed again, and I sat aghast. I had been miser- 
 able about Adelaide's marriage, but I had very greatly 
 trusted in what she had prognosticated about being able to 
 do what she liked with him. I began now to think that 
 there must have been some miscalculation that she had 
 mistaken the metal and found it not quite so ductile as she 
 had expected. I knew enough of her to be aware that I 
 was probably the first person to whom she had spoken in 
 such a manner, and that not even to me would she have so 
 spoken unless some strong feeling had prompted her to it. 
 This made me still more uneasy. She held so fast by the 
 fine polish of the outside of the cup and platter. Very 
 likely the world in general supposed that she and Sir Peter 
 were a model couple. 
 
 " I am glad you are here," she pursued. " It is a relief 
 to have some one else than Arkwright to speak to." 
 
 " Who is Arkwright ?" 
 
 " Sir Peter's secretary a very good sort of boy. He 
 knows all about our domestic bliss and other concerns 
 because he can't help. Sir Peter tells him " 
 
 A hand on the door-handle outside. A pause ere the 
 persons came in, for Sir Peter's voice was audible, giving 
 directions to some one ; probably the secretary of whom 
 Adelaide had spoken. She started violently : the color 
 fled from her face ; pale dismay painted itself for a 
 moment upon her lips, but only for a moment. In the 
 next she was outwardly herself again. But the hand 
 trembled which passed her handkerchief over her lips. 
 
 The door was fully opened, and Sir Peter came in.
 
 The First Violin *t 
 
 Ves ; that was the same face, the same penthouse of 
 ragged eyebrow over the cold and snaky eye beneath, the 
 same wolfish mouth and permanent hungry smile. But he 
 looked better, stouter, stronger ; more cheerful. It seemed 
 as if my lady's society had done him a world of good, and 
 acted as a kind of elixir of life. 
 
 I observed Adelaide. As he came in her eyes dropped : 
 her hand closed tightly over the handkerchief she held, 
 crushing it together in her grasp; she held her breath; 
 then, recovered, she faced him. 
 
 "Heyday! Whom have we here?" he asked, in a 
 voice which time and a residence in hearing of the language 
 of music had not mollified. " Whom have we here ? Your 
 dressmaker, my lady ? Have you had to send for a dress- 
 maker already ? Ha! what? Your sister? Impossible! 
 Miss May, I am delighted to see you again ! Are you 
 very well ? You look a little a shabby, one might 
 almost say, my dear a little seedy, hey ? " 
 
 I had no answer ready for this winning greeting. 
 
 " Rather like my lady before she was my lady," he con- 
 tinued pleasantly, as his eyes roved over the room, over its 
 furniture, over us. 
 
 There was power a horrible kind of strength and vital- 
 ity in that figure a crushing impression of his potency to 
 make one miserable, conveyed in the strong, rasping voice. 
 Quite a different Sir Peter from my erstwhile wooer. He 
 was a masculine, strong, planning creature, whose force of 
 will was able to crush that of my sister as easily as her fore- 
 finger might crush a troublesome midge. He was not blind
 
 22 The First Violin 
 
 or drivelling : he could reason, plot, argue, concoct a sys- 
 tematic plan for revenge, and work it out fully and in 
 detail ; he was able at once to grasp the broadest bearing 
 and the minute details of a position, and to act upon their 
 intimations with crushing accuracy. He was calm, 
 decided, keen, and all in a certain small, bounded, posi- 
 tive way which made him all the more efficient as a rul- 
 ing factor in this social sphere; where small, bounded, 
 positive strength, without keen sympathies save in the one 
 direction self and without idea of generosity, save with 
 regard to its own merits, pays better than a higher kind of 
 strength better than the strength of Joan of Arc, or St. 
 Stephen, or Christ. 
 
 This was the real Sir Peter, and before the revelation I 
 stood aghast. And that look in Adelaide's eyes, that tone 
 in her voice, that restrained spring in her movements, 
 would have been rebellion, revolution, but in the act of 
 breaking forth it became fear. She had been outwitted 
 most thoroughly and completely. She had got a jailer 
 and a prison. She feared the former, and every tradition 
 of her life bade her remain in the latter. 
 
 Sir Peter, pleasantly exhilarated by my confusion and 
 my lady's sullen silence, proceeded with an agreeable 
 smile : 
 
 " Are you never coming downstairs, madam ? I have 
 been deprived long enough of the delights of your society. 
 Come down ! I want you to read to me." 
 
 " I am engaged, as you may see," she answered in a 
 low voice of opposition.
 
 The First Violin 2 3 
 
 " Then the engagement must be deferred. There is a 
 great deal of reading to do. There is the Times for a 
 week. ' ' 
 
 " I hate the Times, and I don't understand it." 
 
 " So much the more reason why you should learn to do 
 so. In half an hour," said Sir Peter, consulting his 
 watch, " I shall be ready, or say in quarter of an hour." 
 
 " Absurd ! I cannot be ready in quarter of an hour. 
 Where is Mr. Arkwright ? " 
 
 " What is Mr. Arkwright to you, my dear ? You may 
 be sure that Mr. Arkwright's time is not being wasted. 
 If his mamma knew what he were doing she would be quite 
 satisfied oh, quite. In quarter of an hour." 
 
 He was leaving the room, but paused at the door with a 
 suspicious look. 
 
 " Miss May, it is a pity for you to go away. It will d' 
 you good to see your sister, I am sure. Pray spend the 
 day with us. Now, my lady, waste no more time." 
 
 With that he finally departed. Adelaide's face was 
 white, but she did not address me. She rang for her 
 maid. 
 
 " Dress my hair, Toinette, and do it as quickly as pos- 
 sible. Is my dress ready ? " was all she said. 
 
 " Mais oui t madame" 
 
 " Quick ! " she repeated. " You have only a quarter of 
 an hour." 
 
 Despite the suppressed cries, expostulations and an- 
 nouncements that it was impossible, Adelaide was dressed 
 in quarter of an hour.
 
 24 The First Violin 
 
 " You will stay, May ? " said she; and I knew it was 
 only the presence of Toinette which restrained her from 
 urgently imploring me to stay. 
 
 I remained, though not all day: only until it was time 
 to go and have my lesson from von Francius. During my 
 stay, however, I had ample opportunity to observe how 
 things were. 
 
 Sir Peter appeared to have lit upon a congenial occupa- 
 tion somewhat late in life, or perhaps previous practice 
 had made him an adept in it. His time was fully occupied 
 in carrying out a series of experiments upon his wife's 
 pride, with a view to humble and bring it to the ground. 
 If he did not fully succeed in that, he succeeded in mak- 
 ing her hate him as scarcely ever was man hated before. 
 
 They had now been married some two or three months, 
 and had foresworn all semblance of a pretence at unity or 
 concord. She thwarted him as much as she could, and 
 defied him as far as she dared. He played round and 
 round his victim, springing upon her at last, with some 
 look, or word, or hint, or smile, which meant something 
 I know not what that cowed her. 
 
 Oh, it was a pleasant household ! a cheerful, amiable 
 scene of connubial love, in which this fair woman of two 
 and twenty found herself, with every prospect of its con- 
 tinuing for an indefinite number of years ; for the Le 
 Marchants were a long-lived family, and Sir Peter ailed 
 nothing.
 
 The First Violin 
 
 CHAFFER III 
 
 " Wenn Menschen ius einander gehn 
 So sagen sie, Auf Wiedersehn ! 
 Auf Wiedersehn ! " 
 
 EUGEN had said, " Very soon it may be weeks, it may 
 be days," and had begged me not to inquire further into 
 the matter. Seeing his anguish, I had refrained; but 
 when two or three days had passed, and nothing was done 
 or said, I began to hope that the parting might not be 
 deferred even a few weeks; for I believed the father 
 suffered, and with him the child, enough each day to wipe 
 out years of transgression. 
 
 It was impossible to hide from Sigmund that some great 
 grief threatened, or had already descended upon his father, 
 and therefore upon him. The child's sympathy with the 
 man's nature, with every mood and feeling I had almost 
 said his intuitive understanding of his father's very 
 thoughts, was too keen and intense to be hoodwinked or 
 turned aside. He did not behave like other children 
 of course versteht sich, as Eugen said to me, with a 
 dreary smile. He did not hang about his father's neck, 
 imploring to hear what was the matter; he did not weep 
 or wail, or make complaints. After that first moment of 
 uncontrollable pain and anxiety, when he had gone into 
 the room whose door was closed upon him, and in which 
 Eugen had not told him all that was coming, he displayed 
 no violent emotion ; but he did what was to Eugen and me
 
 26 The First Violin 
 
 much more heartbreaking brooded silently; grew every 
 day wanner and thinner, and spent long intervals in watch- 
 ing his father, with eyes which nothing could divert, and 
 nothing deceive. If Eugen tried to be cheerful, to put 
 on a little gaiety of demeanor which he did not feel in his 
 heart, Sigmund made no answer to it, but continued to 
 look with the same solemn, large, and mournful gaze. 
 
 His father's grief was eating into his own young heart. 
 He asked not what it was; but both Eugen and I knew that 
 in time, if it went on long enough, he would die of it. 
 The picture, " Innocence Dying of a Bloodstain," which 
 Hawthorne has suggested to us, may have its prototypes 
 and counterparts in unsuspected places. Here was one. 
 Nor did Sigmund, as some others, children both of larger 
 and smaller growth, might have done, turn to me, and ask 
 me to tell him the meaning of the sad change which had 
 crept silently and darkly into our lives. He outspartaned 
 the Spartan in many ways. His father had not chosen to 
 tell him ; he would die rather than ask the meaning of the 
 silence. 
 
 One night when some three days had passed since the 
 letter had come as Eugen and I sat alone, it struck me 
 that I heard a weary turning over in the little bed in the 
 next room, and a stifled sob coming distinctly to my ears. 
 I lifted my head. Eugen had heard too; he was looking, 
 with an expression of pain and indecision, towards the 
 door. 
 
 With a vast effort the greatest my regard for him had 
 yet made I took it upon myself, laid my hand on his
 
 The First Violin 27 
 
 arm, and coercing him again into the chair, from which he 
 had half risen, whispered : 
 
 " I will tell him. You cannot. Nichtwahr?" 
 
 A look was the only, but a very sufficient answer. 
 
 I went into the inner room and closed the door. A dim 
 whiteness of moonlight struggled through the shutters, and 
 very very faintly showed me the outline of the child who 
 was dear to me. Stooping down beside him, I asked if he 
 were awake. 
 
 " Ja, ich wache," he replied in a patient, resigned kind 
 of small voice. 
 
 " Why dost thou not sleep, Sigmund ? Art thou not 
 well ?" 
 
 " No, I am not well," he answered; but with an expres- 
 sion of double meaning. " Mir ist nicht wohl." 
 
 " What ails thee ?" 
 
 " If you know what ails him, you know what ails me." 
 
 " Do you not know yourself ? " I asked. 
 
 " No," said Sigmund, with a short sob. " He says he 
 cannot tell me." 
 
 I slipped upon my knees beside the little bed, and 
 paused a moment. I am not ashamed to say that I prayed 
 to something which in my mind existed outside all earthly 
 things perhaps to the Freude which Schiller sang and 
 Beethoven composed to for help in the hardest task of 
 my life. 
 
 " Cannot tell me." No wonder he could not tell that 
 soft-eyed, clinging warmth ; that subtle mixture of fire 
 and softness, spirit and gentleness that spirit which in
 
 23 The First Violin 
 
 the years of trouble they had passed together had grown 
 part of his very nature that they must part ! No wonder 
 that the father, upon whom the child built his every idea of 
 what was great and good, beautiful, right and true in every 
 shape and form, could not say, " You shall not stay with 
 me ; you shall be thrust forth to strangers ; and, more- 
 over, I will not see you nor speak to you, nor shall you 
 hear my name ; and this I will do without telling you 
 why " that he could not say this what had the man been 
 who could have said it ? 
 
 As I kneeled in the darkness by Sigmund's little bed, 
 and felt his pillow wet with his silent tears, and his hot 
 cheek touching my hand, I knew it all. I believe I felt 
 for once as a man who has begotten a child and must hurt 
 it, repulse it, part from it, feels. 
 
 " No, my child, he cannot tell thee, because he loves 
 thee so dearly," said I. " But I can tell thee; I have his 
 leave to tell thee, Sigmund." 
 
 "Friedel ?" 
 
 " Thou art a very little boy, but thou art not like other 
 boys ; thy father is not just like other fathers." 
 
 "I know it." 
 
 " He is very sad." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " And his life which he has to live will be a sad one." 
 
 The child began to weep -again. I had to pause. How 
 was I to open my lips to instruct this baby upon the fear- 
 ful, profound abyss of a subject the evil and the sorrow 
 that are in the world how, how force those little tender,
 
 The First Violin 29 
 
 bare feet, from the soft grass on to the rough uphill path 
 all strewed with stones, and all rugged with ups and 
 downs ? It was horribly cruel. 
 
 " Life is very sad sometimes, mein Sigmund." 
 
 "Is it?" 
 
 " Yes. Some people, too, are much sadder than others. 
 I think' thy father is one of those people. Perhaps thou 
 art to be another." 
 
 " What my father is I will be," said he softly; and I 
 thought that it was another and a holier version of Eugen's 
 words to me, wrung out of the inner bitterness of his heart. 
 " The sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children, 
 even unto the third and fourth generation, whether they 
 deserve it or not." 
 
 The child, who knew nothing of the ancient saying, 
 merely said with love and satisfaction swelling his voice 
 to fulness, " What my father is I will be." 
 
 " Couldst thou give up something very dear for his sake ? " 
 
 "What a queer question!" said Sigmund. "I want 
 nothing when I am with him." 
 
 " t, mcin Kind ! Thou dost not know what I mean. 
 What is the greatest joy of thy life ? To be near thy 
 father and see him, hear his voice, and touch him, and feel 
 him near thee ; nicht wahr? " 
 
 " Yes," said he in a scarcely audible whisper. 
 
 There was a pause, during which I was racking my 
 brains to think of some way of introducing the rest without 
 shocking him too much, when suddenly he said, in a clear, 
 Jow voice :
 
 30 The First Violin 
 
 " That is it. He would never let me leave him, and he 
 would never leave me." 
 
 Silence again for a few moments, which seemed to deepen 
 some sneaking shadow in the boy's mind, for he repeated 
 through clenched teeth, and in a voice which fought hard 
 against conviction, " Never, never, never ! " 
 
 " Sigmund never of his own will. But remember what 
 I said, that he is sad, and there is something in his life 
 which makes him not only unable to do what he likes, but 
 obliged to do exactly what he does not like what he most 
 hates and fears to to part from thee." 
 
 " Nein, nein, nein/" said he. "Who can make him 
 do anything he does not wish ? Who can take me away 
 from him ? " 
 
 "I do not know. I only know that it must be so. 
 There is no escaping from it, and no getting out of it. It 
 is horrible, but it is so. Sometimes, Sigmund, there are 
 things in the world like this." 
 
 " The world must be a very cruel place," he said, as if 
 first struck with that fact. 
 
 " Now dost thou understand, Sigmund, why he did not 
 speak ? Couldst thou have told him such a thing ? " 
 
 "Where is he ? " 
 
 " There, in the next room, and very sad for thee." 
 
 Sigmund, before I knew what he was thinking of, was 
 out of bed and had opened the door. I saw that Eugen 
 looked up, saw the child standing in the doorway, sprang 
 up, and Sigmund bounded to meet him. A cry as of a 
 great terror came from the child. Self-restraint, so long
 
 The First Violin 3' 
 
 maintained, broke down; he cried in a loud, frightened 
 voice : 
 
 " Papa, Friedel says I must leave thee ! " and burst into 
 a storm of sobs and crying such as I had never before 
 known him yield to. 
 
 Eugen folded him in his arms, laid his head upon his 
 breast, and clasping him very closely to him, paced about 
 the room with him in silence, until the first fit of grief 
 was over. I, from the dark room, watched them in a kind 
 of languor, for I was weary, as though I had gone through 
 some physical struggle. 
 
 They passed to and fro, like s6me moving dream. Bit 
 by bit the child learned from his father's lips the pitiless 
 truth, down to the last bitter drop : that the parting was to 
 be complete, and they were not to see each other. 
 
 " But never, never ? " asked Sigmund in a voice of ter- 
 ror and pain mingled. 
 
 " When thou art a man that will depend upon thyself," 
 said Eugen. " Thou wilt have to choose." 
 
 "Choose what?" 
 
 " Whether thou wilt see me again." 
 
 " When I am a man may I choose ? " he asked, raising 
 his head with sudden animation. 
 
 " Yes ; I shall see to that." 
 
 " Oh, very well. I have chosen now," said Sigmund, 
 and the thought gave him visible joy and relief. 
 
 Eugen kissed him passionately. Blessed ignorance of 
 the hardening influences of the coming years ! Blessed 
 tenderness of heart and singleness of affection which could
 
 32 The First Violin 
 
 see no possibility that circumstances might make the ac- 
 quaintance of a now loved and adored superior being 
 appear undesirable ! And blessed sanguineness of five 
 years old, which could bridge the gulf between then and 
 manhood, and cry, Auf Wiedersehen ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 During the next few days more letters were exchanged. 
 Eugen received one which he answered. Part of the answer 
 he showed to me, and it ran thus : 
 
 " I consent to this, but only upon one condition, which 
 is that when my son is eighteen years old, you tell him 
 all, and give him his choice whether he see me again or 
 not. My word is given not to interfere in the matter, and 
 I can trust yours when you promise that it shall be as I 
 stipulate. I want your answer upon this point, which is 
 very simple, and the single condition I make. It is, how- 
 ever, one which I cannot and will not waive." 
 
 " Thirteen years, Eugen," said I. 
 
 " Yes ; in thirteen years I shall be forty-three." 
 
 " You will let me know what the answer to that is ? " I 
 went on. 
 
 He nodded. By return of post the answer came. 
 
 " It is 'yes, 1 " said he, and paused. "The day after 
 to-morrow he is to go." 
 
 " Not alone, surely ? " 
 
 " No ; some one will come for him." 
 
 I heard some of the instructions he gave his boy. 
 
 " There is one man where you are going, whom I wish 
 you to obey as you would me, Sigmund," he told him.
 
 The First Violin 33 
 
 "Is he like thee?" 
 
 " No ; much better and wiser than I am. But, remem- 
 ber, he never commands twice. Thou must not question 
 and delay as thou dost with thy weak-minded old father. 
 He is the master in the place thou art going to." 
 
 " Is it far from here ? " 
 
 " Not exceedingly far." 
 
 " Hast thou been there ? " 
 
 " Oh yes," said Eugen in a peculiar tone, " often." 
 
 " What must I call this man ? " inquired Sigmund. 
 
 " He will tell thee that. Do thou obey him and en- 
 deavor to do what he wishes, and so thou mayst know thou 
 art best pleasing me." 
 
 " And when I am a man I can choose to see thee again. 
 But where wilt thou be ? " 
 
 " When the time comes thou wilt soon find me if it is 
 necessary And thy music," pursued Eugen. " Re- 
 member that in all troubles that may come to thee, and 
 whatever thou mayst pass through, there is one great, beau- 
 tiful goddess who abides above the troubles of men, and is 
 often most beautiful in the hearts that are most troubled. 
 Remember whom ? " 
 
 " Beethoven," was the prompt rely. 
 
 " Just so. And hold fast to the service of the goddess 
 Music, the most beautiful thing in the world." 
 
 " And thou art a musician," said Sigmund, with a little, 
 laugh, as if it " understood itself" that his father should 
 naturally be a priest of " the most beautiful thing in the 
 world." 
 
 3
 
 34 The First Violin 
 
 I hurry over that short time before the parting came. 
 Eugen said to me : 
 
 " They are sending for him an old servant. I am not 
 afraid to trust him with him." 
 
 And one morning he came the old servant. Sigmund 
 happened at the moment not to be in the sitting-room ; 
 Eugen and I were. There was a knock, and in answer to 
 our Herein .' there entered an elderly man of soldierly 
 appearance, with a grizzled moustache, and stiff, military 
 bearing; he was dressed in a very plain, but very hand- 
 some livery, and on entering the room and seeing Eugen, 
 he paused just within the door, and saluted with a look 
 of deep respect ; nor did he attempt to advance further. 
 Eugen had turned very pale. 
 
 It struck me that he might have something to say to this 
 messenger of fate, and with some words to that effect I 
 rose to leave them together. Eugen laid his hand upon 
 my arm. 
 
 " Sit still, Friedhelm." And turning to the man, he 
 added : " How were all when you left, Heinrich ? " 
 
 " Well, Herr Gr " 
 
 " Courvoisier." 
 
 " All were well, mem fferr. 1 ' 
 
 " Wait a short time," said he. 
 
 A silent inclination on the part of the man. Eugen 
 went into the inner room where Sigmund was, and closed 
 the door. There was silence. How long did it endure ? 
 What was passing there ? What throes of parting ? What 
 grief not to be spoken or described ?
 
 The First Violin 35 
 
 Meanwhile the elderly man-servant remained in his sen- 
 tinel attitude, and with fixed expressionless countenance, 
 within the doorway. Was the time long to him, or short ? 
 
 At last the door opened, and Sigmund . came out alone. 
 God help us all ! It is terrible to see such an expression 
 upon a child's soft face. White and set and worn as if 
 with years of suffering was the beautiful little face. The 
 elderly man started, surprised from his impassiveness, as 
 the child came into the room. An irrepressible flash of 
 emotion crossed his face ; he made a step forward. Sig- 
 mund seemed as if he did not see us. He was making a 
 mechanical way to the door, when I interrupted him. 
 
 " Sigmund, do not forget thy old Friedhelm ! " I cried, 
 clasping him in my arms, and kissing his little pale face, 
 thinking of the day, three years ago, when his father had 
 brought him wrapped up in a plaid on that wet afternoon, 
 and my heart had gone out to him. 
 
 " Lieber Friedhelm!" he said, returning my embrace. 
 " Love my father when I am gone. And auf- auf Wie- 
 dersehen ! ' ' 
 
 He loosed his arms from round my neck and went up to 
 the man, saying : 
 
 " I am ready." 
 
 The large horny hand clasped round the small delicate 
 one. The servant-man turned, and with a stiff, respectful 
 bow to me, led Sigmund from the room. The door closed 
 after him he was gone. The light of two lonely lives 
 was put out. Was our darling right or wrong in that per- 
 sistent auf Wiedersehen of his ?
 
 36 The First Violin 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " Resignation ! Welch* elendes Hlilfsmittel ! und doch bleibt es 
 mir das einzig Uebrige." Brief e BEETHOVEN'S. 
 
 SEVERAL small events which took place at this time had 
 all their indirect but strong bearing on the histories of the 
 characters in this veracious narrative. The great concert 
 of the Passionsmusik of Bach came off on the very evening 
 of Sigmund's departure. It was, I confess, with some fear 
 and trembling that I went to call Eugen to his duties, for 
 he had not issued from his own room since he had gone 
 into it to send Sigmund away. 
 
 He raised his face as I came in; he was sitting looking 
 out of the window, and told me afterwards that he had sat 
 there, he believed, ever since he had been unable to catch 
 another glimpse of the carriage which bore his darling away 
 from him. 
 
 " What is it, Friedel ? " he asked, when I came in. 
 
 I suggested in a subdued tone that the concert began in 
 half an hour. 
 
 " Ah, true ! " said he, rising; " I must get ready. Let 
 me see, what is it ? " 
 
 " The Passionsmusik." 
 
 " To be sure ! Most appropriate music ! I feel as if I 
 could write a Passion Music myself just now.'' 
 
 We had but to cross the road from our dwelling to the 
 Concert-room. As we entered the corridor two ladies also 
 stepped into it, from a very grand carriage. They were
 
 The First Violin 37 
 
 accompanied by a young man, who stood a little to one 
 side to let them pass ; and as they came up and we came 
 up, von Francius came up too. 
 
 One of the ladies was May Wedderburn, who was dressed 
 in black, and looked exquisitely lovely, to my eyes, and, I 
 felt, to some others, with her warm auburn hair in shining 
 coils upon her head. The other was a woman in whose 
 pale, magnificent face I traced some likeness to our fair 
 singer, but she was different ; colder, grander, more severe. 
 
 It so happened that the ladies barred the way as we 
 arrived, and we had to stand by for a few moments as von 
 Francius shook hands with Miss Wedderburn, and asked 
 her smilingly if she were in good voice. 
 
 She answered, in the prettiest broken German I ever 
 heard, and then turned to the lady, saying : 
 
 " Adelaide, may I introduce Herr von Francius Lady 
 Le Marchant." 
 
 A stately bow from the lady a deep reverence, with a 
 momentary glance of an admiration warmer than I had ever 
 seen in his eyes, on the part of von Francius a glance 
 which was instantly suppressed to one of conventional 
 inexpressiveness. I was pleased and interested with this 
 little peep at a rank which I had never seen, and could 
 have stood watching them for a long time : the splendid 
 beauty and the great pride of bearing of the English lady 
 were a revelation to me; and opened quite a large, un- 
 known world before my mental eyes. Romances and 
 poems, and men dying of love, or killing each other for it, 
 no longer seemed ridiculous; for a smile or a warmer
 
 33 The First Violin 
 
 glance from that icily beautiful face must be something 
 not to forget. 
 
 It was Eugen who pushed forward, with a frown on his 
 brow, and less than his usual courtesy. I saw his eyes and 
 Miss Wedderburn's meet ; I saw the sudden flush that ran 
 over her fair face ; the stern composure of his. He would 
 own nothing; but I was strangely mistaken if he could say 
 that it was merely because he had nothing to own. 
 
 The concert was a success, so far as Miss Wedderburn 
 went. If von Francius had allowed repetitions, one song 
 at least would have been encored. As it was, she was a 
 success. And von Francius spent his time in the pauses 
 with her and her sister : in a grave, sedate way he and the 
 English lady seemed to " get on." 
 
 The concert was over. The next thing that was of any 
 importance to us occurred shortly afterwards. Von Fran- 
 cius had long been somewhat unpopular with his men, and 
 at silent enmity with Eugen, who was, on the contrary, 
 a universal favorite. There carhe a crisis, and the men 
 sent a deputation to Eugen to say that if he would accept 
 the post of leader they would strike, and refuse to accept 
 any other than he. 
 
 This was an opportunity for distinguishing himself. He 
 declined the honor : his words were few : he said some- 
 thing about how kind we had all been to him, " from the 
 time when I arrived; when Friedhelm Helfen, here, took 
 me in, gave me every help and assistance in his power, 
 and showed how appropriate his name was ; * and so began 
 * Helfen to help.
 
 The First Violin 39 
 
 a friendship which, please heaven, shall last till death 
 divides us, and perhaps go on afterwards." He ended by 
 saying some words which made a deep impression upon 
 me. After saying that he might possibly leave Elberthal 
 he added, " Lastly, I cannot be your leader because I never 
 intend to be any one's leader more than I am now," he 
 added, with a faint smile. " A kind of deputy, you know. 
 I am not fit to be a leader. I have no gift in that 
 line " 
 
 " Dock > " from half-a-dozen around. 
 
 " None whatever. I intend to remain in my present 
 condition no lower if I can help it, but certainly no 
 higher. I have good reasons for knowing it to be my 
 duty to do so." 
 
 And then he urged them so strongly to stand by Hen 
 von Francius that we were quite astonished. He tolc 1 
 them that von Francius would sometime rank with Schu- 
 mann, Raff, or Rubinstein, and that the men who rejected 
 him now would then be pointed out as ignorant and preju- 
 diced. 
 
 And amid the silence that ensued, he began to direct us 
 we had a Probe to Liszt's Prometheus, I remember. 
 
 He had won the day for von Francius, and von Francius, 
 getting to hear of it, came one day to see him, and frankly 
 apologized for his prejudice in the past, and asked Eugen 
 for his friendship in the future. Eugen's answer puzzled 
 me. 
 
 " I am glad you know that I honor your genius and wish 
 you well," said he, " and your offer of friendship honors
 
 40 The First Violin 
 
 me. Suppose I say I accept it until you see cause to 
 withdraw it." 
 
 " You are putting rather a remote contingency to the 
 front," said von Francius. 
 
 " Perhaps perhaps not," said Eugen, with a singular 
 smile. " At least I am glad to have had this token of your 
 sense of generosity. We are on different paths, and my 
 friends are not on the same level as yours " 
 
 " Excuse me : every true artist must be a friend of every 
 other true artist. We recognize no division of rank or 
 possession." 
 
 Eugen bowed, still smiling ambiguously, nor could von 
 Francius prevail upon him to say anything nearer or more 
 certain. They parted, and long afterwards I learnt the 
 truth, and knew the bitterness which must have been in 
 Eugen's heart : the shame, the gloom ; the downcast sor- 
 row, as he refused indirectly but decidedly the thing he 
 would have liked so well to shake the hand of a man 
 high in position and honorable in name look him in the 
 face and say, " I accept your friendship nor need you be 
 ashamed of wearing mine openly." 
 
 He refused the advance : he refused that and every other 
 opening for advancement. The man seemed to have a hor- 
 ror of advancement, or of coming in any way forward. He 
 rejected even certain offers which were made that he should 
 perform some solos at different concerts in Elberthal and 
 the neighborhood. I once urged him to become rich and 
 have Sigmund back again. He said: "if I had all the 
 wealth in Germany it would divide us farther still."
 
 The First Violin 4i 
 
 I have said nothing about the blank which Sigmund's 
 absence made in our lives, simply because it was too great 
 a blank to describe. Day after day we felt it, and it grew 
 keener, and the wound smarted more sharply. One can- 
 not work all day long, and in our leisure hours we learnt to 
 know only too well that he was gone and gone indeed. 
 That which remained to us was the " Resignation," the 
 "miserable assistant" which poor Beethoven indicated 
 with such a bitter smile. We took it to us as inmate and 
 Hausfreund, and made what we could of it.
 
 42 The First Violin 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " So runs the world away." 
 
 KSNIGSALL^E, No. 3, could scarcely be called a happy 
 establishment. I saw much of its inner life, and what I 
 saw made me feel mortally sad envy, hatred, and malice ; 
 no hour of satisfaction; my sister's bitter laughs and 
 sneers, and gibes at men and things ; Sir Peter's calm con- 
 sciousness of his power, and his no less calm, crushing, 
 unvarying manner of wielding it of silently and horribly 
 making it felt. Adelaide's very nature appeared to have 
 changed. From a lofty indifference to most things, to 
 sorrow and joy, to the hopes, fears, and feelings of others, 
 she had become eager, earnest, passionate, resenting ill- 
 usage, strenuously desiring her own way, deeply angry 
 when she could not get it. To say that Sir Peter's influence 
 upon her was merely productive of a negative dislike would 
 be ridiculous. It was productive of an intense, active 
 hatred, a hatred which would gladly, if it could, have 
 vented itself in deeds. That being impossible, it showed 
 itself in a haughty, unbroken indifference of demeanor 
 which it seemed to be Sir Peter's present aim in some 
 way to break down, for not only did she hate him he 
 hated her. 
 
 She used to the utmost what liberty she had. She was 
 not a woman to talk of regret for what she had done, or to 
 own that she had miscalculated her game. Her life was a 
 great failure, and that failure had been brought home to
 
 The First Violin 43 
 
 her mind in a mercilessly short space of time; but of what 
 use to bewail it ? She was not yet conquered. The bit- 
 terness of spirit which she carried about with her took the 
 form of a scoffing pessimism. A hard laugh at the things 
 which made other people shake their heads and uplift their 
 hands ; a ready scoff at all tenderness ; a sneer at anything 
 which could by any stretch of imagination be called good ; 
 a determined running up of what was hard, sordid, and 
 worldly, and a persistent and utter scepticism as to the 
 existence of the reverse of those things ; such was now the 
 yea, yea, and nay, hay, of her communication. 
 
 To a certain extent she had what she had sold herself 
 for; outside pomp and show in plenty carriages, horses, 
 servants, jewels, and clothes. Sir Peter liked, to use his 
 own expression, " to see my lady blaze away " only she 
 must blaze away in his fashion, not hers. He declared he 
 did not know how long he might remain in Elberthal ; 
 spoke vaguely of " business at home," about which he was 
 waiting to hear, and said that until he heard the news he 
 wanted, he could not move from the place he was in. He 
 was in excellent spirits at seeing his wife chafing under 
 the confinement to a place she detested, and appeared to 
 find life sweet. 
 
 Meanwhile she, using her liberty as I said to the utmost 
 extent, had soon plunged into the midst of the fastest set 
 in Elberthal. 
 
 There was a fast set there as there was a musical set, an 
 artistic set, a religious set, a free-thinking set; for though 
 it was not so large or so rich as many dull, wealthy towns
 
 44 The First Violin 
 
 in England, it presented from its mixed inhabitants various 
 phases of society. 
 
 This set into which Adelaide had thrown herself was the 
 fast one ; a coterie of officers, artists, the richer merchants 
 and bankers, medical men, literati, and the young (and 
 sometimes old) wives, sisters, and daughters of the same; 
 many of them priding themselves upon not being natives 
 of Elberthal, but coming from larger and gayer towns 
 Berlin, Dresden, Hamburg, Frankfurt, and others. 
 
 They led a gay enough life amongst themselves a life 
 of theatre, concert, and opera-going, of dances, private at 
 home, public at the Malkasten or Artists' Club, flirtations, 
 marriages, engagements, disappointments, the usual dreary 
 and monotonous round. They considered themselvfes the 
 only society worthy the name in Elberthal, and whoever 
 was not of their set was Niemand. 
 
 I was partly dragged, partly I went to a certain extent 
 of my own will, into this vortex. I felt myself to have 
 earned a larger experience now of life and life's realities. 
 I questioned when I should once have discreetly inclined 
 the head and held my peace. I had a mind to examine 
 this clique and the characters of some of its units, and see 
 in what it was superior to some other acquaintances (in a 
 humbler sphere) with whom my lot had been cast. As 
 time went on I found the points of superiority to decrease 
 those of inferiority rapidly to increase. 
 
 I troubled myself little about them and their opinions. 
 My joys and griefs, hopes and fears, lay so entirely outside 
 their circle that I scarce noticed whether they noticed me
 
 The First Violin 45 
 
 or not. I felt and behaved coldly towards them ; to the 
 women because their voices never had the ring of genuine 
 liking in speaking to me ; to the men because I found them 
 as a rule shallow, ignorant, and pretentious ; repellent to 
 me, as I dare say I, with my inability to understand them, 
 was to them. I saw most men and things through a dis- 
 torting glass ; that of contrast, conscious or unconscious, 
 with Courvoisier. 
 
 My musician, I reasoned, wrongly or rightly, had three 
 times their wit, three times their good looks, manners and 
 information, and many times three times their common 
 sense, as well as a juster appreciation of his own merits : 
 besides which, my musician was not a person whose 
 acquaintance and esteem were to be had for the asking or 
 even for a great deal more than the asking, while it seemed 
 that these young gentlemen gave their society to any one 
 who could live in a certain style and talk a certain argot, 
 and their esteem to every one who could give them often 
 enough the savory meat that their souls loved, and the 
 wine of a ceitain quality which made glad their hearts, and 
 rendered them of a cheerful countenance. 
 
 But my chief reason for mixing with people who were 
 certainly as a rule utterly distasteful and repugnant to me, 
 was because I could not bear to leave Adelaide alone. I 
 pitied her in her lonely alienated misery; and I knew that 
 it was some small solace to her to have me with her. 
 
 The tale of one day will give an approximate idea of 
 most of the days I spent with her. I was at the time stay- 
 ing with her. Our hours were late. Breakfast was not
 
 46 The First Violin 
 
 over till ten, that is by Adelaide and myself. Sir Peter 
 was an exceedingly active person, both in mind and body, 
 who saw after the management of his affairs in England in 
 the minutest manner that absence would allow. Towards 
 half-past eleven he strolled into the room in which we were 
 sitting, and asked what we were doing. 
 
 " Looking over costumes, 1 ' said I, as Adelaide made no 
 answer, and I raised my eyes from some colored illustra- 
 tions. 
 
 " Costumes what kind of costumes ? " 
 
 "Costumes for the Maskenball," I answered, taking 
 refuge in brevity of reply. 
 
 " Oh ! " He paused. Then, turning suddenly to Ade- 
 laide : 
 
 " And what is this entertainment, my lady ? " 
 
 " The Carnival Ball," said she almost inaudibly, between 
 her closed lips, as she shut the book of illustrations, pushed 
 it away from her, and leaned back in her chair. 
 
 " And you think you would like to go to the Carnival 
 Ball, hey?" 
 
 "No, I do not," said she, as she stroked her lapdog 
 with a long white hand on which glittered many rings, and 
 steadily avoiding looking at him. She did wish to go to the 
 ball, but she knew that it was as likely as not that if she 
 displayed any such desire he would prevent it. Despite 
 her curt reply she foresaw impending the occurrence which 
 she most of anything disliked a conversation with Sir 
 Peter. He placed himself in our midst, and requested to 
 look at the pictures. In silence J handed him the book.
 
 The First Violin 41 
 
 I never could force myself to smile when he was there, nor 
 overcome a certain restraint of demeanor which rather 
 pleased and flattered him than otherwise. He glanced 
 sharply round in the silence which followed his joining 
 our company, and turning over the illustrations, said : 
 
 " I thought I heard some noise when I came in. Don't 
 let me interrupt the conversation." 
 
 But the conversation was more than interrupted; it was 
 dead the life frozen out of it by his very appearance. 
 
 "When is the Carnival, and when does this piece of 
 tomfoolery come off?" he inquired, with winning grace 
 of diction. 
 
 " The Carnival begins this year on the 26th of February. 
 The ball is on the 27th," said I, confining myself to facts 
 and figures. 
 
 " And how do you get there ? By paying ? " 
 
 " Well, you have to pay yes. But you must get your 
 tickets from some member of the Malkasten Club. It is 
 the artists' ball, and they arrange it all." 
 
 " H'm ! Ha ! And as what do you think of going, 
 Adelaide ?" he inquired, turning with suddenness towards 
 her. 
 
 " I tell you I have not thought of going nor thought 
 anything about it. Herrvon Franciussent us the pictures, 
 and we were looking over them. That is all." 
 
 Sir Peter turned over the pages and looked at the com- 
 monplace costumes therein suggested Joan of Arc, Cleo- 
 patra, Picardy Peasant, Maria Stuart, a Snow Queen, and 
 all the rest of them.
 
 48 The First Violin 
 
 " Well, I don't see anything here that I would wear if I 
 were a woman," he said, as he closed the book. " Febru- 
 ary, did you say? " 
 
 " Yes," said I, as no one else spoke. 
 
 " Well, it is the middle of January now. You had bet- 
 ter be looking out for something; but don't let it be any- 
 thing in those books. Let the beggarly daubers see 
 
 how Englishwomen do these things." 
 
 " Do you intend me to understand that you wish us to 
 go to the ball?" inquired Adelaide in an icy kind of 
 voice. 
 
 " Yes, I do," almost shouted Sir Peter. Adelaide could, 
 despite the whip and rein with which he held her, exas- 
 perate and irritate him by no means more thoroughly than 
 by pretending that she did not understand his grandiloquent 
 allusions, and the vague grandness of the commands which 
 he sometimes gave. " I mean you to go, and your little 
 sister here, and Arkwright too. I don't know about my- 
 self. Now, I am going to ride. Good-morning." 
 
 As Sir Peter went out, von Francius came in. Sir Peter 
 greeted him with a grin, and exaggerated expressions of 
 affability at which von Francius looked silently scornful. 
 Sir Peter added : 
 
 " These two ladies are puzzled to know what they shall 
 wear at the Carnival Ball. Perhaps you can give them 
 your assistance." 
 
 Then he went away. It was as if a half-muzzled wolf 
 had left the room. 
 
 Von Francius had come to give me my lesson, which was
 
 The First Violin 49 
 
 now generally taken at my sister's house and in her pres- 
 ence, and after which von Francius usually remained some 
 half-hour or so in conversation with one or both of us. 
 He had become an intime of the house. I was glad of 
 this, and that without him nothing seemed complete, no 
 party rounded, scarcely an evening finished. 
 
 When he was not with us in the evening, we were some- 
 where where he was ; either at a concert or a Probe, or at 
 the theatre or opera, or one of the fashionable lectures 
 which were then in season. 
 
 It could hardly be said that von Francius was a more 
 frequent visitor than some other men at the house, but from 
 the first his attitude with regard to Adelaide had been dif- 
 ferent. Some of those other men were, or professed to 
 be, desperately in love with the beautiful Englishwoman ; 
 there was always a half-gallantry in their behavior, a hom- 
 age which might not be very earnest, but which was 
 homage all the same, to a beautiful woman. With von 
 Francius it had never been thus, but there had been a 
 gravity and depth about their intercourse which pleased 
 me. I had never had the least apprehension with regard 
 to those other people ; she might amuse herself with them ; 
 it would only be amusement, and some contempt. 
 
 But von Francius was a man of another mettle. It had 
 struck me almost from the first that there might be some 
 danger, and I was unfeignedly thankful to see that as time 
 went on, and his visits grew more and more frequent, and 
 the intimacy deeper, not a look, not a sign occurred to 
 hint that it ever was or would be more than acquaintance, 
 4
 
 50 The First Violin 
 
 liking, appreciation, friendship, in successive stages. Von 
 Francius had never from the first treated her as an ordinary 
 person, but with a kind of tacit understanding that some- 
 thing not to be spoken of lay behind all she did and said : 
 with the consciousness that the skeleton in Adelaide's cup- 
 board was more ghastly to look upon than most people's 
 secret spectres, and that it persisted, with an intrusiveness 
 and want of breeding peculiar to guests of that calibre, in 
 thrusting its society upon her at all kinds of inconvenient 
 times. 
 
 I enjoyed those music lessons, I must confess. Von 
 Francius had begun to teach me music now, as well as 
 singing. By this time I had resigned myself to the convic- 
 tion that such talent as I might have lay in my voice, not 
 my fingers, and accepted it as part of the conditions which 
 ordain that in every human life shall be something manqut, 
 something incomplete. 
 
 The most memorable moments with me have been those 
 in which pain and pleasure, yearning and satisfaction, 
 knowledge and seeking, have been so exquisitely and so 
 intangibly blended, in listening to some deep sonata, some 
 stately and pathetic old Ciaconna or Gavotte, some Con- 
 certo or Symphony : the thing nearest heaven is to sit 
 apart with closed eyes while the orchestra or the individ- 
 ual performer interprets for one the mystic poetry, or the 
 dramatic fire, or the subtle cobweb refinements of some 
 instrumental poem. 
 
 I would rather have composed a certain little Trdumerei 
 of Schumann's, or a Barcarole of Rubinste ; n's, or a Sonata
 
 The First Violin 5* 
 
 of Schubert's, than have won all the laurels of Grisi, all 
 the glory of Malibran and Jenny Lind. 
 
 But it was not to be. I told myself so, and yet I 
 tried so hard in my halting, bungling way to worship 
 the goddess of my idolatry, that my master had to re- 
 strain me. 
 
 " .Stop ! " said he this morning, when I had been weakly 
 endeavoring to render a Ciaconna from a Suite of Lach- 
 ner's which had moved me to thoughts too deep for tears 
 at the last Symphonic Concert. "Stop, Fraulein May 1 
 Duty first : your voice before your fingers." 
 
 " Let me try once again ! " I implored. 
 
 He shut up the music and took it from the desk. 
 
 " Entbchren sollst du ; sollst entbehren ! ' ' said he dryly. 
 
 I took my lesson and then practised shakes for an hour, 
 while he talked to Adelaide; and then, she being sum- 
 moned to visitors, he went away. 
 
 Later I found Adelaide in the midst of a lot of visitors 
 Herr Hauptmann This, Herr Lieutenant That, Herr 
 Maler The Other, Herr Concertmeister So-and-So for von 
 Francius was not the only musician who followed in her 
 train ; but there I am wrong. He did not follow in her 
 train ; he might stand aside and watch the others who did ; 
 but following was not in his line. 
 
 There were ladies there too gay young women, who 
 rallied round Lady Le Marchant as around a master-spirit 
 in the art of Zeitvertreib . 
 
 This levee lasted till the bell rang for lunch, when we 
 went into the dining-room, and found Sir Peter and his
 
 52 The First Violin 
 
 secretary, young Arkwright, already seated. He Ark- 
 wright was a good-natured, tender-hearted lad, devoted to 
 Adelaide. I do not think he was very happy or very well 
 satisfied with his place, but from his salary he half sup- 
 ported a mother and sister, and so was fain to " grin and 
 bear it." 
 
 Sir Peter was always exceedingly affectionate to me. I 
 hated to be in the same room with him, and while I 
 detested him, was also conscious of an unheroic fear of 
 him. For Adelaide's sake I was as attentive to him as I 
 could make myself, in order to free her a little from his 
 surveillance, for poor Adelaide Wedderburn, with her few 
 pounds of annual pocket-money, and her proud, restless, 
 ambitious spirit, had been a free, contented woman in 
 comparison with Lady Le Marchant. 
 
 On the day in question he was particularly amiable, 
 called me "my dear" every time he spoke to me, and 
 complimented me upon my good looks, telling me I was 
 growing monstrous handsome ay, devilish handsome, by 
 Gad ! far outstripping my lady, who had gone off dreadfully 
 in her good looks, hadn't she, Arkwright? 
 
 Poor Arkwright, tingling with a scorching blush, and 
 ready to sink through the floor with confusion, stammered 
 out that he had never thought of venturing to remark upon 
 my Lady Le Marchant's looks. 
 
 " What a lie, Arkwright ! You know you watch her as 
 if she was the apple of your eye," chuckled Sir Peter, 
 smiling round upon the company with his cold glittering 
 eyes. " What are you blushing so for, my pretty May?
 
 The First Violin 53 
 
 Isn't there a song something about my pretty May, my 
 dearest May, eh ? " 
 
 " My pretty Jane, I suppose you mean," said I, nobly 
 taking his attention upon myself, while Adelaide sat 
 motionless and white as marble, and Arkwright cooled 
 down somewhat from his state of shame and anguish at 
 being called upon to decide which of us eclipsed the other 
 in good looks. 
 
 " Pretty Jane! Who ever heard of a pretty Jane ?" 
 said Sir Peter. " If it isn't May, it ought to be. At any 
 rate, there was a Charming May." 
 
 "The month not a person." 
 
 " Pretty Jane, indeed ! You must sing me that after 
 lunch, and then we ca'n see whether the song was pretty or 
 not, my dear, eh ? " 
 
 " Certainly, Sir Peter, if you like." 
 
 " Yes, I do like. My lady here seems to have lost her 
 voice lately. I can't imagine the reason. I am sure she 
 has everything to make her sing for joy ; have you not, my 
 dear?" 
 
 "Everything, and more than everything," replies my 
 lady laconically. 
 
 " And she has a strong sense of duty, too; loves those 
 whom she ought to love, and despises those whom she 
 ought to despise. She always has done, from her infancy 
 up to the time when she loved me and despised public 
 opinion for my sake." 
 
 The last remark was uttered in tones of deeper malig- 
 nity, while the eyes began to glare, and the under-lip to
 
 54 The First Violin 
 
 droop, and the sharp eye-teeth, which lent such a very 
 emphatic point to all Sir Peter's smiles, sneers, and facial 
 movements in general, gleamed. 
 
 Adelaide's lip quivered fora second; her color momen- 
 tarily faded. 
 
 In this kind of light and agreeable badinage the meal 
 passed over, and we were followed to the drawing-room by 
 Sir Peter, loudly demanding " ' My Pretty Jane ' or May, 
 or whatever it was." 
 
 " We are going out," said my lady. " You can have it 
 another time. May cannot sing the moment she has fin- 
 ished lunch." 
 
 "Hold your tongue, my dear," said Sir Peter; and 
 inspired by an agreeable and playful humor, he patted his 
 wife's shoulder and pinched her ear. 
 
 The color fled from her very lips, and she stood pale 
 and rigid, with a look in her eyes which I interpreted to 
 mean a shuddering recoil, stopped by sheer force of will. 
 
 Sir Peter turned with an engaging laugh to me : 
 
 " Miss May bonnie May made me a promise, and she 
 must keep it; or if she doesn't, I shall take the usual for- 
 feit. We know what that is. Upon my word, I almost 
 wish she would break her promise." 
 
 " I have no wish to break my promise," said I, hasten- 
 ing to the piano, and then there singing " My Pretty 
 Jane," and one or two others, after which he released us, 
 chuckling at having contrived to keep my lady so long 
 waiting for her drive. 
 
 The afternoon's programme was, I confess, not without
 
 The First Violin 55 
 
 attraction to me ; for I knew that I was pretty, and I had 
 not one of the strong and powerful minds which remain 
 undated by admiration, and undepressed by the absence 
 of it. 
 
 We drove to the picture exhibitions, and at both of them 
 had a little crowd attending us. That crowd consisted 
 chiefly of admirers, or professed admirers, of my sister, 
 with von Francius in addition, who dropped in at the first 
 exhibition. 
 
 Von Francius did not attend my sister; it was by my 
 side that he remained, and it was to me that he talked. 
 He looked on at the men who were around her, but scarcely 
 addressed her himself. 
 
 There was a clique of young artists who chose to consider 
 the wealth of Sir Peter Le Marchant as fabulous, and who 
 paid court to his wife from mixed motives ; the prevailing 
 one being a hope that she would be smitten by some pic- 
 ture of theirs at a fancy price, and order it to be sent home 
 as if she ever saw with anything beyond the most super- 
 ficial outward eye those pictures, and as if it lay in her 
 power to order any one, even the smallest and meanest of 
 them. These ingenuous artists had yet to learn that Sir 
 Peter's picture purchases were formed from his own judg- 
 ment, through the medium of himself or his secretary, 
 armed with strict injunctions as to price, and upon the 
 most purely practical and business-like principles not in 
 the least at the caprice of his wife. 
 
 We went to the larger gallery last. As we entered it I 
 turned aside with von Francius to look at a picture in a
 
 56 The First Violin 
 
 small back room, and when we turned to follow the others, 
 they had all gone forward into the large room; but stand- 
 ing at the door by which we had entered, and looking 
 calmly after us, was Courvoisier. 
 
 A shock thrilled me. It was some time since I had seen 
 him ; for I had scarcely been at my lodgings for a fort- 
 night, and we had had no Hauptproben lately. I had heard 
 some rumor that important things or, as Frau Liitzler 
 gracefully expressed it, was Wichtiges had taken place 
 between von Francius and the Kapelle, and that Courvoi- 
 sier had taken a leading part in the affair. To-day the 
 greeting between the two men was a cordial, if a brief one. 
 
 Eugen's eyes scarcely fell upon me ; he included me in 
 his bow that was all. All my little day-dream of grow- 
 ing self-complacency was shattered, scattered; the old 
 feeling of soreness, smallness, wounded pride, and bruised 
 self-esteem came back again. I felt a wild, angry desire to 
 compel some other glance from those eyes than that exas- 
 perating one of quiet indifference. I felt it like a lash 
 every time I encountered it. Its very coolness and absence 
 of emotion stung me and made me quiver. 
 
 We and Courvoisier entered the large room at the same 
 time. While Adelaide was languidly making its circuit, 
 von Francius and I sat down upon the ottoman in the 
 middle of the room. I watched Eugen, even if he took no 
 notice of me watched him till every feeling of rest, every 
 hard-won conviction of indifference to him, and feeling of 
 regard conquered, came tumbling down in ignominious 
 ruins. I knew he had had a fiery trial. His child, for
 
 The First Violin 57 
 
 whom I used to watch his adoration with a dull kind of 
 envy, had left him. There was some mystery about it, and 
 much pain. Frau Liitzler had begun to tell me a long 
 story culled from one told her by Frau Schmidt, and I had 
 stopped her, but knew that " Herr Courvoisierwas not like 
 the same man any more." 
 
 That trouble was visible in firmly-marked lines, even 
 now : he looked subdued, older, and his face was thin and 
 worn. Yet never had I noticed so plainly before the bright 
 light of intellect in his eye ; the noble stamp of mind upon 
 his brow. There was more than the grace of a kindly nature 
 in the pleasant curve of the lips there was thought, power, 
 intellectual strength. I compared him with the young men 
 who were at this moment dangling round my sister. Not 
 one amongst them could approach him not merely in stat- 
 ure and breadth and the natural grace and dignity of car- 
 riage, but in far better things in the mind that dominates 
 sense : the will that holds back passion with a hand as 
 strong and firm as that of a master over the dog whom he 
 chooses to obey him. 
 
 This man I write from knowledge had the capacity to 
 appreciate and enjoy life to taste its pleasures never to 
 excess, but with no ascetic's lips. But the natural prompt- 
 ing the moral " eat, drink and be merry," was held back 
 with a ruthless hand ; with chain of iron, and biting thong 
 to chastise pitilessly each restive movement. He dreed 
 out his weird most thoroughly, and drank the cup presented 
 to him to the last dregs. 
 
 When the weird is very long and hard when the flavor
 
 53 The First Violin 
 
 of the cup is exceeding bitter, this process leaves its 
 effects in the form of sobered mien, gathering wrinkles, 
 and a permanent shadow on the brow, and in the eyes. So 
 it was with him. 
 
 He went round the room, looking at a picture here and 
 there with the eye of a connoisseur then pausing before 
 the one which von Francius had brought me to look at on 
 Christmas-day, Courvoisier, folding his arms, stood before 
 it and surveyed it, straitly, and without moving a muscle : 
 coolly, criticisingly and very fastidiously. The blase- 
 looking individual in the foreground received, I saw, a 
 share of his attention the artist, too, in the background ; 
 the model, with the white dress, oriental fan, bare arms, 
 and half-bored, half-cynic look. He looked at them all 
 long attentively then turned away; the only token of 
 approval or disapproval which he vouchsafed being a slight 
 smile and a slight shrug, both so very slight as to be 
 almost imperceptible. Then he passed on glanced at 
 some other pictures at my sister, on whom his eyes dwelt 
 for a moment as if he thought that she at least made a 
 very beautiful picture; then out of the room. 
 
 " Do you know him ? " said von Francius, quite softly, 
 to me. 
 
 I started violently. I had utterly forgotten that he was 
 at my side, and I know not what tales my face had been 
 telling. I turned to find the dark and impenetrable eyes 
 of von Francius fixed on me. 
 
 "A little," I said. 
 
 " Then you know a generous, high-minded man a man
 
 The First Violin 59 
 
 who has made me feel ashamed of myself and a man to 
 whom I made an apology the other day with pleasure." 
 
 My heart warmed. This praise of Eugen by a man 
 whom I admired so devotedly as I did Max von Francius 
 seemed to put me right with myself and the world. 
 
 Soon afterwards we left the exhibition, and while the 
 others went away it appeared somehow by the merest casu- 
 alty that von Francius was asked to drive back with us and 
 have afternoon tea, in englischer Weise which he did, after 
 a moment's hesitation. 
 
 After tea he left for an orchestra Probe to the next Sat- 
 urday's concert ; but with an Auf Wiedersehen, for the 
 Probe will not last long, and we shall meet again at the 
 opera and later at the Malkasten Ball. 
 
 I enjoyed going to the theatre. I k*hew my dress was 
 pretty. I knew that I looked nice, and that people would 
 look at me, and that I, too, should have my share of 
 admiration and compliments as a schone Engldndenn. 
 
 We are twenty minutes late naturally. All the people 
 in the place stare at us and whisper about us, partly because 
 we have a conspicuous place; the proscenium Loge to the 
 right of the stage, partly because we are in full toilette 
 an almost unprecedented circumstance in that homely 
 theatre partly, I suppose, because Adelaide is supremely 
 beautiful. 
 
 Mr. Arkwright was already with us. Von Francius 
 joined us after the first act, and remained until the 
 end. Almost the only words he exchanged with Adelaide 
 were :
 
 60 The First Violin 
 
 " Have you seen this opera before, Lady Le Mar- 
 chant ?" 
 
 " No; never." 
 
 It was Auber's merry little opera, Des Teufels Antheil. 
 The play was played. Von Francius was beside me. 
 Whenever I looked down I saw Eugen, with the same 
 calm, placid indifference upon his face; and again I felt 
 the old sensation of soreness, shame and humiliation. I 
 feel wrought up to a great pitch of nervous excitement 
 when we leave the theatre and drive to the Malkasten, 
 where there is more music dance music ; and where the 
 ball is at its height. And in a few moments I find myself 
 whirling down the room in the arms of von Francius, to the 
 music of Mein schonster Tag in Baden, and wishing very 
 earnestly that the Heart-sickness I feel would make me ill 
 or faint, or anything that would send me home to quietness 
 and him. But it does not have the desired effect. I am 
 in a fever : I am all too vividly conscious, and people tell 
 me how well I am looking, and that rosy cheeks become 
 me better than pale ones. 
 
 They are merry parties, these dances at the Malkasten, 
 in the quaintly-decorated saal of the artists' club-house. 
 There is a certain license in the dress. Velvet coats, and 
 coats, too, in many colors, green and prune and claret, 
 vying with black, are not " tabu." There are various uni- 
 forms of Hussars, Infantry, and Uhlans, and some of the 
 women, too, are dressed in a certain fantastically pic- 
 turesque style to please their artist brothers or fiances. 
 
 The dancing gets faster, and the festivities are kept up
 
 The First Violin 6t 
 
 late. Songs are sung which perhaps would not be heard in 
 a quiet drawing-room ; a little acting is done with them. 
 Music is played, and von Francius, in a vagrant mood, sits 
 down and improvises a fitful, stormy kind of fantasia, 
 which in itself and in his playing puts me much in mind 
 of the weird performances of the Abbe" Liszt. 
 
 I at least hear another note than of yore, another touch. 
 The soul that it wanted seems gradually creeping into it. 
 He tells a strange story upon the quivering keys it is 
 becoming tragic, sad, and pathetic. He says hastily to 
 me and in an undertone, " Fraulein May, this is a thought 
 of one of your own poets : 
 
 " ' How sad, and mad, and bad it was, 
 And yet how it was sweet.' " 
 
 I am almost in tears, and every face is affording illus- 
 trations for " The Expressions of the Emotions in Men and 
 Women," when suddenly it breaks off with a loud Ha! 
 ha ! ha ! which sounds as if it came from a human voice, 
 and jars upon me, and then he breaks into a waltz, pushing 
 the astonished musicians aside, and telling the company 
 to dance while he pipes. 
 
 A mad dance to a mad tune. He plays and plays on, 
 ever faster, and ever a wilder measure, with strange, eerie, 
 clanging chords in it which are not like dance notes, until 
 Adelaide prepares to go, and then he suddenly ceases, 
 springs up, and comes with us to our carriage. Adelaide 
 looks white and worn. 
 
 Again at the carriage door, " a pair of words" passes 
 between them.
 
 62 The First Violin 
 
 " Milady is tired ? " from him, in a courteous tone, as 
 his dark eyes dwell upon her face. 
 
 "Thanks, Herr Direktor, I am generally tired," from 
 her, with a slight smile, as she folds her shawl across her 
 breast with one hand, and extends the other to him. 
 
 "Milady, adieu." 
 
 " Adieu, Herr von Francius." 
 
 The ball is over, and I think we have all had enough 
 of it.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 The Carnival Ball 
 
 " AREN'T you coming to the ball, Eugen ?" 
 
 "I? No." 
 
 " I would if I were you." 
 
 " But you are yourself, you see, and I am I. What was 
 it that Heinrich Mohr in ' The Children of the World ' 
 was always saying ? Ich bin ich, und seize mich selbst. 
 Ditto me, that's all." 
 
 " It is no end of a lark," I pursued. 
 
 " My larking days are over." 
 
 " And you can talk to any one you like." 
 
 " I am going to talk to myself, thanks. I have long 
 wanted a little conversation with that interesting individ- 
 ual, and while you are masquerading, I will be doing the 
 reverse. By the time you come home I shall be so 
 thoroughly self-investigated and set to rights, that a mere 
 look at me will shake all the frivolity out of you." 
 
 " Miss Wedderburn will be there." 
 
 " I hope she may enjoy it." 
 
 " At least she will look so lovely that she will make 
 others enjoy it."
 
 64 The First Violin 
 
 He made no answer. 
 
 " You won't go quite certain ? " 
 
 " Quite certain, mein Lieber. Go yourself, and may you 
 have much pleasure ! " 
 
 Finding that he was in earnest, I went out to hire 
 one domino and purchase one mask, instead of furnish- 
 ing myself, as I had hoped, with two of each of those 
 requisites. 
 
 It was Sunday, the first day of the Carnival, and that 
 devoted to the ball of the season. There were others given, 
 but this was the Malerball, or artists' ball. It was con- 
 sidered rather select, and had I not been lucky enough to 
 have one or two pupils, members of the club, who had 
 come forward with offerings of tickets, I might have tried 
 in vain to gain admittance. 
 
 Everybody in Elberthal who was anybody would be at 
 this ball. I had already been at one like it, as well as at 
 several of the less select and rougher entertainments, and 
 I found a pleasure which was somewhat strange even to 
 myself in standing to one side and watching the motley 
 throng and the formal procession which was every year 
 organized by the artists who had the management of the 
 proceedings. 
 
 The ball began at the timely hour of seven ; about nine 
 I enveloped myself in my domino, and took my way across 
 the road to the scene of the festivities, which took up the 
 whole three saals of the Tonhalle. 
 
 The night was bitter cold, but cold with that rawness 
 which speaks of a coming thaw. The lamps were lighted
 
 The First Violin 65 
 
 and despite the cold there was a dense crowd of watchers 
 round the front of the building and in the gardens, with 
 cold, inquisitive noses flattened against the long glass 
 doors, through which I have seen the people stream in the 
 pleasant May evenings after the concert or M^^sikfesi into 
 the illuminated gardens. 
 
 The last time I had been in the big saal had been to 
 attend a dry Probe to a dry concert the " Erste Walpur- 
 gisnacht " of Mendelssohn. The scene was changed now; 
 the whole room was a mob " motley the only wear." It 
 was full to excess, so that there was scarcely room to move 
 about, much less for dancing. For that purpose the middle 
 saal of the three had been set aside, or rather a part of it 
 railed off. 
 
 I felt a pleasant sense of ease and well -being a security 
 that I should not be recognized, as I had drawn the pointed 
 hood of my domino over my head, and enveloped myself 
 closely in its ample folds, and thus I could survey the 
 brilliant Maskcnbatt as I surveyed life from a quiet 
 unnoticed obscurity, and without taking part in its active 
 affairs. 
 
 There was music going on as I entered. It could scarcely 
 be heard above the babel of tongues which was sounding. 
 People were moving as well as they could. I made my 
 way slowly and unobtrusively towards the upper end of the 
 saal, intending to secure a place on the great orchestra, 
 and thence survey the procession. 
 
 I recognized dozens of people whom I knew personally, 
 or by sight, or name, transformed from sober Rhenish 
 5
 
 66 The First Violin 
 
 Burger, or youths of the period, into persons and creature* 
 whose appropriateness or inappropriateness to their every- 
 day character it gave me much joy to witness. The most 
 foolish young man I knew was attired as Cardinal 
 Richelieu; the wisest, in certain respects, had a buffoon's 
 costume, and plagued the statesman and churchman griev- 
 ously. 
 
 By degrees I made my way through the mocking, taunt- 
 ing, flouting, many-colored crowd, to the orchestra, and 
 gradually up its steps until I stood upon a fine vantage- 
 ground. Near me were others : I looked round. One 
 party seemed to keep very much together a party which 
 for richness and correctness of costume outshone all others 
 in the room. Two ladies, one dark and one fair, were 
 dressed as Elsa and Ortrud. A man, whose slight, tall, 
 commanding figure I soon recognized, was attired in the 
 blue mantle, silver helm and harness of Lohengrin the son 
 of Percivale; and a second man, too boyish-looking for 
 the character, was masked as Frederic of Telramund. 
 Henry the Fowler was wanting, but the group were easily 
 to be recognized as personating the four principal charac- 
 ters from Wagner's great opera. 
 
 They had apparently not been there long, for they had 
 not yet unmasked. I had, however, no difficulty in recog- 
 nizing any of them. The tall, fair girl in the dress of Elsa, 
 was Miss Wedderburn ; the Ortrud was Lady Le Marchant, 
 and right well she looked the character. Lohengrin was 
 von Francius, and Friedrich von Telramund was Mr. Ark- 
 wright, Sir Peter's secretary. Here was a party in whom I
 
 The First Violin ^7 
 
 could take some interest, and I immediately and in the 
 most unprincipled manner devoted myself to watching 
 them myself unnoticed. 
 
 " Who in all that motley crowd would I wish to be ? " 
 I thought, as my eyes wandered over them. 
 
 The procession was just forming ; the voluptuous music 
 of die Tausend und eine Nacht waltzes was floating from the 
 gallery and through the room. They went sweeping past 
 or running, or jumping; a ballet-girl whose moustache 
 had been too precious to be parted with, and a lady of the 
 vieille four beside her, nuns and corpses : Christy Minstrels 
 (English, these last, whose motives were constantly mis- 
 understood), fools and astrologers, Gretchens, Clarchens, 
 devils, Egmonts, Joans of Arc enough to have rescued 
 France a dozen times; and peasants of every race; Turks 
 and Finns ; American Indians and Alfred the Great it 
 was tedious and dazzling. 
 
 Then the procession was got into order: a long string 
 of German legends, all the misty chronicle of Gudrun, the 
 Nibelungcnlied and the Rheingold Siegfried and Kriem- 
 hild those two everlasting figures of beauty and heroism, 
 love and tragedy, which stand forth in hues of pure bright- 
 ness that no time can dim ; Brunhild and von Tronje- 
 
 
 Hagen this was before the days of Bayreuth and the Te- 
 tralogy Tannhauser and Lohengrin, the Loreley, Walther 
 von der Vogelweide, the two Elizabeths of the Wartburg, 
 dozens of obscure legends and figures from Volkslieder and 
 Folklore which I did not recognize ; Dornroschen, Rube- 
 and the music to which they marched, was the
 
 68 The First Violin 
 
 melancholy yet noble measure, "The Last Ten of the 
 Fourth Regiment." 
 
 I surveyed the masks and masquerading for some time, 
 keeping my eye all the while upon the party near me. 
 They presently separated. Lady Le Marchant took the 
 arm which von Francius offered her, and they went down 
 the steps. Miss Wedderburn and the young secretary were 
 left alone. I was standing near them, and two other 
 masks, both in domino, hovered about. One wore a white 
 domino with a scarlet rosette on the breast. The other 
 was a black domino, closely disguised, who looked long 
 after von Francius and Lady Le Marchant, and presently 
 descended the orchestra steps and followed in their wake. 
 
 "Do not remain with me, Mr. Arkwright," I heard 
 Miss Wedderburn say. " You want to dance. Go and 
 enjoy yourself." 
 
 " I could not think of leaving you alone, Miss Wedder- 
 burn." 
 
 " Oh yes, you could, and can. I am not going to move 
 from here. I want to look on not to dance. You will 
 find me here when you return." 
 
 Again she urged him not to remain with her, and finally 
 he departed in search of amusement amongst the crowd 
 below. 
 
 Miss Wedderburn was now alone. She turned ; her eyes, 
 through her mask, met mine through my mask, and a cer- 
 tain thrill shot through me. This was such an opportu- 
 nity as I had never hoped for, and I told myself that I 
 should be a great fool if I let it slip. But how to begin ?
 
 The First Violin 6g 
 
 I looked at her. She was very beautiful, this young Eng- 
 lish girl, with the wonderful blending of fire and softness 
 which had made me from the first think her one of the 
 most attractive women I had ever seen. 
 
 As I stood, awkward and undecided, she beckoned me to 
 her. In an instant I was at her side, bowing but maintain- 
 ing silence. 
 
 " You are Herr Helf en, nicht wahr? " said she inquir- 
 ingly. 
 
 " Yes," said I, and removed my mask. " How did you 
 know it ?" 
 
 " From something in your figure and attitude. Are you 
 not dancing ? " 
 
 "I oh no!" 
 
 " Nor I I am not in the humor for it. I never felt 
 less like dancing, nor less like a masquerade." Then 
 hesitatingly, " Are you alone to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes. Eugen would not come." 
 
 " He will not be here at all ? " 
 
 " Not at all." 
 
 " I am surprised." 
 
 " I tried to persuade him to come," said I apologeti- 
 cally. " But he would not. He said he was going to have 
 a little conversation at home with himself." 
 
 " So ! " She turned to me with a mounting color, which 
 I saw flush to her brow above her mask, and with parted 
 lips. 
 
 " He has never cared for anything since Sigmund left 
 us," I continued.
 
 70 The First Violin 
 
 " Sigmund was that the dear little boy ? " 
 
 " You say very truly." 
 
 " Tell me about him. Was not his father very fond of 
 him?" 
 
 " Fond ! I never saw a man idolize his child so much. 
 It was only need the hardest need that made them part." 
 
 " How need ? You do not mean poverty ? " said she, 
 somewhat awestruck. 
 
 " Oh no ! Moral necessity. I do not know the reason. 
 I have never asked. But I know it was like a death-blow." 
 
 " Ah ! " said she, and with a sudden movement removed 
 her mask, as if she felt it stifling her, and looked me in 
 the face with her beautiful clear eyes. 
 
 " Who could oblige him to part with his own child ?" 
 she asked. 
 
 " That I do not know, mein Frdulein. What I do know 
 is that some shadow darkens my friend's life and embitters 
 it that he not only cannot do what he wisnes, but is 
 forced to do what he hates and that parting was one of 
 the things." 
 
 She looked at me with eagerness for some moments ; 
 then said quickly : 
 
 " I cannot help being interested in all this, but I fancy 
 I ought not to listen to it, for for I don't think he would 
 like it. He he I believe he dislikes me, and perhaps 
 you had better say no more." 
 
 " Dislikes you ! " I echoed. " Oh no ! " 
 
 " Oh yes ! he does," she repeated with a faint smile, 
 which struggled for a moment with a look of pain, and
 
 The First Violin 71 
 
 then was extinguished. " I certainly was once very rude 
 to him, but I should not have thought he was an ungener- 
 ous man should you ? " 
 
 "He is not ungenerous: the very reverse: he is too 
 generous." 
 
 " It does not matter, I suppose," said she, repressing 
 some emotion. " It can make no difference, but it pains 
 me to be so misunderstood and so behaved to by one who 
 was at first so kind to me for he was very kind." 
 
 " Mein Frdulein," said I, eager, though puzzled, "I 
 cannot explain it : it is as great a mystery to me as to you. 
 I know nothing of his past nothing of what he has been 
 or done; nothing of who he is only of one thing I am 
 sure that he is not what he seems to be. He may be 
 called Eugen Courvoisier : or he may call himself Eugen 
 Courvoisier : he was once known by some name in a very 
 different world to that he lives in now. I know nothing 
 about that, but I know this that I believe in him. I have 
 lived more than three years with him : he is true and 
 honorable: fantastically, chivalrously honorable" (her 
 eyes were downcast and her cheeks burning). " He never 
 did anything false or dishonest 
 
 A slight, low, sneering laugh at my right hand caused 
 me to look up. That figure in a white domino with a 
 black mask, and a crimson rosette on the breast, stood 
 leaning up against the foot of the organ, but other figures 
 were near : the laugh might have come from one of them : 
 it might have nothing to do with us or our remarks. I 
 went on in a vehement and eager tone :
 
 72 The First Violin 
 
 " He is what we Germans call a ganzer Kerl thorough 
 in all out and out good. Nothing will ever make me 
 believe otherwise. Perhaps the mystery will never be 
 cleared up. It doesn't matter to me. It will make no 
 difference in my opinion of the only man I love." 
 
 A pause. Miss Wedderburn was looking at me : her 
 eyes were full of tears : her face strangely moved. Yes 
 she loved him. It stood confessed in the very strength 
 of the effort she made to be calm and composed. As she 
 opened her lips to speak, that domino that I mentioned 
 glided from her place and stooping down between us, whis- 
 pered or murmured : 
 
 " You are a fool for your pains. Believe no one least 
 of all those who look most worthy of belief. He is not 
 honest ! he is not honorable. It is from shame and dis- 
 grace that he hides himself. Ask him if he remembers the 
 aoth of April five years ago ; you will hear what he has to 
 say about it, and how brave and honorable he looks." 
 
 Swift as fire the words were said, and rapidly as the 
 same she .had raised herself and disappeared. We were 
 left gazing at one another. Miss Wedderburn' s face 
 vas blanched she stared at me with large dilated eyes, 
 and at last in a low voice of anguish and apprehension 
 sid: 
 
 " Oh, what does it mean ? " 
 
 Her voice recalled me to myself. 
 
 " // may mean what it likes," said I calmly. "As I 
 said, it makes no difference to me. I do not and will not 
 believe that he ever did anything dishonorable."
 
 The First Violin 73 
 
 " Do you not?" said she tremulously. "But but 
 Anna Sartorius does know something of him." 
 
 " Who is Anna Sartorius ? " 
 
 " Why, that domino who spoke to us just now. But I 
 forgot. You will not know her. She wanted long ago to 
 tell me about him, and I would not let her, so she said I 
 might learn for myself, and should never leave off until 
 I knew the lesson by heart. I think she has kept her 
 word," she added with a heart-sick sigh. 
 
 " You surely would not believe her if she said the same 
 thing fifty times over," said I, not very reasonably, cer- 
 tainly. 
 
 " I do not know," she replied hesitatingly. " It is 
 very difficult to know." 
 
 " Well, I would not. If the whole world accused him I 
 would believe nothing except from his own lips." 
 
 " I wish I knew all about Anna Sartorius," said she 
 slowly, and she looked as if seeking back in her memory 
 to remember some dream. I stood beside her ; the motley 
 crowd ebbed and flowed beneath us, but the whisper we had 
 heard had changed everything; and yet, no to me not 
 changed, but only darkened things. 
 
 In the meantime it had been growing later. Our con- 
 versation, with its frequent pauses, had taken a longer 
 time than we had supposed. The crowd was thinning. 
 Some of the women were going. 
 
 " I wonder where my sister is ! " observed Miss Wed- 
 derburn rather wearily. Her face was pale, and her deli- 
 cate head drooped as if it were overweighed and pulled
 
 74 The First Violin 
 
 down by the superabundance of her beautiful chestnut 
 hair, which came rippling and waving over her shoulders. 
 A white satin petticoat, stiff with gold embroidery; a 
 Jong trailing blue mantle of heavy brocade, fastened 
 on the shoulders with golden clasps; a golden circlet 
 in the gold of her hair; such was the dress, and right 
 royally she became it. She looked a vision of loveli- 
 ness. I wondered if she would ever act Elsa in reality; 
 she would be assuredly the loveliest representative of 
 that fair and weakminded heroine who ever trod the 
 boards. Supposing it ever came to pass that she acted 
 Elsa to some one else's Lohengrin, would she think of 
 this night ? Would she remember the great orchestra 
 and me, and the lights, and the people our words a 
 whisper ? 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " But where can Adelaide be ? " she said at last. " I 
 have not seen them since they left us." 
 
 " They are there," said I, surveying from my vantage- 
 ground the thinning ranks. " They are coming up here 
 too. And there is the other gentleman, Graf von Telra- 
 mund, following them." 
 
 They drew up to the foot of the orchestra, and then Mr. 
 Arkwright came up to seek us. 
 
 " Miss Wedderburn, Lady Le Marchant is tired, and 
 thinks it is time to be going." 
 
 " So am I tired," she replied. I stepped back, but 
 before she went away she turned to me, holding out her 
 hand:
 
 The First Violin 75 
 
 " Good-night, Herr Helfen. I, too, will not believe 
 without proof." 
 
 We shook hands, and she went away. 
 
 The lamp was still burning: the room cold, the stove 
 extinct. Eugen seated motionless near it. 
 
 " Eugen, art thou asleep ? " 
 
 " I asleep, my dear boy ! Well, how was it ? " 
 
 " Eugen, I wish you had been there." 
 
 " Why ? ' ' He roused himself with an effort, and looked 
 at me. His brow was clouded, his eyes too. 
 
 " Because you would have enjoyed it. I did. I saw 
 Miss Wedderburn, and spoke to her. She looked lovely." 
 
 " In that case it would have been odd indeed if you 
 had not enjoyed yourself." 
 
 " You are inexplicable." 
 
 " It is bedtime," he remarked, rising and speaking, as I 
 thought, coldly. 
 
 We both retired. As for the whisper, frankly and hon- 
 estly, I did not give it another thought.
 
 ^ 
 
 
 CHAFFER VII 
 
 Traumerei 
 
 FOLLOWING Arkwright, I joined Adelaide and von Fran- 
 cius at the foot of the orchestra. She had sent word that 
 she was tired. Looking at her, I thought indeed she must 
 be very tired, so white, so sad she looked. 
 
 "Adelaide," I expostulated, " why did you remain so 
 long?" 
 
 " Oh, I did not know it was so late. Come ! " 
 
 We made our way out of the hall through the veranda to 
 the entrance. Lady Le Marchant's carriage, it seemed, 
 was ready and waiting. It was a pouring night. The thaw 
 had begun. The steady downpour promised a cheerful
 
 The First Violin 77 
 
 ending to the Carnival doings of the Monday and Tues- 
 day; all but a few homeless or persevering wretches had 
 been driven away. We drove away too. I noticed that 
 the " good-night " between Adelaide and von Francius was 
 of the most laconical character. They barely spoke, did 
 not shake hands, and he turned and went to seek his cab 
 before we had all got into the carriage. 
 
 Adelaide uttered not a word during our drive home, and 
 I, leaning back, shut my eyes and lived the evening over 
 again. Kugen's friend had laughed the insidious whisper 
 to scorn. I could not deal so summarily with it; nor 
 could I drive the words of it out of my head. They set 
 themselves to the tune of the waltz, and rang in my ears : 
 
 "He is not honest; he is not honorable. It is from 
 shame and disgrace that he is hiding. Ask him if he 
 remembers the 20th of April five years ago." 
 
 The carriage stopped. A sleepy servant let us in. Ade- 
 laide, as we went upstairs, drew me into her dressing- 
 room. 
 
 " A moment, May. Have you enjoyed yourself ? " 
 
 " H'm well yes, and no. And you, Adelaide ? " 
 
 " I never enjoy myself now," she replied very gently. 
 " I am getting used to that, I think." 
 
 She clasped her jewelled hands, and stood by the lamp, 
 whose calm light lit her calm face, showing it wasted and 
 unutterably sad. 
 
 Something a terror, a shrinking as from a strong men- 
 acing hand shook me. 
 
 " Are you ill, Adelaide ? " I cried.
 
 7 The First Violin 
 
 " No. Good-night, dear May. Schlaf wohl t as they 
 say here." 
 
 To my unbounded astonishment, she leaned forward, 
 and gave me a gentle kiss; then, still holding my hand, 
 asked : 
 
 " Do you still say your prayers, May ? " 
 
 " Sometimes." 
 
 "What do you say ?" 
 
 " Oh ! the same that I always used to say; they are bet- 
 ter than any I can invent." 
 
 " Yes. I never do say mine now. I rather think I am 
 afraid to begin again." 
 
 "Good-night, Adelaide," I said inaudibly; and she 
 loosed my hand. 
 
 At the door \ turned. She was still standing by the 
 lamp ; still her face wore the same strange, subdued look. 
 With a heart oppressed by new uneasiness, I left her. 
 
 It must have been not till towards dawn that I fell into 
 a sleep, heavy, but not quiet filled with fantastic dreams, 
 most of which vanished as soon as they had passed my 
 mind. But one remained. To this day it is as vivid 
 before me as if I had actually lived through it. 
 
 Meseemed again to be at the Grafenbergerdahl, again 
 to be skating, again rescued and by Eugen Courvoisier. 
 But suddenly the scene changed ; from a smooth sheet of 
 ice, across which the wind blewnippingly, and above which 
 the stars twinkled frostily, there was a huge waste of water 
 which raged, while a tempest howled around the clear 
 moon was veiled, all was darkness and chaos. He saved
 
 The First Violin 79 
 
 me, not by skating with me to the shore, but by clinging 
 with me to some floating wood until we drove upon a bank 
 and landed. But scarcely had we set foot upon the ground, 
 than all was changed again. I was alone, seated upon a 
 bench in the Hofgarten, on a spring afternoon. It was 
 May; the chestnuts and acacias were in full bloom, and 
 the latter made the air heavy with their fragrance. The 
 nightingales sang richly, and I sat looking, from beneath 
 the shade of a great tree, upon the fleeting Rhine, which 
 glided by almost past my feet. It seemed to me that / 
 had been sad so sad as never before. A deep weight 
 appeared to have been just removed from my heart, and 
 yet so heavy had it been that I could not at once recover 
 from its pressure; and even then, in the sunshine, and 
 feeling that I had no single cause for care or grief, I was 
 unhappy, with a reflex mournful ness. 
 
 And as I sat thus, it seemed that some one came and sat 
 beside me without speaking, and I did not turn to look at 
 him ; but ever as I sat there and felt that he was beside 
 me, the sadness lifted from my heart, until it grew so full 
 of joy that tears rose to my eyes. Then he who was beside 
 me placed his hand upon mine, and I looked at him. It 
 was Eugen Courvoisier. His face and his eyes were full 
 of sadness ; but I knew that he loved me, though he said 
 but one word, " Forgive ! " to which I answered, " Can 
 you forgive?" But I knew that I alluded to something 
 much deeper than that silly little episode of having cut 
 him at the theatre. He bowed his head; and then I 
 thought I began to weep, covering my face with my hands ;
 
 8o The First Violin 
 
 but they were tears of exquisite joy, and the peace at my 
 heart was the most entire I had ever felt. And he loos- 
 ened my hands, and drew me to him and kissed me, saying 
 " My love ! " And as I felt yes, actually felt the pres- 
 sure of his lips upon mine, and felt the spring shining 
 upon me, and heard the very echo of the twitter of the 
 birds, saw the light fall upon the water, and smelt the 
 scent of the acacias, and saw the Lotusblume as she 
 
 " Duftet und weinet und zittert 
 Vor Liebe und Liebesweh," 
 
 I awoke, and confronted a gray February morning, felt a 
 raw chilliness in the air, heard a cold, pitiless rain driven 
 against the window; knew that my head ached, my heart 
 harmonized therewith; that I was awake, not in a dream; 
 that there had been no spring morning, no acacias, no 
 nightingales; above all, no love remembered last night, 
 and roused to the consciousness of another day, the neces- 
 sity of waking up and living on. 
 
 Nor could I rest or sleep. I rose, and contemplated 
 through the window the driving rain and the soaking street, 
 the sorrowful naked trees, the plain of the parade ground, 
 which looked a mere waste of mud and half-melted ice ; 
 the long plain line of the Caserne itself a cheering pros- 
 pect, truly ! 
 
 When I went downstairs I found Sir Peter, in heavy 
 travelling overcoat,. standing in the hall ; a carriage stood 
 at the door; his servant was putting in his master's lug- 
 gage and rugs. I paused, in astonishment. Sir Peter
 
 The First Violin 81 
 
 looked at me and smiled, with the dubious benevolence 
 which he was in the habit of extending to me. 
 
 " I am very sorry to be obliged to quit your charming 
 society, Miss Wedderburn, but business calls me impera- 
 tively to England ; and, at least, I am sure that my wife 
 cannot be unhappy with such a companion as her sister." 
 
 " You are going to England ? " 
 
 " I am going to England. I have been called so hastily 
 that I can make no arrangements for Adelaide to accom- 
 pany me, and indeed it would not be at all pleasant for 
 her, as I am only going on business ; but I hope to return 
 for her and bring her home in a few weeks. I am leaving 
 Arkwright with you. He will see that you have all you 
 want." 
 
 Sir Peter was smiling, ever smiling, with the smile 
 which was my horror. 
 
 " A brilliant ball, last night, was it not?" he added, 
 extending his hand to me, in farewell, and looking at me 
 intently with eyes that fascinated and repelled me at once. 
 
 " Very, but but you were not there ? " 
 
 " Was I not ? I have a strong impression that I was. 
 Ask my lady if she thinks I was there. And now good- 
 by, and au revoir ! ' ' 
 
 He loosened my hand, descended the steps, entered 
 the carriage, and was driven away. His departure ought 
 to have raised a great weight from my mind, but it did 
 not : it impressed me with a sense of coming disaster. 
 
 Adelaide breakfasted in her room. When I had finished 
 I went to her. Her behavior puzzled me. She seemed 
 6
 
 82 The First Violin 
 
 elated, excited, at the absence of Sir Peter, and yet, sud- 
 denly turning to me, she exclaimed eagerly : 
 
 " Oh, May ! I wish I had been going to England, too ! 
 I wish I could leave this place, and never see it again ! " 
 
 " Was Sir Peter at the ball, Adelaide ? " I asked. 
 
 She turned suddenly pale : her lip trembled ; her eye 
 wavered, as she said in a low, uneasy voice : 
 
 " I believe he was yes; in domino." 
 
 " What a sneaking thing to do ! " I remarked candidly. 
 " He had told us particularly that he was not coming." 
 
 " That very statement should have put us on our guard," 
 she remarked. 
 
 " On our guard ? Against what ?" I asked unsuspect- 
 ingly. 
 
 "Oh, nothing nothing! I wonder when he will 
 return! I would give a world to be in England!" she 
 said, with a heart-sick sigh ; and I, feeling very much 
 bewildered, left her. 
 
 In the afternoon, despite wind and weather, I sallied 
 forth, and took my way to my old lodgings in the Wehr- 
 hahn. Crossing a square leading to the street I was going 
 to, I met Anna Sartorius. She bowed, looking at me 
 mockingly. I returned her salutation, and remembered 
 last night again, with painful distinctness. The airseemed 
 full of mysteries and uncertainties : they clung about my 
 mind like cobwebs, and I could not get rid of their soft, 
 stifling influence. 
 
 Having arrived at my lodgings, I mounted the stairs. 
 Frau Liitzler met me.
 
 The First Violin 83 
 
 " Na nu, Frdulein ! You do not patronize me much 
 now. My rooms are becoming too small for you, I 
 reckon." 
 
 " Indeed, Frau Liitzler, I wish I had never been in any 
 larger ones," I answered earnestly. 
 
 " So ! Well, 'tis true you look thin and worn not as 
 well as you used to. And were you but I heard you 
 were, so where's the use of telling lies about it at the 
 Maskenball last night ? And how did you like it ? " 
 
 " Oh, it was all very new to me. I never was at one 
 before." 
 
 " Nicht? Then you must have been astonished. They 
 say there was a Mephisto so good he would have deceived 
 the devil himself. And you, Fraulein I heard that you 
 looked very beautiful." 
 
 " So ! It must have been a mistake." 
 
 " Dock nicht .' I have always maintained that at certain 
 times you were far from bad-looking, and dressed and got 
 up for the stage, would be absolutely handsome. Nearly 
 any one can be that if you are not too near the foot- 
 lights, that is, and don't go behind the scenes." 
 
 With which neat slaying of a particular compliment by 
 a general one, she released me, and let me go on my way 
 upstairs. 
 
 Here I had some books and some music. But the room 
 was cold ; the books failed to interest me, and the music 
 did not go the piano was like me out of tune. And yet 
 I felt the need of some musical expression of the mood 
 that was upon me. I bethought myself of the Tonhalle.,
 
 84 The First Violin 
 
 next door, almost, and that in the Rittersaal it would be 
 quiet and undisturbed, as the ball that night was not to be 
 held there, but in one of the large rooms of the Caserne. 
 
 Without pausing to think a second time of the plan I left 
 the house, and went to the Tonhalle, only a few steps away. 
 In consequence of the rain and bad weather almost every 
 trace of the Carnival had disappeared. I found the Ton- 
 halle deserted save by a barmaid at the Restauration. I 
 asked her if the Rittersaal were open, and she said yes. I 
 passed on. As I drew near the door I heard music : the 
 piano was already being played. Could it be von Fran- 
 cius who was there ? I did not think so. The touch was 
 not his neither so practised, so brilliant, nor so sure. 
 
 Satisfied, after listening a moment, that it was not he, I 
 resolved to go in and pass through the room. If it were 
 any one whom I could send away I would do so, if not, I 
 could go away again myself. 
 
 I entered. The room was somewhat dark, but I went in 
 and had almost come to the piano before I recognized the 
 player Courvoisier. Overcome with vexation and con- 
 fusion at the contretemps, I paused a moment, undecided 
 whether to turn back and go out again. In any case I 
 resolved not to remain in the room. He was seated with 
 his back to me, and still continued to play. Some music 
 was on the desk of the piano before him. 
 
 I might turn back without being observed. I would do 
 so. Hardly, though a mirror hung directly before the 
 piano, and I now saw that while he continued to play, he 
 was quietly looking at me, and that his keen eyes tha f
 
 The First Violin 85 
 
 hawk's glance which I knew so well must have recognized 
 me. That decided me. I would not turn back. It would 
 be a silly, senseless proceeding, and would look much 
 more invidious than my remaining. I walked up to the 
 piano, and he turned, still playing. 
 
 " Guten Tag, mein Fr&ultin." 
 
 I merely bowed, and began to search through a pile of 
 songs and music upon the piano. I would at any rate take 
 some away with me to give some color to my proceedings. 
 Meanwhile, he played on. 
 
 I selected a song, not in the least knowing what it was, 
 and rolling it up, was turning away. 
 
 " Are you busy, Miss Wedderburn ? " 
 
 "N no." 
 
 " Would it be asking too much of you to play the piano- 
 forte accompaniment ?" 
 
 " I will try," said I, speaking briefly, and slowly draw- 
 ing off my gloves. 
 
 " If it is disagreeable to you, don't do it," said he, 
 pausing. 
 
 " Not in the very least," said I, avoiding looking at 
 him. 
 
 He opened the music. It was one of Jensen's Wander- 
 bilder for piano and violin the Kreuz am IVege. 
 
 " I have only tried it once before," I remarked, " and I 
 am a dreadful bungler." 
 
 " Bitte sehrf" said he, smiling, arranging his own 
 music on one of the stands and adding, " Now I am 
 ready."
 
 86 The First Violin 
 
 I found my hands trembling so much that I could scarcely 
 follow the music. Truly this man, with his changes from 
 silence to talkativeness, from ironical hardness to cordial- 
 ity, was a puzzle and a trial to me. 
 
 Das Kreuz am Wege turned out rather lame. I said so 
 when it was over. 
 
 " Suppose we try it again," he suggested, and we did 
 so. I found my fingers lingering and forgetting their part 
 as I listened to the piercing beauty of his notes. 
 
 " That is dismal," said he. 
 
 " It is a dismal subject, is it not ? " 
 
 "Suggestive, at least. 'The Cross by the Wayside.' 
 Well, I have a mind for something more cheerful. Did 
 you leave the ball early last night ? " 
 
 " No ; not very early." 
 
 " Did you enjoy it ? " 
 
 " It was all new to me very interesting but I don't 
 think I quite enjoyed it." 
 
 " Ah, you should see the balls at Florence, or Venice, 
 or Vienna ! " 
 
 He smiled as he leaned back, as if thinking over past 
 scenes. 
 
 " Yes," said I, dubiously, " I don't think I care much 
 for such things, though it is interesting to watch the little 
 drama going on around." 
 
 " And to act in it," I also thought, remembering Anna 
 Sartorius and her whisper, and I looked at him. " Not 
 honest, not honorable. Hiding from shame and disgrace." 
 I looked at him and did not believe it. For the moment
 
 The First Violin 87 
 
 the torturing idea left me. I was free from it and at 
 peace. 
 
 " Were you going to practise ? " he asked. " I fear I 
 disturb you." 
 
 " Oh no ! It does not matter in the least. I shall not 
 practise now." 
 
 "I want to try some other things," said he, "and 
 Friedhelm's and my piano was not loud enough for me, 
 nor was there sufficient space between our walls for the 
 sounds of a Symphony. Do you not know the mood ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " But I am afraid to ask you to accompany me." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " You seem unwilling." 
 
 " I am not ; but I should have supposed that my unwill- 
 ingness if I had been unwilling would have been an 
 inducement to you to ask me." 
 
 "Herrgottf Why?" 
 
 " Since you took a vow to be disagreeable to me, and to 
 make me hate you." 
 
 A slight flush passed rapidly over his face, as he paused 
 for a moment and bit his lips. 
 
 " Mein Frdulein that night I was in bitterness of spirit 
 I hardly knew what I was saying " 
 
 " I will accompany you," I interrupted him, my heart 
 beating. " Only how can I begin unless you play, or tell 
 me what you want to play ? " 
 
 " True," said he, laughing, and yet not moving from his 
 place beside the. piano, upon which he had leaned his
 
 88 The First Violin 
 
 elbow, and across which he now looked at me vith the 
 self-same kindly, genial glance as that he had cast upon 
 me across the little table at the Koln restaurant. And 
 yet not the self -same glance, but another, which I would 
 not have exchanged for that first one. 
 
 If he would but begin to play, I felt that I should not 
 mind so much ; but when he sat there and looked at me and 
 half smiled, without beginning anything practical, I felt 
 the situation at least trying. 
 
 He raised his eyes as a door opened at the other end of 
 the saal. 
 
 " Ah, there is Friedhelm," said he, " now he will take 
 seconds." 
 
 " Then I will not disturb you any longer." 
 
 " On the contrary," said he, laying his hand upon my 
 wrist. (My dream of the morning flashed into my mind.) 
 " It would be better if you remained, then we could have 
 a trio. Friedel, come here ! You are just in time. 
 Fraulein Wedderburn will be good enough to accompany 
 us, and we can try the Fourth Symphony." 
 
 " What you call ' Spring ' ? " inquired Helfen, coming 
 up smilingly. "With all my heart. Where is the 
 score ? ' ' 
 
 " What you call Spring?" Was it possible that in Win- 
 ter on a cold and unfriendly day we were going to have 
 Spring, leafy bloom, the desert filled with leaping springs, 
 and blossoming like a rose ? Full of wonder, surprise, and 
 a certain excitement at the idea, I sat still and thought 
 of my dream, and the rain beat against the windows, and a
 
 The First Violin 8 9 
 
 draughty wind fluttered the tinselly decorations of last 
 night. The floor was strewed with fragments of garments 
 torn in the crush paper and silken flowers, here a rosette, 
 there a buckle, a satin bow, a tinsel spangle. Benches 
 and tables were piled about the room, which was half dark ; 
 only to westward, through one window, was visible a paler 
 gleam, which might by comparison be called light. 
 
 The two young men turned over the music, laughing at 
 something, and chaffing each other. I never in my life 
 saw two such entire friends as these; they seemed to har- 
 monize most perfectly in the midst of their unlikeness to 
 each other. 
 
 " Excuse that we kept you waiting, mein Frdulein," said 
 Courvoisier, placing some music before me. " This fel- 
 low is so slow, and will put everything into order as he 
 uses it." 
 
 "Well for you that I am, mein Lieber," said Helfen 
 composedly. " If any one had the enterprise to offer a 
 prize to the most extravagant, untidy fellow in Europe, the 
 palm would be yours by a long way too." 
 
 " Friedel binds his music and numbers it," observed 
 Courvoisier. " It is one of the most beautiful and affect- 
 ing of sights to behold him with scissors, paste-pot, brush, 
 and binding. It occurs periodically about four times a 
 year, I think, and moves me almost to tears when I see it." 
 
 " Der edle Ritter leaves his music unbound, and borrows 
 mine on every possible occasion when his own property is 
 scattered to the four winds of heaven." 
 
 " Aberl aber ! " cried Eugen. " That is too much ! I
 
 90 The First Violin 
 
 call Frau Schmidt to witness that all my music is put in 
 one place." 
 
 " I never said it wasn't. But you never can find it when 
 you want it, and the confusion is delightfully increased by 
 your constantly rushing off to buy a new Partitur when you 
 can't find the old one; so you have three or four of each." 
 
 " This is all to show off what he considers his own good 
 qualities : a certain slow, methodical plodding, and a good 
 memory, which are -natural gifts, but which he boasts of 
 as if they were acquired virtues. He binds his music 
 because he is a pedant and a prig, and can't help it; a 
 bad fellow to get on with. Now, me in Bester, for the 
 Friihling. ' ' 
 
 " But the Fraulein ought to have it explained," expos- 
 tulated Helfen, laughing. " Every one has not the misfor- 
 tune to be so well acquainted with you as I am. He has 
 rather insane fancies, sometimes," he added, turning to 
 me, " without rhyme or reason that I am aware, and he 
 chooses to assert that Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, or the 
 chief motivi of it, occurred to him on a spring day, when 
 the master was, for a time, quite charmed from his bitter 
 humor, and had, perhaps, some one by his side who put his 
 heart in tune with the spring songs of the birds, the green 
 of the grass, the scent of the flowers. So he calls it the 
 Friihling Sympho trie, and will persist in playing it as such. 
 I call the idea rather far-fetched, but then that is nothing 
 unusual with him." 
 
 " Having said your remarkably stupid say, which Miss 
 Wedderburn has far too much sense to heed in the least,
 
 The First Violin 9* 
 
 suppose you allow us to begin," said Courvoisier, giving 
 the other a push towards his violin. 
 
 But we were destined to have yet another coadjutor, in 
 the shape of Karl Linders, who at that moment strolled in, 
 and was hailed by his friends with jubilation. 
 
 " Come and help ! Your cello will give just the mellow- 
 ness that is wanted," said Eugen. 
 
 " I must go and get it then," said Karl, looking at me. 
 
 Eugen, with an indescribable expression as he inter- 
 cepted the glance, introduced us to one another. Karl 
 and Friedhelm Helfen went off to another part of the Ton- 
 halle to fetch Karl's violoncello, and we were left alone 
 again. 
 
 " Perhaps I ought not to have introduced him. I forgot 
 Lohengrin," said Eugen. 
 
 " You know that you did not," said I in a low voice. 
 
 " No," he answered, almost in the same tone. " It 
 was thinking of that which led me to introduce poor old 
 Karl to you. I thought, perhaps, that you would accept 
 it as a sign will you ? " 
 
 " A sign of what ? " 
 
 " That I feel myself to have been in the wrong through- 
 out and forgive." 
 
 As I sat, amazed and a little awed at this almost literal 
 fulfilment of my dream, the others returned. 
 
 Karl contributed the tones of his mellowest of instru- 
 ments, which he played with a certain pleasant breadth 
 and brightness of coloring, and my dream came ever truer 
 and truer. The 'Symphony was as spring-like as possible.
 
 9* The First Violin 
 
 We tried it nearly all through ; the hymn-like and yet 
 fairy-like first movement ; the second, that song of uni- 
 versal love, joy, and thanksgiving, with Beethoven's mas- 
 culine hand evident throughout. To the notes there seemed 
 to fall a sunshine into the room, and we could see the fields 
 casting their covering of snow, and withered trees bursting 
 into bloom; brooks swollen with warm rain, birds busy at 
 nest-making ; clumps of primroses on velvet leaves, and the 
 subtle scent of violets ; youths and maidens with love in 
 their eyes, and even a hint of later warmth; when hedges 
 should be white with hawthorn, and the woodland slopes 
 look, with their sheets of hyacinths, as if some of heaven's 
 blue had been spilt upon earth's grass. 
 
 As the last strong, melodious modulations ceased, Cour- 
 voisier pointed to one of the windows. 
 
 " Friedhelm, you wretched unbeliever, behold the refu- 
 tation of your theories. The Symphony has brought the 
 sun out." 
 
 " For the first time," said Friedhelm, as he turned his 
 earnest young face with Us fringe of loose brown hair 
 towards the sneaking sunray which was certainly looking 
 shyly in. " As a rule the very heavens weep at the per- 
 formance. Don't you remember the last time we tried it, 
 it began to rain instantly ? " 
 
 " Miss Wedderburn's cooperation must have secured its 
 success, then, on this occasion," said Eugen gravely, 
 glancing at me for a moment. 
 
 "Hear! hear!" murmured Karl, screwing up his vio- 
 loncello, and smiling furtively.
 
 The First Violin 93 
 
 " Oh, I am afraid I hindered rather than helped," said 
 I ; " but it is very beautiful." 
 
 " But not like Spring, is it ? " asked Friedhelm. 
 
 "Well, I think'it is-" 
 
 " There ! I knew she would declare for me," said Cour- 
 voisier calmly, at which Karl Linders looked up in some 
 astonishment. 
 
 " Shall we try this Traumerei, Miss Wedderburn, if you 
 are not tired ? " 
 
 I turned willingly to the piano, and we played Schu- 
 mann's exquisite little " Dreams.'" 
 
 " Ah," said Eugen, with a deep sigh (and his face had 
 grown sad), " isn't that the essence of sweetness and 
 poetry ? Here's another which is lovely. Noch ein Paar, 
 nicht wahr ? ' ' 
 
 " And it will be noch ein Paar until our fingers drop 
 off," scolded Friedhelm, who seemed, however, very will- 
 ing to await that consummation. We went through many 
 of the Kinderscenen and some of the Kreissleriana, and just 
 as we finished a sweet little Bittendes Kind, the twilight grew 
 almost into darkness, and Courvoisier laid his violin down. 
 
 " Miss Wedderburn, thank you a thousand times ! " 
 
 " Oh, bitte sehr ! " was all I could say. I wanted to say 
 so much more ; to say that I had been made happy ; my 
 sadness dispelled, a dream half fulfilled, but the words 
 stuck, and had they come ever so flowingly I could not have 
 uttered them with Friedhelm Helfen, who knew so much, 
 looking at us, and Karl Linders on his best behavior in 
 what he considered superior company.
 
 94 The First Violin 
 
 I do not know how it was that Karl and Friedhelm, as 
 we all came from the Tonhalle, walked off to the house, 
 and Eugen and I were left to walk alone through the soak- 
 ing streets, emptied of all their revellers, and along the 
 dripping Konigsaltte, with its leafless chestnuts, to Sir 
 Peter's house. It was cold, it was wet cheerless, dark, 
 and dismal, and I was very happy very insanely so. I 
 gave a glance once or twice, at my companion.. The 
 brightness had left his face ; it was stern and worn again, 
 and his lips set as if with the repression of some pain. 
 
 " Herr Courvoisier, have you heard from your little boy? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "No ?" 
 
 "I do not expect to hear from him, mein FrduUin. 
 When he left me we parted altogether." 
 
 "Oh, how dreadful !" 
 
 No answer. And we spoke no more until he said 
 " Good-evening " to me at the door of No. 3. As I went 
 in I reflected that I might never meet him thus face to 
 face again. Was it an opportunity missed, or was it a 
 brief glimpse of unexpected joy ? 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 The Truth 
 
 As days went on and grew into weeks, and weeks paired 
 off until a month passed, and I still saw the same stricken 
 look upon my sister's face, my heart grew full of fore- 
 boding.
 
 The First Violin 95 
 
 One morning the astonishing news came that Sir Peter 
 had gone to America. 
 
 "America!" I ejaculated (it was always I who acted 
 the part of chorus and did the exclamations and question- 
 ing), and I looked at Harry Arkwright, who had com- 
 municated the news, and who held an open letter in his 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes, to America, to see about a railway which looks 
 very bad. He has no end of their Bonds," said Harry, 
 folding up the letter. 
 
 " When will he return ?" 
 
 " He doesn't know. Meanwhile we are to stay where 
 we are." 
 
 Adelaide, when we spoke of this circumstance, said bit- 
 terly : " Everything is against me ! " 
 
 "Against you, Adelaide ?" said I, looking apprehen- 
 sively at her. 
 
 " Yes, everything ! " she repeated. 
 
 She had never been very effusive in her behavior to 
 others; she was now, if possible, still less so, but the 
 uniform quietness and gentleness with which she now 
 treated all who came in contact with her, puzzled and 
 troubled me. What was it that prayed upon her mind ? 
 In looking round for a cause my thoughts lighted first on 
 one person, then on another : I dismissed the idea of all, 
 except von Francius, with a smile. Shortly I abandoned 
 that idea too. True, he was a man of very different 
 calibre from the others ; a man, too, for whom Adelaide 
 had conceived a decided friendship, though in these latter
 
 96 The First Violin 
 
 days even that seemed to be dying out. He did not come 
 so often ; when he did come they had little to say to each 
 other. Perhaps, after all, the cause of her sad looks lay no 
 deeper than her everyday life, which must necessarily grow 
 more mournful day by day. She could feel intensely, as 
 I had lately become aware, and had, too, a warm, quick 
 imagination. It might be that a simple weariness of life, 
 and the anticipation of long years to come of such a life 
 lay so heavily upon her soul as to have wrought that grad- 
 ual change. 
 
 Sometimes I was satisfied with this theory ; at others it 
 dwindled into a miserably inadequate measure. When 
 Adelaide once or twice kissed me, smiled at me, and called 
 me " dear," it was on my lips to ask the meaning of the 
 whole thing, but it never passed them. I dared not speak 
 when it came to the point. 
 
 One day, about this time, I met Anna Sartorius in one 
 of the picture exhibitions. I would have bowed and passed 
 her, but she stopped and spoke to me. 
 
 " I have not seen you often lately," said she; "but I 
 assure you, you will hear more of me sometime and 
 before long." 
 
 Without replying, I passed on. Anna had ceased even 
 to pretend to look friendly upon me, and I did not feel 
 much alarm as to her power for or against my happiness or 
 peace of mind. 
 
 Regularly, once a month, I wrote to Miss Hal lam, and 
 occasionally had a few lines from Stella, who had become 
 a protegee of Miss HaHam's too. They appeared to get
 
 The First Violin 97 
 
 on very well together, at which I did not wonder; for 
 Stella, with all her youthfulness, was of a cynical turn of 
 mind, which must suit Miss Hallam well. 
 
 My greatest friend in Elberthal was good little Doctor 
 Mittendorf, who had brought his wife to call upon me, 
 and to whose house I had been invited several times since 
 Miss Hal lam's departure. 
 
 During this time I worked more steadily than ever, and 
 with a deeper love of my art for itself. Von Francius was 
 still my master and my friend. I used to look back upon 
 the days, now nearly a year ago, when I first saw him, 
 and seeing him, distrusted and only half-liked him, and 
 wondered at myself ; for I had now as entire a confidence 
 in him as can by any means be placed in a man. He had 
 thoroughly won my esteem, respect, admiration in a 
 measure, too, my affection. I liked the power of him; 
 the strong hand with which he carried things in his own 
 way ; the idiomatic language, and quick, curt sentences in 
 which he enunciated his opinions. I felt him like a 
 strong, kind, and thoughtful elder brother, and have had 
 abundant evidence in his deeds and in some brief, .unemo- 
 tional words of his that he felt a great regard of the fra- 
 ternal kind for me. It has often comforted me, that 
 friendship pure, disinterested and manly on his side, 
 grateful and unwavering on mine. 
 
 I still retained my old lodgings in the Wehrhahn, and 
 was determined to do so. I would not be tied to remain 
 in Sir Peter Le Marchant's house unless I chose. Ade- 
 laide wished me to- come and remain with her altogether. 
 7
 
 98 The First Violin 
 
 She said Sir Peter wished it too ; he had written and said 
 she might ask me. I asked what was Sir Peter's motive 
 in wishing it ? Was it not a desire to humiliate both of 
 us, and to show us that we the girl who had scorned him, 
 and the woman who had sold herself to him were in the 
 end dependent upon him, and must follow his will and 
 submit to his pleasure ? 
 
 She reddened, sighed, and owned that it was true ; nor 
 did she press me any further. 
 
 A month, then, elapsed between the Carnival in February 
 and the next great concert in the latter end of March. It 
 was rather a special concert, for von Francius had suc- 
 ceeded, in spite of many obstacles, in bringing out the 
 Choral Symphony. 
 
 He conducted well that night; and he, Courvoisier, 
 Friedhelm Helfen, Karl Linders, and one or two others, 
 formed in their white heat of enthusiasm a leaven which 
 leavened the whole lump. Orchestra and chorus alike did 
 a little more than their possible, without which no great 
 enthusiasm can be carried out. As I watched von Fran- 
 cius, it seemed to me that a new soul had entered into the 
 man. I did not believe that a year ago he could have con- 
 ducted a Choral Symphony as he did that night. Can any 
 one enter into the broad, eternal clang of the great 
 "world-story" unless he has a private story of his own 
 which may serve him in some measure as a key to its mys- 
 tery ? I think not. It was a night of triumph for Max von 
 Francius. Not only was the glorious music cheered and 
 applauded, he was called to receive a meed of thanks for
 
 The First Violin 99 
 
 having once more given to the world a never-dying joy and 
 beauty. 
 
 I was in the chorus. Down below I saw Adelaide and 
 her devoted attendant, Harry Arkwright. She looked 
 whiter and more subdued than ever. All the splendor of 
 the praise of " joy " could not bring joy to her heart 
 
 " Diesen Kuss der ganzen Welt " 
 
 brought no warmth to her cheek, nor lessened the load on 
 her breast. 
 
 The concert over, we returned home. Adelaide and I 
 retired to her dressing-room, and her maid brought us tea. 
 She seated herself in silence. 
 
 For my part I was excited and hot, and felt my cheeks 
 glowing. I was so stirred that I could not sit still, but 
 moved to and fro, wishing that all the world could hear 
 that music, and repeating lines from the Ode to Joy, the 
 grand march-like measure, feeling my heart uplifted with 
 the exaltation of its opening strain : 
 
 " Freude, schOner Gotterfunken ! 
 Tochter aus Elysium ! " 
 
 As I paced about, thus excitedly, Adelaide's maid came 
 in, with a note. Mr. Arkwright had received it from Herr 
 von Francius, who had desired him to give it to Lady Le 
 Marchant. 
 
 Adelaide opened it, and I went on with my chant. I 
 know now how dreadful it must have sounded to her. 
 
 "Freude trinken alle Wesen 
 An den Brtisten der Natur "
 
 too The First Violin 
 
 " May ! " said Adelaide faintly. 
 
 I turned in my walk and looked at her. White as death. 
 She held the paper towards me with a steady hand, and I, 
 the song of joy slain upon my lips, took it. It was a brief 
 note from von Francius. 
 
 "I let you know, my lady, first of all, that I have 
 
 accepted the post of Musikdirektor in . It will be 
 
 made known to-morrow." 
 
 I held the paper and looked at her. Now I knew the 
 reason of her pallid looks. I had indeed been blind. I 
 might have guessed better. 
 
 " Have you read it ? " she asked, and she stretched her 
 arms above her head, as if panting for breath. 
 
 "Adelaide !" I whispered, going up to her; "Ade- 
 laideoh!" 
 
 She fell upon my neck. She did not speak and I, 
 speechless, held her to my breast. 
 
 " You love him, Adelaide ? " I said at last. 
 
 " With my whole soul ! " she answered in a low, very 
 low, but vehement voice. " With my whole soul." 
 
 " And you have owned it to him ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Tell me," said I, " how it was." 
 
 " I think I have loved him since almost the first time I 
 saw him he made quite a different impression upon me 
 than other men do quite. I hardly knew myself. He 
 mastered me. No other man ever did except " she 
 shuddered a little, " and that only because I tied myself 
 hand and foot, But I liked the mastery. It was delicious ;
 
 L
 
 io2 The First Violin 
 
 it was rest and peace. It went on for long. We knew 
 each knew quite well that we loved, but he never spoke of 
 it. He saw how it was with me and he helped me oh, 
 why is he so good ! He never tried to trap me into any 
 acknowledgment. He never made any use of the power he 
 knew he had, except to keep me right. But at the Masken- 
 ball I do not know how it was we were alone in all the 
 crowd there was something said a look. It was all over. 
 But he was true to the last. He did not say, ' Throw 
 everything up and come to me.' He said, ' Give me the 
 only joy that we may have. Tell me you love me.' And 
 I told him. I said, ' I love you with my life and my soul, 
 and everything I have, for ever and ever.' And that is 
 true. He said, ' Thank you, milady. I accept the con- 
 dition of my knighthood,' and kissed my hand. There 
 was some one following us. It was Sir Peter. He heard 
 all, and he has punished me for it since. He will punish 
 me again." 
 
 A pause. 
 
 " That is all that has been said. He does not know 
 that Sir Peter knows, for he has never alluded to it since. 
 He has spared me. I say he is a noble man." 
 
 She raised herself, and looked at me. 
 
 Dear sister ! With your love and your pride, your sins 
 and your folly, inexpressibly dear to me ! I pressed a kiss 
 upon her lips. 
 
 " Von Francius is good, Adelaide ; he is good." 
 
 " Von Francius would have told me this himself, but he 
 has been afraid for me ; some time ago he said to me that
 
 The First Violin 103 
 
 he had the offer of a post at a distance. That was asking 
 my advice. I found out what it was, and said, ' Take 
 it.' He has done so." 
 
 " Then you have decided ? " I stammered. 
 
 " To part. He has strength. So have I. It is my own 
 fault. May I could bear it if it were for myself alone. 
 I have had my eyes opened now. I see that when people 
 do wrong they drag others into it they punish those they 
 love it is part of their own punishment. 
 
 A pause. Facts, I felt, were pitiless ; but the glow of 
 friendship for von Francius was like a strong fire. In the 
 midst of the keenest pain one finds a true man, and the 
 discovery is like a sudden soothing of sharp anguish, or 
 like the finding a strong comrade in a battle. 
 
 Adelaide had been very self-restrained and quiet all this 
 time, but now suddenly broke out into low, quick, half- 
 sobbed-out words : 
 
 " Oh, I love him, I love him ! It is dreadful ! How 
 shall I go through with it ? " 
 
 Ay, there was the rub ! Not one short sharp pang, and 
 over all fire quenched in cool mists of death and uncon- 
 sciousness, but long years to come of daily, hourly, paying 
 the price ; incessant compunction, active punishment. A 
 prospect for a martyr to shrink from, and for a woman who 
 has made a mistake to live through. 
 
 We needed not further words. The secret was told, and 
 the worst known. We parted. Von Francius was from 
 this moment a sacred being to me. 
 
 But from this time he scarcely came near the house
 
 lot The First Violin 
 
 not even to give me my lessons. I went to my lodgings 
 and had them there. Adelaide said nothing, asked not a 
 question concerning him, nor mentioned his name, and 
 the silence on his side was almost as profound as that on 
 hers. It seemed as if they feared that should they meet, 
 speak, look each other in the eyes, all resolution would be 
 swept away, and the end hurry resistless on.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 " And behold, though the way was light and the sun did shine, yet 
 my heart was ill at ease, for a sinister blot did now and again fleck 
 the sun, and a muttered sound perturbed the air. And he repeated 
 oft, ' One hath told me thus or thus.' " 
 
 KARL LINDERS, our old acquaintance, was now our fast 
 friend. Many changes had taken place in the personnel 
 of our fellow-workmen in the Kapelle, but Eugen, Karl and
 
 i 6 The First Violin 
 
 I remained stationary, in the same places and holding the 
 same rank as on the day we had first met. He, Karl, had 
 been from the first more congenial to me than any other 
 of my fellows (Eugen excepted of course). Why, I could 
 never exactly tell. There was about him a contagious 
 cheerfulness, good-humor and honesty. He was a sinner, 
 but no rascal ; a wild fellow Taugenichts wilder Gese/l, 
 as our phraseology had it, but the furthest thing possible 
 from a knave. 
 
 Since his visits to us and his earnest efforts to curry 
 favor with Sigmund by means of nondescript wool beasts, 
 domestic or of prey, he had grown much nearer to us. He 
 was the only intimate we had the only person who came 
 in and out of our quarters at any time; the only man who 
 sat and smoked with us in an evening. At the time when 
 Karl put in his first appearance in these pages he was 
 a young man not only not particular, but utterly reckless 
 as to the society he frequented. Any one, he was wont to 
 say, was good enough to talk with, or to listen while talked 
 to. Karl's conversation could not be called either affected 
 or pedantic : his taste was catholic, and comprised within 
 wide bounds ; he considered all subjects that were amus- 
 ing appropriate matter of discussion, and to him most sub- 
 jects were or were susceptible of being made amusing. 
 
 Latterly, however, it would seem that a process of growth 
 had been going on in him. Three years had worked a 
 difference. In some repects he was, thank heaven ! still 
 the old Karl the old careless, reckless, aimless fellow ; 
 but in others he was metamorphosed.
 
 The First Violin 107 
 
 Karl Linders, a handsome fellow himself, and a slave 
 to beauty, as he was careful to inform us susceptible 
 in the highest degree to real loveliness so he often 
 told us and in love on an average, desperately and for 
 ever, once a week, had at last fallen really and actually 
 in love. 
 
 For a long time we dkl not guess it or rather, accept- 
 ing his being in love as a chronic state of his being one 
 of the "inseparable accidents" which may almost be 
 called qualities, we wondered what lay at the bottom of 
 his sudden intense sobriety of demeanor and propriety 
 of conduct, and looked for some cause deeper than love, 
 which did not usually have that effect upon him : we 
 thought it might be debt. We studied the behavior 
 itself: we remarked that for upwards of ten days he had 
 never lauded the charms of any young woman connected 
 with the choral or terpsichorean staff of the opera, and 
 wondered. 
 
 We saw that he had had his hair very much cut, and we 
 told him frankly that we did not think it improved him. 
 To our great surprise he told us that we knew nothing about 
 it, and requested us to mind our own business, adding 
 testily, after a pause, that he did not see why on earth a 
 set of men like us should make ourselves conspicuous 
 by the fashion of our hair, as if we were Absaloms or 
 Samsons. 
 
 "Samson had a Delilah, mein Lieber" said I, eying 
 him. " She shore his locks for him. Tell us frankly 
 who has acted the .part by you."
 
 io8 The First Violin 
 
 " Bah ! Can a fellow have no sense in his own head, to 
 find such things out ? Go and do likewise, and I can tell 
 you you'll be improved." 
 
 But we agreed when he was gone that the loose locks, 
 drooping over the laughing glance, suited him better than 
 that neatly cropped propriety. 
 
 Days passed, and Karl was still not his old self. It 
 became matter of public remark that his easy, short jacket, 
 a mongrel kind of garment to which he was deeply attached, 
 was discarded, not merely for grand occasions, but even 
 upon the ordinary Saturday night, concert, yea, even for 
 walking out at mid-day, and a superior frock-coat sub- 
 stituted for it a frock-coat in which, we told him, he 
 looked quite edel. At which he pished and pshawed, but 
 surreptitiously adjusted his collar before the looking-glass 
 which the propriety and satisfactoriness of our behavior had 
 induced Frau Schmidt to add to our responsibilities, pulled 
 his cuffs down, and remarked en passant, that " the 'cello 
 was a horribly ungraceful instrument." 
 
 " Not as you use it," said we both politely, and 
 allowed him to lead the way to the concert-room. 
 
 A few evenings later he strolled into our room, lit a 
 cigar, and sighed deeply. 
 
 " What ails thee, then, Karl ? " I asked. 
 
 " I've something on my mind," he replied uneasily. 
 
 "That we know," put in Eugen ; "and a pretty big 
 lump it must be too. Out with it, man! Has she 
 accepted the bottle-nosed oboist after all ?" 
 
 "No."
 
 The First Violin 109 
 
 " Have you got into debt ? How much ? I dare say 
 we can manage it between us." 
 
 " No oh no ! I'm five thaler to the good." 
 
 Our countenances grew more serious* Not debt ? 
 Then what was it, what could it be ? 
 
 " I hope nothing has happened to Gretchen," suggested 
 Eugen, for Gretchen, his sister, was the one permanently 
 strong love of Karl's heart. 
 
 " Oh no ! Das Mddel is very well, and getting on in 
 her classes." 
 
 "Then what\* it ? " 
 
 " I'm engaged to be married." 
 
 I grieve to say that Eugen and I, after staring at him for 
 some few minutes, until we had taken in the announce- 
 ment, both burst into the most immoderate laughter till 
 the tears ran down our cheeks, and our sides ached. 
 
 Karl sat quite still, unresponsive, puffing away at his 
 cigar ; and when we had finished, or rather were becoming 
 a little more moderate in the expression of our amuse- 
 ment, he knocked the ash away from the weed, and 
 remarked : 
 
 " That's blind jealousy. You both know that there isn't 
 a Mddchen in the place who would look at you, so you try 
 to laugh at people who are better off than yourselves." 
 
 This was so stinging (from the tone, more than the 
 words), as coming from the most sweet-tempered fellow I 
 ever knew, that we stopped Eugen apologized, and we 
 asked who the lady was. 
 
 " I shouldn't suppose you cared to know," said he,
 
 i io The First Violin 
 
 rather sulkily. " And it's all very fine to laugh, but let 
 me see the man who even smiles at her he shall learn 
 who I am." 
 
 We assured him, with the strongest expressions that we 
 could call to our aid, that it was the very idea of his being 
 engaged that made us laugh not any disrespect, and 
 begged his pardon again. By degrees he relented. We 
 still urgently demanded the name of the lady. 
 
 " Als Vcrlobte empfehleti sick Karl Linders and who 
 else ?" asked Eugen. 
 
 " Als Verlobte enipfehlcn sick* Karl Linders and Clara 
 Steinmann," said Karl, with much dignity. 
 
 " Clara Steinmann," we repeated in tones of respectful 
 gravity, " I never heard of her." 
 
 " No, she keeps herself rather reserved and select," 
 said Karl impressively. " She lives with her aunt in the 
 Alleestrasse, at number thirty-nine." 
 
 " Number thirty-nine ! " we both ejaculated. 
 
 "Exactly so! What have you to say against it?" 
 demanded Herr Linders, glaring round upon us with an 
 awful majesty. 
 
 " Nothing oh, less than nothing. But I know now 
 where you mean. It is a boarding-house, nichtwahr?" 
 
 He nodded sedately. 
 
 " I have seen the young lady," said I, carefully observ- 
 ing all due respect. " Eugen, you must have seen her too. 
 
 * The German custom on an engagement taking place is to an- 
 nounce it with the above words, signifying " M. and N. announce 
 [or recommend] themselves as betrothed," This appears in the 
 newspaper as a marriage with us.
 
 The First Violin 1JI 
 
 Miss Wedderburn used to come with her to the Instru- 
 mental Concert?, before she began to sing." 
 
 "Right!" said Karl graciously. "She did. Clara 
 liked Miss Wedderburn very much." 
 
 " Indeed ! " said we respectfully, and fully recognizing 
 that this was quite a different affair from any of the pre- 
 vious flirtations with chorus-singers and ballet-girls which 
 had taken up so much of his attention. 
 
 " I don't know her," said I, " I have not that pleasure, 
 but I am sure you are to be congratulated, old fellow so 
 I do congratulate you very heartily." 
 
 " Thank you," said he. 
 
 " I can't congratulate you, Karl, as I don't know the 
 lady," said Eugen, "but I do congratulate Jier" laying 
 his hand upon Karl's shoulder; " I hope she knows the 
 kind of man she has won, and is worthy of him." 
 
 A smile, of the Miss Squeers description "Tilda, I 
 pities your ignorance and despises you," crossed Karl's 
 lips as he said : 
 
 " Thank you. No one else knows. It only took place 
 decidedly, you know, to-night. I said I should tell 
 two friends of mine she said she had no objection. I 
 should not have liked to keep it from you two. I wish," 
 said Karl, whose eyes had been roving in a seeking manner 
 round the room, and who now brought his words out with 
 a run ; "I wish Sigmund had been here too. I wish she 
 could have seen him. She loves children : she has been 
 very good to Gretchen." 
 
 Eugen's hand dropped from our friend's shoulder. He
 
 us The first Violin 
 
 walked to the window without speaking, and looked out 
 into the darkness as he was then in more senses than one 
 often wont to do nor did he break the silence nor look at 
 us again until some time after Karl and I had resumed the 
 conversation. 
 
 So did the quaint fellow announce his engagement to us. 
 It was quite a romantic little history, for it turned out that 
 he had loved the girl for full two years, but'for a long time 
 had not been able even to make her acquaintance, and 
 when that was acccomplished had hardly dared to speak 
 of his love for her ; for though she was sprung from much 
 the same class as himself she was in much better circum- 
 stances, and accustomed to a life of ease and plenty, even 
 if she were little better in reality than a kind of work- 
 ing housekeeper. A second suitor for her hand had, how- 
 ever, roused Karl into boldness and activity : he declared 
 himself, and was accepted. Despite the opposition of 
 Frau Steinmann, who thought the match in every way 
 beneath her niece (why, I never could tell), the lovers 
 managed to carry their purpose so far as the betrothal or 
 Verlobung went : marriage was a question strictly of the 
 future. It was during the last weeks of suspense and 
 uncertainty that Karl had been unable to carry things 
 off in quite his usual light-hearted manner: it was after 
 finally conquering that he came to make us partakers in 
 his satisfaction. 
 
 In time we had the honor of an introduction to Fraulein 
 Steinmann, and our amazement and amusement were 
 equally great. Karl was a tall, handsome, well-knit fellow,
 
 The First Violin 113 
 
 with an exceptionally graceful figure and what I call a 
 typical German face (typical, I mean, in one line of devel- 
 opment) open, frank, handsome, with the broad traits, 
 smiling lips, clear and direct guileless eyes, waving hair 
 and aptitude for geniality which are the chief characteris- 
 tics of that type not the highest, perhaps, but a good one, 
 nevertheless honest, loyal, brave a kind which makes 
 good fathers and good soldiers how many a hundred are 
 mourned since 1870-71 ! 
 
 He had fallen in love with a little stout dumpy 
 Mddchen, honest and open as himself, but stupid in all 
 outside domestic matters. She was evidently desperately 
 in love with him, and could understand a good Walzer or 
 a sentimental song, so that his musical talents were not 
 altogether thrown away. I liked her better after a time. 
 There was something touching in the way in which she said 
 to me once : 
 
 " He might have done so much better. I am such an 
 ugly, stupid thing, but when he said did I love him or 
 could I love him, or something like that, urn Gotteswillen, 
 Herr Helf en, what could I say ? " 
 
 " I am sure you did the best possible thing both for 
 him and for you," I was able to say, with emphasis and 
 conviction. 
 
 Karl had now become a completely reformed and 
 domesticated member of society : now he wore the frock- 
 coat several times a week, and confided to me that he 
 thought he must have a new one soon. Now too did other 
 strange results appear of his engagement to Fraulein Clara
 
 1J 4 The First Violin 
 
 (he got sentimental and called her Cldrchen sometimes). 
 He had now the entree of Frau Steinmann's house, and 
 there met feminine society several degrees above that to 
 which he had been accustomed. He was obliged to wear 
 a permanently polite and polished manner (which, let me 
 hasten to say, was not the least trouble to him). No 
 chaffing of these young ladies no offering to take them 
 to places of amusement of any but the very sternest and 
 severest respectability. 
 
 He took Fraulein Clara out for walks. They jogged 
 along arm-in-arm, Karl radiant, Clara no less so, and 
 sometimes they were accompanied by another inmate of 
 Frau Steinmann's house a contrast to them both. She 
 lived en famille with her hostess, not having an income 
 large enough to admit of indulging in quite separate 
 quarters, and her name was Anna Sartorius. 
 
 It was very shortly after his engagement that Karl began 
 to talk to me about Anna Sartorius. She was a clever 
 young woman, it seemed or as he called her, zgescheites 
 Mddchen. She could talk most wonderfully. She had 
 travelled she had been in England and France, and seen 
 the world, said Karl. They all passed very delightful even- 
 ings together sometimes, diversified with music and song 
 and the racy jest at which times Frau Steinmann became 
 quite another person, and he, Karl, felt himself in heaven. 
 
 The substance of all this was told me by him one day 
 at a Probe, where Eugen had been conspicuous by his 
 absence. Perhaps his absence reminded Karl of some 
 previous conversation, for he said :
 
 The First Violin Ir 5 
 
 " She must have seen Courvoisier before somewhere. 
 She asks a good many questions about him, and when I 
 said I knew him she laughed." 
 
 " Look here, Karl ! don't go talking to outsiders about 
 Eugen or any of us. His affairs are no business of Frau- 
 lein Sartorius, or any other busybody." 
 
 " /talk about him ! What do you mean ? Upon my 
 word I don't know how the conversation took that turn; 
 but I am sure she knows something about him. She said 
 ' Engen Courvoisier indeed ! ' and laughed in a very 
 peculiar way." 
 
 " She is a fool. So are you if you let her talk to you 
 about him." 
 
 " She is no fool, and I want to talk to no one but my 
 own Madchen" said he easily; "but when a woman is 
 talking one can't stop one's ears." 
 
 Time passed. The concert with the Choral Symphony 
 followed. Karl had had the happiness of presenting 
 tickets to Fraulein Clara and her aunt, and of seeing them, 
 in company with Miss Sartorius, enjoying looking at the 
 dresses, and saying how loud the music was. His visits to 
 Frau Steinmann continued. 
 
 " Friedel," he remarked abruptly one day to me, as we 
 paced down the Casernenstrasse, " I wonder who Cour- 
 voisier is ! " 
 
 " You have managed to exist very comfortably for three 
 or four years without knowing." 
 
 " There is something behind all his secrecy about him- 
 self "
 
 1 16 The First Violin 
 
 " Fraulein Sartorius says so, I suppose," I remarked 
 dryly. 
 
 " N no; she never said so; but I think she knows it 
 is so." 
 
 " And what if it be so ?" 
 
 " Oh, nothing ! But I wonder what can have driven him 
 here." 
 
 " Driven him here ? His own choice, of course." 
 
 Karl laughed. 
 
 "Nee, nee, Friedel, not quite." 
 
 " I should advise you to let him and his affairs alone, 
 unless you want a row with him. I would no more think 
 of asking him than of cutting off my right hand." 
 
 "Asking him lieber Himmel! no; but one may won- 
 der It was a very queer thing his sending poor Sig- 
 
 mund off in that style. I wonder where he is." 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " Did he never tell you ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 "Queer!" said Karl reflectively. "I think there is 
 something odd behind it all." 
 
 " Now listen, Karl. Do you want to have a row with 
 Eugen ? Are you anxious for him never to speak to you 
 again ? " 
 
 " Herrgott, no ! " 
 
 " Then take my advice, and just keep your mouth shut. 
 Don't listen to tales, and don't repeat them." 
 
 " But, my dear fellow, when there is a mystery about a 
 man "
 
 The First Violin "7 
 
 " Mystery ! Nonsense ! What mystery is there in a 
 man's choosing to have private affairs? Jf'? didn't behave 
 in this idiotic manner when you were going on like a luna- 
 tic about Fraulein Clara. We simply assumed that as 
 you didn't speak you had affairs which you chose to keep 
 to yourself. Just apply the rule, or it may be worse for 
 you." 
 
 " For all that, there is something queer" he said, as we 
 turned into the Restauration for dinner. 
 
 Yet again, some days later, just before the last concert 
 came off, Karl, talking to me, said, in a tone and with a 
 look as if the idea troubled and haunted him : 
 
 " I say, Friedel, do you think that Courvoisier's being 
 here is all square ? " 
 
 " All square ? " I repeated scornfully. 
 
 He nodded. 
 
 " Yes. Of course all has been right since he came 
 here ; but don't you think there may be something shady 
 in the background ? " 
 
 "What do you mean by 'shady' ?" I asked, more 
 annoyed than I cared to confess at his repeated returning 
 to the subject. 
 
 " Well, you know there must be a reason for his being 
 here " 
 
 I burst into a fit of laughter, which was not so mirthful 
 as it might seem. 
 
 " I should rather think there must. Isn't there a reason 
 for every one being somewhere ? Why am I here ? Why 
 are you here ? ' '
 
 "8 The First Violin 
 
 " Yes; but this is quite a different thing. We are all 
 agreed that whatever he may be now, he has not always 
 been one of us, and I like things to be clear about 
 people." 
 
 " It is a most extraordinary thing that you should only 
 have felt the anxiety lately," said I witheringly, and then, 
 after a moment's reflection, I said : 
 
 "Look here, Karl; no one could be more unwilling 
 than I to pick a quarrel with you, but quarrel we must if 
 this talking of Eugen behind his back goes on. It is 
 nothing to either of us what his past has been, /want no 
 references. If you want to gossip about him or any one 
 else, go to the old women who are the natural exchangers 
 of that commodity. Only if you mention it again to me 
 it comes to a quarrel verstehst du ?" 
 
 " I meant no harm, and I can see no harm in it," said 
 he. 
 
 " Very well ; but I do. I hate it. So shake hands, and 
 let there be an end of it. I wish now that I had spoken 
 out at first. There's a dirtiness, to my mind, in the idea 
 of speculating about a person with whom you are intimate, 
 in a way that you wouldn't like him to hear." 
 
 " Well, if you will have it so," said he; but there was 
 not the usual look of open satisfaction upon his face. He 
 did not mention the subject to me again, but I caught him 
 looking now and then earnestly at Eugen, as if he wished 
 to ask him something. Then I knew that in my anxiety to 
 avoid gossiping about the friend whose secrets were sacred 
 to me, I had made a mistake. I ought to have made Karl
 
 The First Violin TT 9 
 
 tell me whether he had heard anything specific about him 
 or against him, and so judge the extent of the mischief 
 done. 
 
 It needed but little thought on my part to refer Karl's 
 suspicions and vague rumors to the agency of Anna Sarto- 
 rius. Lately I had begun to observe this young lady more 
 closely. She was a tall, dark, plain girl, with large, defi- 
 ant-looking eyes, and a bitter mouth; when she smiled 
 there was nothing genial in the smile. When she spoke, 
 her voice had a certain harsh flavor; her laugh was hard 
 and mocking as if she laughed at, not with people. 
 There was something rather striking in her appearance, 
 but little pleasing. She looked at odds with the world, 
 or with her lot in it, or with her present circumstances, or 
 something. I was satisfied that she knew something of 
 Eugen, though, when I once pointed her out to him and 
 asked if he knew her, he glanced at her, and after a mo- 
 ment's look, as if he remembered, shook his head, saying: 
 
 " There is something a little familiar to me in her face, 
 but I am sure I have never seen her most assuredly never 
 spoken to her." 
 
 Yet I had often seen her look at him long and earnestly, 
 usually with a certain peculiar smile, and with her head 
 a little to one side as if she examined some curiosity or 
 lusus naturae. I was too little curious myself to know 
 Eugen's past, to speculate much about it; but I was quite 
 sure that there was some link between him and that dark, 
 bitter, sarcastic- looking girl, Anna Sartorius.
 
 The First Violin 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 Didst thou, or didst thou not ? Just tell me, friend. 
 Not that my conscience may be satisfied, 
 / never for a moment doubted thee 
 But that I may have wherewithal in hand 
 To turn against them when they point at thee 
 A whip to flog them with a rock to crush 
 Thy word thy simple downright " No, I did not." 
 ****** 
 
 Why ! How ! 
 
 What's this ? He does not, will not speak. O God ! 
 Nay, raise thy head, and look me in the eyes ! 
 Canst not ? What is this thing ? 
 
 IT was the last concert of the season and the end of 
 April, when evenings were growing pleasantly long and the 
 air balmy. Those last concerts, and the last nights of the 
 opera, which closed at the end of April, until September, 
 were always crowded. That night I remember we had 
 Liszt's Prometheus, and a great violinist had been an- 
 nounced as coming to enrapture the audience with the 
 performance of a Concerto of Beethoven's. 
 
 The concert was for the benefit of von Francius, and was 
 probably the last one at which he would conduct us. He 
 was leaving to assume the post of Koniglicher Musikdirek- 
 
 tor at . Now that the time came, there was not a man 
 
 amongst us who was not heartily sorry to think of the 
 parting. 
 
 Miss Wedderburn was one of the soloists that evening, 
 and her sister and Mr. Arkwright were both there. 
 
 Karl Linders came on late. I saw that just before he
 
 The First Violin 121 
 
 appeared by the orchestra entrance, his beloved, her aunt, 
 and Fraulein Sartorius had taken their places in the Par- 
 quet. Karl looked sullen and discontented, and utterly 
 unlike himself. Anna Sartorius was half smiling. Lady 
 Le Marchant, I noticed, passingly, looked the shadow of 
 her former self. 
 
 Then von Francius came on ; he too looked disturbed, 
 for him very much so, and glanced round the orchestra and 
 the room ; and then coming up to Eugen, drew him a little 
 aside, and seemed to put a question to him. The discus- 
 sion, though carried on in low tones, was animated, and 
 lasted some time. Von Francius appeared greatly to urge 
 Courvoisier to something the latter to resist. At last 
 some understanding appeared to be come to. Von Fran- 
 cius returned to his estrade, Eugen to his seat, and the 
 concert began. 
 
 The third piece on the list was the Violin Concerto, 
 and when its turn came all eyes turned in all directions in 
 
 search of , the celebrated, who was to perform it. 
 
 Von Francius advanced and made a short enough 
 announcement. 
 
 " Meine Herrschaften, I am sorry to say that I have 
 
 received a telegram from Herr , saying that sudden 
 
 illness prevents his playing to-night. I am sorry that you 
 should be disappointed of hearing him, but I cannot regret 
 that you should have an opportunity of listening to one 
 who will be a very effectual substitute Herr Concert- 
 meister Courvoisier, your first violin." 
 
 He stepped back. Courvoisier rose. There was a dead
 
 T22 The First Violin 
 
 silence in the hall. Eugen stood in the well-known posi- 
 tion of the prophet without honor, only that he had not 
 yet begun to speak. The rest of the orchestra and von 
 Francius were waiting to begin Beethoven's Concerto; but 
 Eugen, lifting his voice, addressed them in his turn : 
 
 " I am sorry to say that I dare not venture upon the 
 great Concerto; it is so long since I attempted it. I shall 
 have pleasure in trying to play a Chaconne one of the 
 compositions of Herr von Francius." 
 
 Von Francius started up as if to forbid it. But F^ugen 
 had touched the right key. There was a round of ap- 
 plause, and then an expectant settling down to listen on 
 the part of the audience, who were, perhaps, better pleased 
 to hear von Francius the living and much discussed, than 
 Beethoven the dead and undisputed. 
 
 It was a minor measure, and one unknown to the public, 
 for it had not yet been published. Von Francius had lent 
 Eugen the score a few days ago, and he had once or twice 
 said to me that it was full not merely of talent; it was 
 replete with the fire of genius. 
 
 And so, indeed, he proved to us that night. Never, 
 before or since, from professional or private virtuoso, have 
 I heard such playing as that. The work was in itself a 
 fine one; original, strong, terse and racy, like him who 
 had composed it. It was sad, very sad, but there was a 
 magnificent elevation running all through it which raised 
 it far above a mere complaint, gave a depth to its trag- 
 edy while it pointed at hope. And this, interpreted by 
 Eugen, whose mood and whose inner life it seemed exactly
 
 The First Violin 123 
 
 to suit, was a thing not to be forgotten in a lifetime. To 
 me the scene and the sounds come freshly as if heard yes- 
 terday. I see the great hall full of people, attentive 
 more than attentive every moment more enthralled. I 
 see the pleased smile which had broken upon every face of 
 his fellow-musicians at this chance of distinction, gradu- 
 ally subside into admiration and profound appreciation; 
 I feel again the warm glow of joy which filled my own 
 heart; I meet again May's eyes and see the light in them, 
 and see von Francius shade his face with his hand to con- 
 ceal the intensity of the artist's delight he felt at hearing 
 his own creation so grandly, so passionately interpreted. 
 
 Then I see how it was all over, and Eugen, pale with 
 the depth of emotion with which he had played the pas- 
 sionate music, retired, and there came a burst of enthusi- 
 astic applause applause renewed again and again it was 
 a veritable sucdsfou. 
 
 But he would make no response to the plaudits. He 
 remained obstinately seated, and there was no elation, but 
 rather gloom upon his face. In vain von Francius be- 
 sought him to come forward. He declined, and the calls 
 at last ceased. It was the last piece on the first part of 
 the programme. The people at last let him alone. But 
 there could be no doubt that he had both roused a great 
 interest in himself and stimulated the popularity of von 
 Francius in no common degree. And at last he had to go 
 down the orchestra steps to receive a great many congratu- 
 lations, and go through several introductions, while I sat 
 still and mentally rubbed my hands.
 
 124 The First Violin 
 
 Meanwhile Karl Linders, with nearly all the other 
 instrumentalists, had disappeared from the orchestra. I 
 saw him appear again in the body of the hall, amongst all 
 the people, who were standing up, laughing and discussing 
 and roving about to talk to their friends. He had a long 
 discussion with Fraulein Clara and Anna Sartorius. 
 
 And then I turned my attention to Eugen again, who, 
 looking grave and undated, released himself as soon as 
 possible from his group of new acquaintance, and joined me. 
 
 Then von Francius brought Miss Wedderburn up the 
 steps, and left her sitting near us. She turned to Eugen 
 and said, " Ich gratulire, " to which he only bowed rather 
 sadly. Her chair was quite close to ours, and von Fran- 
 cius stood talking to her. Others were quickly coming. 
 One or two were around and behind us. 
 
 Eugen was tuning his violin, when a touch on the shoul- 
 der roused me. I looked up. Karl Linders stood there, 
 leaning across me towards Eugen. Something in his face 
 told me that it that which had been hanging so long over 
 us was coming. His expression, too, attracted the atten- 
 tion of several other people of all who were immediately 
 around. 
 
 Those who heard Karl were myself, von Franoius, Miss 
 Wedderburn, and some two or three others, who had looked 
 up as he came, and had paused to watch what was coming. 
 
 " Eugen," said he, "a foul lie has been told about 
 you." 
 
 "So!" 
 
 " Of course I don't believe a word of it. I'm not such
 
 The First Violin 125 
 
 a fool. But I have been challenged to confront you with 
 it. It only needs a syllable on your side to crush it 
 instantly ; for I will take your word against all the rest of 
 the world put together." 
 
 " Well ? " said Eugen, whose face was white, and whose 
 voice was low. 
 
 " A lady has said to me that you had a brother who had 
 acted the part of father to you, and that you rewarded 
 his kindness by forging his name for a sum of money, 
 which you could have had for the asking ; for he denied 
 you nothing. It is almost too ridiculous to repeat, and I 
 beg your pardon for doing it ; but I was obliged. Will 
 you give me a word of denial ? ' ' 
 
 Silence. 
 
 I looked at Eugen. We were all looking at him. 
 Three things I looked for as equally likely for him to do ; 
 but he did none. He did not start up in indignant denial ; 
 he did not utter icily an icy word of contempt; he did 
 not smile and ask Karl if he were out of his senses. He 
 dropped his eyes, and maintained a deadly silence. 
 
 Karl was looking at him, and his candid face changed. 
 Doubt, fear, dismay succeeded one another upon it. Then, 
 in a lower and changed voice, as if first admitting the idea 
 that caution might be necessary : 
 
 " Urn Gotteswillen, Eugen ! Speak ! " 
 
 He looked up so may look a dog that is being tortured 
 and my very heart sickened; but he did not speak. 
 
 A few moments not half a minute did we remain 
 thus. It seemed a hundred years of slow agony. But dur-
 
 i26 The First Violin 
 
 ing that time I tried to comprehend that my friend of the 
 bright, clear eyes, and open, fearless glance ; the very 
 soul and flower of honor; my ideal of almost Quixotic 
 chivalrousness, stood with eyes that could not meet ours 
 that hung upon him ; face white, expression downcast, 
 accused of a crime which came, if ever crime did, under 
 the category " dirty," and not denying it ! 
 
 Karl, the wretched beginner of the wretched scene, came 
 nearer, took the other's hand, and, in a hoarse whisper, 
 said : 
 
 " For God's sake, Eugen, speak! Deny it! You can 
 deny it you must deny it ! " 
 
 He looked up at last, with a tortured gaze ; looked at 
 Karl, at me, at the faces around. His white lips quivered 
 faintly. Silence yet. And yet it seemed to me that it was 
 loathing that was most strongly depicted upon his face ; 
 the loathing of a man who is obliged to intimately examine 
 some unclean thing; the loathing of one who has to drag 
 a corpse about with him. 
 
 " Say it is a lie, Eugen ! " Karl conjured him. 
 
 At last came speech J at last an answer ; slow, low, 
 tremulous, impossible to mistake or explain away. 
 
 " No ; I cannot say so." 
 
 His head that proud, high head drooped again, as if 
 he would fain avoid our eyes. 
 
 Karl raised himself. His face, too, was white. As if 
 stricken with some mortal blow, he walked away. Some 
 people who had surrounded us turned aside and began to 
 whisper to each other behind their music. Von Francius
 
 The First Violin 12 7 
 
 looked impenetrable ; May Wedderburn white. The noise 
 and bustle was still going on all around, louder than before. 
 The drama had not taken three minutes to play out. 
 
 Eugen rested his brow for a moment on his hand, and 
 his face was hidden. He looked up, rising as he did so, 
 and his eyes met those of Miss Wedderburn. So sad, so 
 deep a gaze I never saw. It was a sign to me, a signifi- 
 cant one, that he could meet her eyes. 
 
 Then he turned to von Francius. 
 
 " Herr Direktor, Helfen will take my place, nicht 
 wahr ? ' ' 
 
 Von Francius bowed. Eugen left his seat, made his 
 way, without a word, from the orchestra, and von Francius 
 rapping sharply, the preliminary tumult subsided ; the 
 concert recommenced. 
 
 I glanced once or twice towards Karl ; I received no 
 answering look. I could not even see his face ; he had 
 made himself as small as possible behind his music. 
 
 The concert over and it seemed to me interminable 
 I was hastening away, anxious only to find Eugen, when 
 Karl Linders stopped me in a retired corner, and hold- 
 ing me fast, said : " Friedel, I am a damned fool." 
 
 " I am sorry not to be able to contradict you." 
 
 "Listen," said he. " You must listen, or I shall fol- 
 low you and make you. I made up my mind not to hear 
 another word against him, but when I went to die Clara 
 after the solo, I found her and that confounded girl whis- 
 pering together. She Anna Sartorius said it was very 
 fine for such scamps to cover their sins with music. I
 
 128 The First Violin 
 
 asked her pretty stiffly what she meant, for she is always 
 slanging Eugen, and I thought she might have let him 
 alone for once. She said she meant that he was a black- 
 guard that's the word she used ein echter Spitzbube a 
 forger, and worse. I told her I believed it was a lie. I 
 did not believe it. 
 
 " ' Ask him,' said she. I said I would be something 
 first. But Clara would have nothing to say to me, and 
 they both badgered me until for mere quietness I agreed 
 to do as they wished." 
 
 He went on in distress for some time. 
 
 " Oh, drop it ! " said I impatiently. " You have done 
 the mischief. I don't want to listen to your whining over 
 it. Go to the Fraulein Steinmann and Sartorius. They 
 will confer the reward of merit upon you." 
 
 "GottbeMte!" 
 
 I shook myself loose from him and took my way home. 
 It was with a feeling not far removed from tremulousness 
 that I entered the room. That poor room formed a temple 
 which I had no intention of desecrating. 
 
 He was sitting at the table when I entered, and looked 
 at me absently. Then, with a smile in which sweetness 
 and bitterness were strangely mingled, said : 
 
 " So ! you have returned ? I will not trouble you 
 much longer. Give me houseroom for to-night. In the 
 morning I shall be gone." 
 
 I went up to him, pushed the writing materials which 
 lay before him away, and took his hands, but could not 
 speak for ever so long.
 
 The First Violin 129 
 
 "Well, Friedhelm," he asked, after a pause, during 
 which the drawn and tense look upon his face relaxed 
 somewhat, " what have you to say to the man who has let 
 you think him honest for three years ? " 
 
 " Whom I know, and ever have known, to be an honest 
 man." 
 
 He laughed. 
 
 " There are degrees and grades even in honesty. One 
 kind of honesty is lower than others. I am honest now 
 because my sin has found me out, and I can't keep up 
 appearances any longer." 
 
 " Pooh ! do you suppose that deceives me?" said I con- 
 temptuously. " Me, who have known you for three years. 
 That would 'be a joke, but one that no one will enjoy at 
 my expense." 
 
 A momentary expression of pleasure unutterable flashed 
 across his face and into his eyes, then was repressed, as he 
 said : 
 
 " You must listen to reason. Have I not told you all 
 along that my life had been spoiled by my own fault ? 
 that I had disqualified myself to take any leading part 
 amongst men ? that others might advance, but I should 
 remain where I was ? And have you not the answer to all 
 here ? You are a generous soul, I know, like few others. 
 My keenest regret now is that I did not tell you long ago 
 how things stood, but it would have cost me your friendship, 
 and I have not too many things to make life sweet to me." 
 
 " Eugen, why did you not tell me before ? I know the 
 reason : for the very same reason which prevents you from 
 9
 
 130 The First Violin 
 
 looking me in the eyes now, and saying, ' I am guilty. I 
 did that of which I am accused,' because it is not true. I 
 challenge you : meet my eyes, and say, ' I am guilty.' ' 
 
 He looked at me; his eyes were dim with anguish. He 
 said : 
 
 " Friedel, I cannot tell you that I am innocent." 
 
 " I did not ask you to do so. I asked you to say you 
 were guilty, and on your soul be it if you lie to me. That 
 I could never forgive." 
 
 Again he looked at me, strove to speak, but no word 
 came. I never removed my eyes from his : the pause grew 
 long, till I dropped his hands and turned away with. a smile. 
 
 " Let a hundred busybodies raise their clamoring 
 tongues, they can never divide you and me. If it were 
 not insulting I should ask you to believe that every feeling 
 of mine for you is unchanged, and will remain so as long 
 as I live." 
 
 " It is incredible. Such loyalty, such Friedel, you 
 are a fool ! ' ' 
 
 His voice broke. 
 
 " I wish you could have heard Miss Wedderburn sing 
 her English song after you were gone. It was called 
 ' What would you do, Love ? ' and she made us all cry." 
 
 " Ah, Miss Wedderburn ! how delightful she is ! " 
 
 " If it is any comfort to you to know, I can assure you 
 that she thinks as I do. I am certain of it." 
 
 " Comfort not much. It is only that if\ ever allowed 
 myself to fall in love again, which I shall not do, it would 
 be with Miss Wedderburn."
 
 The First Violin 131 
 
 The tone sufficiently told me that he was much in love 
 with her already. 
 
 " She is bewitching," he added. 
 
 " If you do not mean to allow yourself to fall in love 
 with her, I would not see too much of her," I remarked 
 sententiously, " because it seems to me that ' allowing ' is 
 a matter for her to decide, not the men who happen to 
 know her." 
 
 " I shall not see much more of her. I shall not remain 
 here." 
 
 As this was what I had fully expected to hear I said 
 nothing, but I thought of Miss Wedderburn, and grieved 
 for her. 
 
 "Yes, I must go forth from hence," he pursued. " I 
 suppose I ought to be satisfied that I have had three years 
 here. I wonder if there is any way in which a man could 
 kill all trace of his old self; a man who has every desire 
 to lead henceforth a new life, and be at peace and charity 
 with all men. I suppose not no. I suppose the brand 
 has to be carried about till the last; and how long it may 
 be before that ' last ' comes ! ' ' 
 
 I was silent. I had put a good face upon the matter 
 and spoken bravely about it. I had told him that I did 
 not believe him guilty that my regard and respect were 
 as high as ever, and I spoke the truth. Both before and 
 since then he had told me that I had a bump of venera- 
 tion, and one of belief, ludicrously out of proportion to 
 the exigencies of the age in which I lived. 
 
 Be it so. Despite my cheerful words, and despite the
 
 ^32 The First Violin 
 
 belief I did feel in him, I could not help seeing that he 
 carried himself now as a marked man. The free, open 
 look was gone ; a blight had fallen upon him, and he 
 withered under it. There was what the English call 
 a " down " look upon his face, which had not been there 
 formerly, even in those worst days when the parting from 
 Sigmund was immediately before and behind us. 
 
 In the days which immediately followed the scene at 
 the concert I noticed how he would set about things with a 
 kind of hurried zeal, then suddenly stop and throw them 
 aside, as if sick of them, and fall to brooding with head 
 sunk upon his breast, and lowering brow ; a state and a 
 spectacle which caused me pain and misery not to be 
 described. He would begin sudden conversations with 
 me, starting with some question, as : 
 
 " Friedel, do you believe in a future state ? " 
 
 " I do, and I don't. I mean to say that I don't know 
 anything about it." 
 
 " Do you know what my idea of heaven would be ? " 
 
 " Indeed I don't," said I, feebly endeavoring a feeble 
 joke. " A place where all the fiddles are by Stradivarius 
 and Guarnerius, and all the music comes up to Beethoven." 
 
 " No; but a place where there are no mistakes" 
 
 4< *No mistakes ?" 
 
 " Ja wol ! Where it would not be possible for a man 
 with fair chances to spoil his whole career by a single mis- 
 take. Or, if there were mistakes, I would arrange that the 
 punishment should be in some proportion to them not a 
 large punishment for a little sin, and vice versd."
 
 The First Violin 133 
 
 " Well, I should think that if there is any heaven there 
 would be some arrangement of that kind." 
 
 " As for hell," he went on in a low, calm tone which I 
 had learned to understand meant with him intense earnest- 
 ness, " there are people who wonder that any one could 
 invent a hell. My only wonder is why they should have 
 resorted to fire and brimstone to enhance its terrors when 
 they had the earth full of misery to choose from." 
 
 " You think this world a hell, Eugen ? " 
 
 " Sometimes I think it the very nethermost hell of hells, 
 and I think, if you had my feelings you would think so 
 too. A poet, an English poet (you do not know the Eng- 
 lish poets as you ought, Friedhelm), has said that the 
 fiercest of all hells is the failure in a great purpose. I 
 used to think that a fine sentiment ; now I sometimes won- 
 der whether to a man who was once inclined to think well 
 of himself it may not be a much fiercer trial to look back 
 and find that he has failed to be commonly honest and 
 upright. It is a nice little distinction a moral wire- 
 drawing which I would recommend to the romancers if 
 I knew any." 
 
 Once and only once was Sigmund mentioned between 
 us, and Eugen said : 
 
 " Nine years, were you speaking of ? No not in nine- 
 teen, nor in ninety-nine shall I ever see him again." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " The other night, and what occurred then, decided me. 
 Till then I had some consolation in thinking that the blot 
 might perhaps be wiped out the shame lived down.
 
 134 The'First Violin 
 
 Now I see that that is a fallacy. With God's help I will 
 never see him nor speak to him again. It is better that 
 he should forget me." 
 
 His voice did not tremble as he said this, though I knew 
 that the idea of being forgotten by Sigmund must be to 
 him anguish of a refinement not to be measured by me. 
 
 I bided my time, saying nothing. I at least was too 
 much engrossed with my own affairs to foresee the cloud 
 then first dawning on the horizon, which they who looked 
 towards France and Spain might perhaps perceive. 
 
 It had not come yet the first crack of that thunder 
 which rattled so long over our land, and when we saw the 
 dingy old Jdger Hof at one end of the Hofgarten, and 
 heard by chance the words Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, no 
 premonition touched us. My mind was made up, that let 
 Eugen go when and where he would, I would go with him. 
 
 I had no ties of duty, none of love or of ambition to 
 separate me from him; his God should be my God, and 
 his people my people ; if the God were a jealous God 
 dealing out wrath and terror, and the people shouid 
 dwindle to outcasts and pariahs, it mattered not to me. \ 
 loved him.
 
 The First Violin 135 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Nein, langer kann ich diesen Kampf nicht kampfen, 
 
 Den Riesenkampf der Pflicht. 
 Kannst du des Herzens Flammentrieb nicht dampfen, 
 
 So fordre, Tugend, dieses Opfer nicht. 
 
 Geschworen hab' ich's, ja, ich hab's geschworen, 
 
 Mich selbst zu bandigen. 
 Hier ist dein Kranz, er sei auf ewig mir verloren ; 
 
 Nimm ihn zuriick und lass mich siindigen." 
 
 SCHILLER. 
 
 IF I had never had a trouble before I had one now 
 large, stalwart, robust. For what seemed to me a long 
 time there was present to my mind's eye little but the 
 vision of a large, lighted room a great undefined crowd 
 surging around and below, a small knot of persons and faces 
 in sharp distinctness immediately around me; low-spoken 
 words with a question ; no answer vehement imploring 
 for an answer still no reply; yet another sentence con- 
 juring denial, and then the answer itself the silence that 
 succeeded it; the face which had become part of my 
 thoughts all changed and downcast the man whom I had 
 looked up to, feared, honored, as chivalrous far beyond 
 his station and circumstances, slowly walking away from 
 the company of his fellows, disgraced fallen ; having him- 
 self owned to the disgrace being merited, pointed at as a 
 cheat bowing to the accusation. 
 
 It drove me almost mad to think of it. I suffered the 
 more keenly because I could speak to no one of what had 
 happened. What sympathy should I get from any living
 
 136 The First Violin 
 
 soul by explaining my sick looks and absent demeanor 
 with the words, " I love that man who is disgraced " ? I 
 smiled dryly in the midst of my anguish, and locked it the 
 deeper in my own breast. 
 
 I had believed in him so devotedly, so intensely, had 
 loved him so entirely, and with such a humility, such a 
 consciousness of my own shortcomings and of his superior- 
 ity. The recoil at first was such as one might experience 
 who embraces a veiled figure, presses his lips to where its 
 lips should be, and finds that he kisses a corpse. 
 
 Such, I say, was the recoil at first. But a recoil, from 
 its very nature, is short and vehement. There are some 
 natures, I believe, which after a shock turn and flee from 
 the shocking agent. Not so I. After figuratively spring- 
 ing back and pressing my hands over my eyes, I removed 
 them again, and still saw his face, and it tortured me to 
 have to own it, but I had to do so still loved that face- 
 beyond all earthly things. 
 
 It grew by degrees familiar to me again. I caught my- 
 self thinking of the past and smiling at the remembrance 
 of the jokes between Eugen and Helfen on Carnival Mon- 
 day, then pulled myself up with a feeling of horror, and 
 the conviction that I had no business to be thinking of 
 him at all. But I did think of him day by day and hour 
 by hour, and tortured myself with thinking of him, and 
 wished, yet dreaded, to see him, and wondered how I pos- 
 sibly could see him, and could only live on in a hope 
 which was not fulfilled. For I had no right to seek him 
 out. His condition might be much very much to me.
 
 The First Violin '37 
 
 My sympathy or pity or thought as I felt all too keenly 
 could be nothing to him. 
 
 Meanwhile, as is usual in such cases, Circumstance 
 composedly took my affairs into her hands and settled 
 them forme without my being able to move a finger in the 
 matter. 
 
 The time was approaching for the departure of von 
 Francius. Adelaide and I did not exchange a syllable 
 upon the subject. Of what use ? I knew to a certain 
 extent what was passing within her. I knew that this child 
 of the world were we not all children of the world, and 
 not of light ? had braced her moral forces to meet the 
 worst, and was awaiting it calmly. 
 
 Adelaide, like me, based her actions not upon religion. 
 Religion was for both of us an utter abstraction; it 
 touched us not. That which gave Adelaide force to with- 
 stand temptation, and to remain stoically in the drear 
 sphere in which she already found herself, was not relif 
 ion ; it was pride on the one hand, and on the other love 
 for Max von Francius. 
 
 Pride forbade her to forfeit her reputation, which was 
 dear to her, though her position had lost the charms with 
 which distance had once gilded it for her. Love for von 
 Francius made her struggle with all the force of her nature 
 to remain where she was, renounce him blamelessly rather 
 than yield at the price which women must pay who do such 
 things as leaving their husbands. 
 
 It was wonderful to me to see how love had developed in 
 her every higher emotion. I remembered how cynical she
 
 138 The First Violin 
 
 had always been as to the merits of her own sex. Women, 
 according to her, were an inferior race, who gained their 
 poor ends by poor means. She had never been hard upon 
 female trickery and subterfuge. Bah ! she said, how else 
 are they to get what they want ? But now with the exalted 
 opinion of a man, had come exalted ideas as to the woman 
 fit for his wife. 
 
 Since to go to him she must be stained and marked for 
 ever, she would remain away from him. Never should any 
 circumstance connected with him be made small or con- 
 temptible by any act of hers. I read the motive, and, 
 reading it, read her. 
 
 Von Francius was, equally with herself, distinctly and 
 emphatically a child of the world as she honored him he 
 honored her. He proved his strength and the innate 
 nobility of his nature by his stoic abstinence from evasion 
 of or rebellion against the decree which had gone out 
 against their love. He was a better man, a greater artist, 
 a more sympathetic nature now than before. His passage 
 through the furnace had cleansed him. He was a standing 
 example to me that despite what our preachers and our 
 poets, our philosophers and our novelists are incessantly 
 dinning into our ears, there are yet men who can renounce 
 men to whom honor and purity are still the highest 
 goddesses. 
 
 I saw him, naturally, and often during these days so 
 dark for all of us. He spoke to me of his prospects in his 
 new post. He asked me if I would write to him occasion- 
 ally, even if it should only be three or four times in the year.
 
 The First Violin '39 
 
 " Indeed I will, if you care to hear from me," said I 
 much moved. 
 
 This was at our last music lesson, in my dark little room at 
 the Wehrhahn. Von Francius had made it indeed a lesson, 
 more than a lesson, a remembrance to carry with me for ever, 
 for he had been playing Beethoven and Schubert to me. 
 
 "Fraulein May, everything concerning you and yours 
 will ever be of the very deepest interest to me," he said, 
 looking earnestly at me. " Take a few words of advice 
 and information from one who has never felt anything for 
 you since he first met you but the truest friendship. You 
 have in you the materials of a great artist ; whether you 
 have the Spartan courage and perseverance requisite to 
 attain the position, I can hardly tell. If you choose to 
 become an artist, dm vollkommene Kunstlerin, you must 
 give everything else up love and marriage and all that 
 interferes with your art, for, liebes Fraulein, you cannot 
 pursue two things at once." 
 
 " Then I have every chance of becoming as great an 
 artist as possible," said I ; " for none of those things will 
 ever interfere with my pursuit of art." 
 
 "Wait till the time of probation comes; you are but 
 eighteen yet," said he kindly, but sceptically. 
 
 " Herr von Francius " the words started to my lips as 
 the truth started into my mind, and^fell from them in the 
 strong desire to speak to some one of the matter that then 
 filled my whole soul " I can tell you the truth you will 
 understand the time of probation has been it is over 
 past. I am free for the future."
 
 146 The First Violin 
 
 " So ! " said he in a very low voice, and his eyes were 
 filled, less with pity than with a fellow-feeling which made 
 them "wondrous kind." "You, too, have suffered, and 
 given up. There are then four people you and I, and 
 one whose name I will not speak, and may I guess once, 
 Fraulein May ? " 
 
 I bowed. 
 
 " My first violinist, nichtwahr? " 
 
 Again I assented, silently. He went on: 
 
 " Fate is perverse about these things. And now, my 
 fair pupil, you understand somewhat more that no true 
 artist is possible without sorrow and suffering and renun- 
 ciation. And you will think sometimes of your old, fault- 
 finding, grumbling master -ja ? " 
 
 " Oh, Herr von Francius ! " cried I, laying my head 
 upon the key-board of the piano, and sobbing aloud. 
 " The kindest, best, most patient, gentle 
 
 I could say no more. 
 
 " That is mere nonsense, my dear May," he said, pass- 
 ing his hand over my prostrate head ; and I felt that it 
 the strong hand trembled. 
 
 " I want a promise from you. Will you sing for me next 
 season ? ' ' 
 
 " If I am alive, and you send for me, I will." 
 
 " Thanks. And one other word. Some one very dear 
 to us both is very sad ; she will become sadder. You, my 
 child, have the power of allaying sadness, and soothing 
 grief and bitterness in a remarkable degree. Will you 
 expend some of that power upon her when her burden
 
 The First Violin 141 
 
 grows very hard, and think that with each word of kind- 
 ness to her you bind my heart more fast to yourself ? " 
 
 "I will indeed I will." 
 
 " We will not say good-by, but only Auf Wiedcrsehen ! " 
 said he. " You and I shall meet again. I am sure of 
 that. Meine Hebe, gute Schulerin, adieu ! " 
 
 Choked with tears, I passively let him raise my hand 
 to his lips. I hid my face in my handkerchief, to repress 
 my fast-flowing tears. I would not, because I dared not, 
 look at him. The sight of his kind and trusted face would 
 give me too much pain. 
 
 He loosed my hand. I heard steps ; a door opened and 
 closed. He was gone ! My last lesson was over. My 
 trusty friend had departed. He was to leave Elberthal on 
 the following day. 
 
 ***** 
 
 The next night there was an entertainment half con- 
 cert, half theatricals, wholly dilettante at the Malkasten, 
 the Artists' Club. We, as is the duty of a decorous Eng- 
 lish family, buried all our private griefs, and appeared at 
 the entertainment, to which, indeed, Adelaide had received 
 a special invitation. I was going to remain with Adelaide 
 until Sir Peter's return, which, we understood, was to be 
 
 in the course of a few weeks, and then I was going to , 
 
 by the advice of von Francius, there to finish my studies. 
 
 Dearly though I loved music, divine as she ever has 
 been, and will be, to me, yet the idea of leaving von 
 Francius for other masters had at first almost shaken my 
 resolution to persevere. But, as I said, all this was taken
 
 142 The First Violin 
 
 out of my hands by an irresistible concourse of circum- 
 stances, over which I had simply no control whatever. 
 
 Adelaide, Harry, and I went to the Malkasten, The 
 gardens were gaily illuminated; there was a torchlight 
 procession round the little artificial lake, and chorus-sing- 
 ing merry choruses, such as Wenn Zweie sich gut sind t sie 
 finden den Weg which were cheered and laughed at. The 
 fantastically-dressed arfists and their friends were flitting, 
 torch in hand, about the dark alleys under the great 
 twisted acacias and elms, the former of which made the 
 air voluptuous with their scent. Then we adjourned to the 
 saal for the concert, and heard on all sides regrets about 
 the absence of von Francius. 
 
 We sat out the first part of the festivities, which were 
 to conclude with theatricals. During the pause we went 
 again into the garden. The May evening was balmy and 
 beautiful ; no moonlight, but many stars, and the twinkling 
 lights in the garden. 
 
 Adelaide and I had seated ourselves on a circular bench 
 surrounding a big tree, which had the mighty word 
 GOETHE cut deeply into its rugged bark. When the others 
 began to return to the Malkasten, Adelaide, turning to 
 Arkwright, said : 
 
 " Harry, will you go in and leave my sister and me here, 
 that's a good boy ? You can call for us when the play is 
 over." 
 
 " All right, my lady," assented he amiably, and left us. 
 
 Presently Adelaide and I moved to another seat, near to 
 a small table under a thick shade of trees. The pleasant,
 
 The First Violin M3 
 
 cool evening air fanned our faces ; all was still and peace- 
 ful. Not a soul but ourselves had remained out of doors. 
 The still drama of the marching stars was less attractive 
 than the amateur murdering of Die Piccolo mini within. 
 The tree-tops rustled softly over our heads. The lighted 
 pond gleamed through the low-hanging boughs at the other 
 end of the garden. A peal of laughter and a round of 
 applause came wafted now and then from within. Ere 
 long Adelaide's hand stole into mine, which closed over 
 it, and we sat silent. 
 
 Then there came a voice. Some one a complaisant 
 Dilettantin was singing Thekla's song. We heard the 
 refrain distance lent enchantment; it sounded what it 
 really was, deep as eternity : 
 
 " Ich habe gelebt und geliebet." 
 
 Adelaide moved uneasily; her hand started nervously, 
 and a sigh broke from her lips. 
 
 " Schiller wrote from his heart," said she in a low 
 voice. 
 
 " Indeed, yes, Adelaide." 
 
 " Did you say good-by to von Francius, May, yester- 
 day ?" 
 
 " Yes at least, we said an revoir. He wants me to sing 
 for him next winter." 
 
 " Was he very down ? " 
 
 Yes very. He " 
 
 A footstep close at hand. A figure passed in the uncer, 
 tain light, dimly discerned us, paused, and glanced at us.
 
 t44 The First Violin 
 
 "Max!" exclaimed Adelaide in a low voice, full of 
 surprise and emotion, as she half started up. 
 
 " It is you ! That is too wonderful ! " said he, pausing. 
 
 " You are not yet gone ? " 
 
 " I have been detained to-day. I leave early to-morrow. 
 I thought I would take one last turn in the Malkasten gar- 
 den, which I may perhaps never see or enter again. I did 
 not know you were here." 
 
 " We May and I thought it so pleasant that we would 
 not go in again to listen to the play." 
 
 Von Francius had come under the trees and was now 
 leaning against a massive trunk; his slight, tall figure 
 almost lost against it; his arms folded, and an imposing 
 calm upon his pale face, which was just caught by the 
 gleam of a lamp outside the trees. 
 
 " Since this accidental meeting has taken place I may 
 have the privilege of saying adieu to your ladyship." 
 
 " Yes " said Adelaide in a strange, low, much-moved 
 tone. 
 
 I felt uneasy; I was sorry this meeting had taken place. 
 The shock and revulsion of feeling for Adelaide, after she 
 had been securely calculating that von Francius was a hun- 
 dred miles on his way to was too severe. I could 
 
 tell from the very timbre of her voice and its faint vibra- 
 tion how agitated she was, and as she seated herself again 
 beside me, I felt that she trembled like a reed. 
 
 " It is more happiness than I had expected," went on 
 von Francius, and his voice too was agitated. Oh, if he 
 would only say " Farewell," and go !
 
 The First Violin 145 
 
 "Happiness!" echoed Adelaide in a tone whose 
 wretchedness was too deep for tears. 
 
 "Ah! You correct me. Still it is a happiness; there 
 are some kinds of joy which one cannot distinguish from 
 griefs, my lady, until one comes to think that one might 
 have been without them, and then one knows their real 
 nature." 
 
 She clasped her hands. I saw her bosom rise and fall 
 with long, stormy breaths. 
 
 I trembled for both ; for Adelaide, whose emotion and 
 anguish were, I saw, mastering her; for von Francius, 
 because if Adelaide failed he must find it almost impos- 
 sible to repulse her. 
 
 " Herr von Francius," said I in a quick, low voice, 
 making one step towards him, and laying my hand upon his 
 arm, " leave us ! If you do love us," I added in a whisper, 
 " leave us ! Adelaide, say good-by to him let him go ! " 
 
 " You are right," said von Francius to me, before Ade- 
 laide had had time to speak ; " you are quite right." 
 
 A pause. He stepped up to Adelaide. I dared not 
 interfere. Their eyes met, and his will not to yield pro- 
 duced the same in her, in the shape of a passive, voiceless 
 acquiescence in his proceedings. He took her hands, say- 
 ing: 
 
 " My lady, adieu ! Heaven send you peace, or death, 
 which brings it, or whatever is best." 
 
 Loosing her hands he turned to me, saying distinctly : 
 
 " As you are a woman, and her sister, do not forsake her 
 now."
 
 146 The First Violin 
 
 Then he was gone. She raised her arms and half fell 
 against the trunk of the giant acacia beneath which we had 
 been sitting; face forwards, as if drunk with misery. 
 
 Von Francius, strong and generous, whose very submis- 
 sion seemed to brace one to meet trouble with a calmer, 
 firmer front, was gone. I raised my eyes, and did not 
 even feel startled, only darkly certain that Adelaide's 
 evil star was high in the heaven of her fate, when I saw, 
 calmly regarding us, Sir Peter Le Marchant. 
 
 In another moment he stood beside his wife, smiling, 
 and touched her shoulder: with a low cry she raised her 
 face, shrinking away from him. She did not seem sur- 
 prised either, and I do not think people often are surprised 
 at the presence, however sudden and unexpected, of their 
 evil genius. It is good luck which surprises the average 
 human being. 
 
 " You give me a cold welcome, my lady," he remarked. 
 " You are so overjoyed to see -me, I suppose. Your car- 
 riage is waiting outside. I came in it, and Arkwright told 
 me I should find you here. Suppose you come home. We 
 shall be less disturbed there than in these public gardens." 
 
 Tone and words all convinced me that he had heard 
 most of what had passed, and would oppress her with it 
 hereafter. 
 
 The late scene had apparently stunned her. After the 
 first recoil she said, scarcely audibly, " I am ready," and 
 moved. He offered her his arm; she took it, turning to 
 me and saying, " Come, May ! " 
 
 "Excuse me," observed Sir Peter, "you are better
 
 The First Violin '47 
 
 alone. I am sorry I cannot second your invitation to my 
 charming sister-in-law. I do not think you fit for any 
 society even hers." 
 
 " I cannot leave my sister, Sir Peter; she is not fit to 
 be left," I found voice to say. 
 
 " She is not ' left,' as you say, my dear. She has her 
 husband. She has me," said he. 
 
 Some few further words passed. I do not chronicle 
 them. Sir Peter was as firm as a rock that I was help- 
 less before him is a matter of course. I saw my sister 
 handed into her carriage ; I saw Sir Peter follow her the 
 carriage drive away. I was left alone, half mad with terror 
 at the idea of her state, to go home to my lodgings. 
 
 Sir Peter had heard the words of von Francius to me : 
 " do not forsake her now," and had given himself the sat- 
 isfaction of setting them aside as if they had been so much 
 waste paper. Von Francius was, as I well knew, trying 
 to derive comfort in this very moment from the fact that I 
 at least was with her; I who loved them both, and would 
 have laid down my life for them. Well ! let him have the 
 comfort ! In the midst of my sorrow I rejoiced that he 
 did not know the worst, and would not be likely to imagine 
 for himself a terror grimmer than any feeling I had yet 
 known.
 
 i4 The First Violin 
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 " Some say, ' A Queen discrowned,' and some call it l Woman's 
 shame.' Others name it ' A false step,' or ' social suicide,' just as it 
 happens to strike their minds, or such understanding as they may be 
 blessed with. In these days one rarely hears seriously mentioned 
 such unruly words as ' Love,' or ' wretchedness,' or ' despair,' which 
 may nevertheless be important factors in bringing about that result 
 which stands out to the light of day for public inspection." 
 
 THE three days which I passed alone and in suspense 
 were very terrible ones to me. I felt myself physically as 
 well as mentally ill, and it was in vain that I tried to learn 
 anything of or from Adelaide, and I waited in a kind of 
 breathless eagerness for the end of it all, for I knew as 
 well as if some one had shouted it aloud from the house- 
 tops, that that farewell in the Malkasten garden was not 
 the end. 
 
 Early one morning, when the birds were singing, and 
 the sunshine streaming into the room, Frau Liitzler came 
 into the room and put a letter into my hand, which she 
 said a messenger had left. I took it, and paused a mo- 
 ment before I opened it. I was unwilling to face what I 
 knew was coming and yet how otherwise could tne 
 whole story have ended ? 
 
 "DEAR MAY, 
 
 " You, like me, have been suffering during these three 
 days. I have been trying yes, I have tried to believe I 
 could bear this life, but it is too horrible. Isn't it pos- 
 sible that sometimes it may be right to do wrong ? It is 
 of no use telling you what has passed, but it is enough. I
 
 The First Violin MO 
 
 believe I am only putting the crowning point to my hus- 
 band's revenge when I leave him. He will be glad he 
 does not mind the disgrace for himself; and he can get 
 another wife, as good as I, when he wants one. When you 
 read this, or not long afterwards, I shall be with Max von 
 Francius. I wrote to him I asked him to save me, and 
 he said ' Come ! ' It is not because I want to go, but I 
 must go somewhere. I have made a great mess of my 
 life. I believe everybody does make a mess of it who 
 tries to arrange things for himself. Remember that, May. 
 " I wonder if we shall ever meet again. Not likely, 
 when you are married to some respectable, conventional 
 man, who will shield you from contamination with such 
 as I. I must not write more or I shall write nonsense. 
 Good-by, good-by, good-by ! What will be the end of me ! 
 Think of me sometimes, and try not to think too hardly. 
 Listen to your heart not to what people say. Good-by 
 again. 
 
 " ADELAIDE." 
 
 I received this stroke without groan or cry, tear or 
 shiver. It struck home to me. The heavens were driven 
 asunder a flash came from them, descended upon my 
 head, and left me desolate. I stood, I know not how 
 long, stock-still, in the place where I had read that letter. 
 In novels I had read of such things; they had had little 
 meaning for me. In real life I had only heard them men- 
 tioned dimly and distantly, and here I was face to face 
 with the awful thing, and so far from being able to deal out 
 hearty, untempered condemnation, I found that the words 
 of Adelaide's letter came to me like throes of a real heart. 
 Bald, dry, disjointed sentences on the outside; without
 
 150 The First Violin 
 
 feeling they might seem, but to me they were the breath- 
 less exclamations of a soul in supreme torture and peril. 
 My sister ! with what a passion of love my heart went out 
 to her. Think of you, Adelaide, and think of you not too 
 hardly ? Oh, why did not you trust me more ? 
 
 I saw her as she wrote those words, " I have made a great 
 mess of it." To make a mess of one's life one mistake 
 after another, till what might have been at least honest, 
 pure, and of good report, becomes a stained, limp, unsightly 
 thing, at which men feel that they may gaze openly, and 
 from which women turn away in scorn unutterable ; and that 
 Adelaide, my proudest of proud sisters, had come to this ! 
 
 I was not thinking of what people would say. I was 
 not wondering how it had come about; I was feeling Ade- 
 laide's words ever more and more acutely, till they seemed 
 to stand out from the paper and turn into cries of anguish 
 in my very ears. I put my hands to my ears : I could not 
 bear those notes of despair. 
 
 " What will be the end of me ? " she said, and I shook 
 from head to foot as I repeated the question. If her will and 
 that of von Francius ever came in contact. She had put 
 herself at his mercy utterly : her whole future now depended 
 upon the good pleasure of a man and men were selfish. 
 
 With a faint cry of terror and foreboding, I felt every- 
 thing whirl unsteadily around me : the letter fell from my 
 hand ; the icy band that had held me fast, gave way. All 
 things faded before me, and I scarcely knew that I was 
 sinking upon the floor. I thought I was dying; then 
 thought faded with the consciousness that brings it.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 * Allein, allein ! und so soil ich genesen ? 
 Allein, allein ! und das des Schicksals Segen ! 
 Allein, allein ! O Gott, ein einzig Wesen, 
 Um dieses Haupt an seine Brust zu legen ! " 
 
 I HAD a sharp, if not a long attack of illness, which left 
 me weak, shaken, passive, so that I felt neither ability nor 
 wish to resist those who took me into their hands. I re-
 
 152 The First Violin 
 
 member being surprised at the goodness of every one 
 towards me ; astonished at Frau Liitzler's gentle kindness, 
 amazed at the unfailing goodness of Doctor Mittendorf 
 and his wife, at that of the medical man who attended me 
 in my illness. Yes, the world seemed full of kindness, 
 full of kind people who were anxious to keep me in it, and 
 who managed, in spite of my effort to leave it, to retain 
 me. 
 
 Doctor Mittendorf, the oculist, had been my guardian 
 angel. It was he who wrote to my friends and told them 
 of my illness ; it was he who went to meet Stella and Miss 
 Hallam's Merrick, who came over to nurse me and take 
 me home. The fiat had gone forth. I was to go home. 
 I made no resistance, but my very heart shrank away in 
 fear and terror from the parting, till one day something 
 happened which reconciled me to going home, or rather 
 made me evenly and equally indifferent whether I went 
 home, or stayed abroad, or lived, or died, or, in short, 
 what became of me. 
 
 I sat one afternoon for the first time in an arm-chair 
 opposite the window. It was June, and the sun streamed 
 warmly and richly in. The room was scented with a bunch 
 of wall-flowers and another of mignonette, which Stella 
 had brought in that morning from the market. Stella was 
 very kind to me, but in a superior, patronizing way. I had 
 always felt deferentially backward before the superior 
 abilities of both my sisters, but Stella quite overawed me 
 by her decided opinions and calm way of setting me right 
 upon all possible matters.
 
 The First Violin 153 
 
 This afternoon she had gone out with Merrick to enjoy a 
 little fresh air. I was left quite alone, with my hands in 
 my lap, feeling very weak, and looking wistfully towards 
 the well-remembered windows on the other side of the 
 street. 
 
 They were wide open : I could see inside the room. 
 No one was there Friedhelm and Eugen had gone out, no 
 doubt. 
 
 The door of my room opened, and Frau Liitzler came in. 
 She looked cautiously around, and then, having ascer- 
 tained that I was not asleep, asked in a nerve- disturbing 
 whisper if I had everything that I wanted. 
 
 " Everything, thank you, Frau Liitzler," said I. " But 
 come in ! I want to speak to you. I am afraid I have 
 given you no end of trouble." 
 
 " Ach, ich bitte Sic, Fraulein ! Don't mention the 
 trouble. We have managed to keep you alive." 
 
 How they all did rejoice in having won a victory over 
 that gray-winged angel, Death ! I thought to myself, with 
 a curious sensation of wonder. 
 
 " You are very kind," I said, " and I want you to tell 
 me something, Frau Liitzler; how long have I been ill ? " 
 
 " Fourteen days, Fraulein; little as you may think it." 
 
 " Indeed. I have heard nothing about any one in that 
 time. Who has been made Musikdirektor in place of Herr 
 von Francius ? " 
 
 Frau Liitzler folded her arms and composed herself to 
 tell me a history. 
 
 "Ja, Fraulein, the post would have been offered to Herr
 
 i54 The First Violin . 
 
 Courvoisier, only, you see, he has turned out a good-for- 
 nothing. But perhaps you heard about that ? " 
 
 "Oh yes! I know all about it," I said hastily, as I 
 passed my handkerchief over ray mouth to hide the spasm 
 of pain which contracted it. 
 
 " Of course, considering all that, die Direktion could 
 not offer it to him, so they proposed it to Herr Helfen 
 you know Herr Helfen, Fraulein, nicht?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
 " A good young man ! a worthy young man, and so popu- 
 lar with his companions ! Aber denken Sie nur ! The 
 authorities might have been offering him an insult instead 
 of a good post. He refused it, then and there ; would not 
 stop to consider about it in fact, he was quite angry about 
 it. The gentleman who was chosen at last was a stranger, 
 from Hanover." 
 
 " Herr Helfen refused it why, do you know ? " 
 
 " They say, because he was so fond of Herr Courvoisier, 
 and would not be set above him. It may be so. I know 
 for a certainty that, so far from taking part against Herr 
 Courvoisier, he would not even believe the story against 
 him, though he could not deny it, and did not try to deny 
 it. Aber, Fraulein what hearts men must have ! To 
 have lived here three years, and let the world think him 
 an honest man, when all the time he had that on his con- 
 science ! Schrecklich .' ' ' 
 
 Adelaide and Courvoisier, it seemed, might almost be 
 pelted with the same stones. 
 
 " His wife, they say, died of grief at the disgrace "
 
 The First Violin *55 
 
 "Yes," said I, wincing. I could not bear this any 
 longer, nor to discuss Courvoisier with Frau Ltitzler, and 
 the words "his wife," uttered in that speculatively gos- 
 siping tone, repelled me. She turned the subject to 
 Helfen again. 
 
 " Herr Helfen must indeed have loved his friend, for 
 when Herr Courvoisier went away he went with him." 
 
 " Herr Courvoisier is gone ? " I inquired, in a voice so 
 like my usual one that I was surprised. 
 
 " Yes, certainly he is gone. I don't know where, I am 
 sure." 
 
 " Perhaps they will return ? " 
 
 Frau Ltitzler shook her head, and smiled slightly. 
 
 " Nein, Frdulein ! Their places were filled immedi- 
 ately. They are gone -fur immer." 
 
 I tried to listen to her, tried to answer her as she went 
 on giving her opinions upon men and things, but the effort 
 collapsed suddenly. I had at last to turn my head away, 
 and close my eyes, and in that weary, weary moment I 
 prayed to God that He would let me die, and wondered 
 again, and was almost angry with those who had nursed me, 
 for having done their work so well. " We have managed 
 to save you," Frau Liitzler had said. Save me from what, 
 and for what ? 
 
 I knew the truth, as I sat there; it was quite too strong 
 and too clear to be laid aside, or looked upon with doubt- 
 ful eyes. I was fronted by a fact, humiliating or not a 
 tact which I could not deny. 
 
 It was bad enough to have fallen in love with a man
 
 156 The First Violin 
 
 who had never showed me by word or sign that he cared 
 for me, but exactly and pointedly the reverse : but now it 
 seemed the man himself was bad too. Surely a well-regu- 
 lated mind would have turned away from him uninflu- 
 enced. 
 
 If so, then mine was an ill-regulated mind. I had 
 loved him from the bottom of my heart : the world with- 
 out him felt cold, empty and bare desolate to live in, 
 and shorn of its sweetest pleasures. He had influenced 
 me; he influenced me yet I still" felt the words true : 
 
 " The greater soul that draweth thee 
 Hath left his shadow plain to see 
 On thy fair face, Persephone ! " 
 
 He had bewitched me : I did feel capable of " making 
 a fool of myself " for his sake. I did feel that life by the 
 side of any other man would be miserable, though never 
 so richly set ; and that life by his side would be full and 
 complete though never so poor and sparing in its circum- 
 stances. I make no excuses, no apologies for this state of 
 things. It simply was so. 
 
 Gone ! and Friedhelm with him ! I should probably 
 never see either of them again. " I have made a mess of 
 my life," Adelaide had said, and I felt that I might chant 
 the same dirge. A fine ending to my boasted artistic 
 career ! I thought of how I had sat and chattered so aim- 
 lessly to Courvoisier in the cathedral at Koln, and had 
 little known how large and how deep a shadow his influ- 
 ence was to cast over my life.
 
 The First Violin '57 
 
 I still retained a habit of occasionally kneeling by my 
 bedside and saying my prayers, and this night I felt the 
 impulse to do so. I tried to thank God for my recovery. 
 I said the Lord's Prayer : it is a universal petition and 
 thanksgiving; it did not too nearly touch my woes; it 
 allowed itself to be said, but when I came to something 
 nearer, tried to say a thanksgiving for blessings and friends 
 who yet remained, my heart refused, my tongue clave to my 
 mouth. Alas ! I was not regenerate. I could not thank 
 God for what had happened. I found myself thinking of 
 " the pity on't," and crying most bitterly till tears 
 streamed through my folded fingers, and whispering, 
 " Oh, if I could only have died while I was ill ! no one 
 would have missed me, and it would have been so much 
 better for me ! ' ' 
 
 In the beginning of July, Stella, Merrick, and I returned 
 to England, to Skernford, home. I parted in silent tears 
 from my trusted friends, the Mittendorfs, who begged me 
 to come and stay with them at some future day. The 
 anguish of leaving Elberthal did not make itself fully felt 
 at first that remained to torment me at a future day. 
 And soon after our return came printed in large type in all 
 the newspapers, " Declaration of War between France and 
 Germany." Mine was amongst the hearts which panted 
 and beat with sickening terror in England while the dogs 
 of war were fastened in deadly grip abroad. 
 
 My time at home was spent more with Miss Hal lam than 
 in my own home. I found her looking much older, much
 
 158 The First Violin 
 
 feebler, and much more subdued than when she had b,een 
 in Germany. She seemed to find some comfort from my 
 society, and I was glad to devote myself to her. But for 
 her I should never have known all those pains and pleas- 
 ures which, bitter though their remembrance might be, were, 
 and ever would be to me, the dearest thing of my life. 
 
 Miss Hal lam seemed to know this ; she once asked me, 
 " Would I return to Germany if I could ? " " Yes," said 
 I, "I would." 
 
 To say that I found life dull, even in Skernford, at that 
 time, would be untrue. Miss Hallam was a furious parti- 
 san of the French, and I dared not mention the war to her, 
 but I took in the Daily News from my private* funds, and 
 read it in my bedroom every night with dimmed eyes, fast- 
 coming breath, and beating heart. I knew knew well that 
 B'.ugen must be fighting unless he were dead. And I 
 knew, too, by some intuition founded, I suppose, on many 
 small negative evidences unheeded at the time, that he 
 would fight, not like the other men who were battling for 
 the sake of hearth and home, and sheer love and pride for 
 Fatherland, but as one who has no home and no Father- 
 land, as one who seeks a grave, not as one who combats a 
 wrong. 
 
 Stella saw the pile of newspapers in my room, and asked 
 me how I could read those dreary accounts of battles and 
 bombardments. Beyond these poor newspapers I had, dur- 
 ing the sixteen months that I was at home, but scant tid- 
 ings from without. I had implored Clara Steinmann to 
 write to me now and then, and tell me news of Elber-
 
 The First Violin '59 
 
 thai, but her penmanship was of the most modest and 
 retiring description, and she was, too, so desperately 
 excited about Karl as to be able to think of scarce any- 
 thing else. Karl belonged to a Landwehr regiment which 
 had not yet been called out, but to which that frightful 
 contingency might happen any day ; and what should she, 
 Clara, do in that case ? She told me no news ; she 
 lamented over the possibility of Karl's being summoned 
 upon active service. It was, she said, grausam, schreck- 
 lich ! It made her almost faint to write about it, and yet 
 did she compose four whole pages in that condition. The 
 barrack, she informed me, was turned into a hospital, and 
 she and " Tante " both worked hard. There was much 
 work dreadful work to do such poor groaning fellows to 
 nurse ! " Herrgott ! " cried poor little Clara, " I did not 
 know that the world was such a dreadful place ! " Every- 
 thing was so dear, so frightfully dear, and Karl that was 
 the burden of her song might have to go into battle any 
 day. 
 
 Also through the public papers I learned that Adelaide 
 and Sir Peter Le Marchant were divided for ever. As to 
 what happened afterwards I was for some time in uncer- 
 tainty, longing most intensely to know, not daring to speak 
 of it. Adelaide's name was the signal for a cold stare 
 from Stella, and angry, indignant expostulation from Miss 
 Hallam. To me it was a sorrowful spell which I carried 
 in my heart of hearts. 
 
 One day I saw in a German musical periodical which I 
 took in, this announcement : " Herr Musikdirektor Max
 
 i6o The First Violin 
 
 von Francius in has lately published a new Sym- 
 phonic in B minor. The productions of this gifted com- 
 poser are slowly but most surely making the mark which 
 they deserve to leave in the musical history of our nation : 
 
 he has, we believe, left for for a few weeks to 
 
 join his lady (seine Gemahlin), who is one of the most 
 active and valuable of the hospital nurses of that town, 
 now, alas ! little else than a hospital." 
 
 This paragraph set my heart beating wildly. Adelaide 
 was then the wife of von Francius. My heart yearned from 
 my solitude towards them both. Why did not they write ? 
 They knew howl loved them. Adelaide could not suppose 
 that I looked upon her deed with the eyes of the world at 
 large with the eyes of Stella or of Miss Hallam. Had 
 I not grieved with her ? Had I not seen the dreadful 
 struggle ? Had I not proved the nobility of von Fran- 
 cius ? On an impulse I seized pen and paper, and wrote 
 to Adelaide, addressing my letter under cover to her hus- 
 band at the town in which he was Musikdirektor. To him 
 I also wrote only a few words " Is your pupil forgotten 
 by her master ? he has never been forgotten by her." 
 
 At last an answer came. On the part of Adelaide it was 
 short : 
 
 " DEAR MAY, 
 
 " I have had no time till now to answer your letter. I 
 cannot reply to all your questions. You ask whether I 
 repent what I have done. I repent my whole life. If 
 I am happy how can I be happy ? I am busy now, and 
 have many calls upon my time. My husband is very good :
 
 The First Violin 161 
 
 he never interposes between me and my work. Shall I ever 
 come to England again ? never. Yours, 
 
 "A VON F." 
 
 No request to write again ! No inquiry after friends or 
 relations! This letter showed me that whatever 7 might 
 feel to her however my heart might beat and long, how 
 warm soever the love I bore her, yet that Adelaide was 
 now apart from me divided in very thought. It was a 
 cruel letter, but in my pain I could not but see that it 
 had not been cruelly intended. Her nature had changed. 
 But behind this pain lay comfort. On the back of the 
 same sheet as that on which Adelaide's curt epistle was 
 written, were some lines in the hand I knew well. 
 
 " LIEBE MAI " (they said), 
 
 " Forgive your master, who can never forget you, nor ever 
 cease to love you. You suffer. I know it : I read it in 
 those short, constrained lines, so unlike your spontaneous 
 words and frank smile. My dear child, remember the 
 storms that are beating on every side over our country, in 
 our hearts. Once I asked you to sing for me some time : 
 you promised. When the war is over I shall remind you 
 of your promise. At present, believe me, silence is best. 
 " Your old music-master, 
 
 "M. v. F." 
 
 Gall and honey, roses and thistles, a dagger at the heart 
 and a caress upon the lips ; such seemed to me the charac- 
 ters of the two letters on the same sheet which I held in 
 my hand. Adelaide made my heart ache; von Francius 
 made tears stream from my eyes. I reproached myself for 
 having doubted him, but oh, I treasured the proof that he
 
 162 The First Violin 
 
 was true ! It was the one tangible link between me, real- 
 ity, and hard facts, and the misty yet beloved life I had 
 quitted. My heart was full to overflowing; I must tell 
 some one I must speak to some one. 
 
 Once again I tried to talk to Stella about Adelaide, but 
 she gazed at me in that straight, strange way, and said 
 coldly that she preferred not to speak of " that." I 
 could not speak to Miss Hallam about it. Alone in the 
 broad meadows, beside the noiseless river, I sometimes 
 whispered to myself that I was not forgotten, and tried to 
 console myself with the feeling that what von Francius 
 promised he did I should touch his hand, hear his voice 
 again and Adelaide's. For the rest, I had to lock the 
 whole affair my grief and my love, my longing and my 
 anxiety, fast within my own breast, and did so. 
 
 It was a long lesson a hard one ; it was conned with 
 bitter tears, wept long and alone in the darkness; it was a 
 sorrow which lay down and rose up with me. It taught 
 (or rather practised me until I became expert in them) 
 certain things in which I had been deficient ; reticence, 
 self-reliance, a quicker ability to decide in emergencies. 
 It certainly made me feel old and sad, and Miss Hallam 
 often said that Stella and I were " as quiet as nuns." 
 
 Stella had the power which I so ardently coveted ; she 
 was a first-rate instrumentalist. The only topic she and I 
 had in common was the music I had heard and taken part 
 in. To anything concerning that she would listen for hours. 
 
 Meanwhile the war rolled on, and Paris capitulated, and 
 peace was declared. The spring passed and Germany
 
 The First Violin 163 
 
 laughed in glee, and bleeding France roused herself to 
 look with a haggard eye around her ; what she saw was, 
 as we all know, desolation, and mourning, and woe. And 
 summer glided by, and autumn came, and I did not write 
 either to Adelaide or von Francius. I had a firm faith in 
 him an absolute trust. I felt I was not forgotten. 
 
 In less than a year after my return to England, Miss 
 Hallam died. The day before her death she called me to 
 her, and said words which moved me very much. 
 
 " May, I am an eccentric old woman, and lest you 
 should be in any doubt upon the subject of my feelings 
 towards you, I wish to tell you that my life has been more 
 satisfactory to me ever since I knew you." 
 
 "That is much more praise than I deserve, Miss Hallam." 
 
 " No, it isn't. I like both you and Stella. Three 
 months ago I made a codicil to my will by which I endeav- 
 ored to express that liking. It is nothing very brilliant, 
 but I fancy it will suit the views of both of you." 
 
 Utterly astounded, I stammered out some incoherent 
 words. 
 
 " There, don't thank me," said she. "If I were not 
 sure that I shall die to-morrow or thereabouts, I should 
 put my plan into execution at once, but I shall not be 
 alive at the end of the week." 
 
 Her words proved true. Grim, sardonic, and cynical to 
 the last, she died quietly, gladly closing her eyes which 
 had so long been sightless. She was sixty-five years old, 
 and had lived alone since she was five and twenty. 
 
 The codicil to her w'll, which she had spoken of with so
 
 164 The First Violin 
 
 much composure, left three hundred pounds a year to 
 Stella and me. She wished a portion of it to be devoted 
 to our instruction in music, vocal and instrumental, at any 
 German Conservatorium we might select. She preferred 
 that of L . Until we were of age, our parents or guar- 
 dians saw to the dispensing of the money, after that it was 
 our own half belonging to each of us; we might either 
 unite our funds or use them separately as we chose. 
 
 It need scarcely be said that we both chose that course 
 which she had indicated. Stella's joy was deep and 
 intense mine had an unavoidable sorrow mingled with it. 
 At the end of September, 18 , we departed for Germany, 
 and before going to L - it was agreed that we should 
 pay a visit, at Elberthal, to my friend Doctor Mittendorf. 
 
 It was a gusty September night, with wind dashing 
 angrily about and showers of rain flying before the gale, 
 on which I once again set foot in Elberthal the place I 
 had thought never more to see.
 
 BOOK II 
 
 J?O THEN PELS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 " Freude trinken alle wesen 
 An den IMisten der Natur ; 
 Alle Guten, alle B6sen 
 Folgen ihrer Rosenspur." 
 
 I FELT a deep rapture in being once more in that land 
 where my love, if he did not live, slept. But I forbear to 
 dwell on that rapture, much as it influenced me. It waxes 
 tedious when put into words loses color and flavor, like a 
 pressed flower. 
 
 I was at first bitterly disappointed to find that Stella and 
 I were only to have a few days in Elberthal. Doctor Mit- 
 tendorf no longer lived there, but only had his official resi- 
 dence in the town, going every week-end to his country 
 house, or " Schloss," as he ambitiously called it, at Lahn- 
 burg, a four hours' railway journey from Elberthal. 
 
 Frau Mittendorf, who had been at Elberthal on a visit, 
 was to take Stella and me with her to Lahnburg on the 
 Tuesday morning after our arrival, which was on a Friday 
 evening.
 
 166 The First Violin 
 
 The good Doctor's Schloss, an erection built like the 
 contrivances of the White Knight in " Through the Look- 
 ing Glass," on " a plan of his own invention," had been 
 his pet hobby for years, and now that it was finished, he 
 invited every invitable person to come and stay at it. 
 
 It was not likely that he would excuse a person for 
 whom he had so much regard as he professed for me, from 
 the honor, and I was fain to conceal the fact that I would 
 much rather have remained in Elberthal, and make up 
 my mind to endure as well as I could the prospect of be- 
 ing buried in the country with Frau Mittendorf and her 
 
 children. 
 
 ***** 
 
 It was Sunday afternoon. An equinoctial gale was rag- 
 ing, or rather had been raging all day. It had rained 
 incessantly, and the wind had howled. The skies were 
 cloud-laden, the wind was furious. The Rhine was so 
 swollen that the streets in the lower part of the town slop- 
 ing to the river were under water, and the people going 
 about in boats. 
 
 But I was tired of the house ; the heated rooms stifled 
 me. I was weary of Frau Mittendorf's society, and 
 thoroughly dissatisfied with my own. 
 
 About five in the afternoon I went to the window and 
 looked out. I perceived a strip of pale, watery blue 
 through a rift in the storm-laden clouds, and I chose to 
 see that, and that only, ignoring the wind-lashed trees of 
 the A116e ; the leaves, wet and sodden and sear, hurrying 
 panic-stricken before the gale, ignoring, too, the low wail
 
 The First Violin 167 
 
 promising a coming hurricane, which sighed and soughed 
 beneath the wind's shrill scream. 
 
 There was a temporary calm, and I bethought myself 
 that I would go to church not to the Protestant church 
 attended by the English clique heaven forbid ! but to my 
 favorite haunt, the Jesuiten-Kirche. 
 
 It was just the hour at which service would be going on. 
 I asked Stella in a low voice if she would not like to come ; 
 she declined with a look of pity at me, so, notifying my 
 intention to Frau Mittendorf, and mildly but firmly leav- 
 ing the room before she could utter any remonstrance, I 
 rushed upstairs, clothed myself in my winter mantle, threw 
 a shawl over my arm, and set out. 
 
 The air was raw, but fresh; life-giving and invigorating. 
 The smell of the stove, which clung to me still, was 
 quickly dissipated by it. I wrapped my shawl around me, 
 turned down a side street, and was soon in the heart of 
 the old part of the town, where all the Roman Catholic 
 churches were, the quarter lying near the river and 
 wharves, and bridge of boats. 
 
 I liked to go to the Jesuiten-Kirche, and placing myself 
 in the background, kneel as the others knelt, and without 
 taking part in the service, think my own thoughts and pray 
 my own prayers. 
 
 Here none of the sheep looked wolfish at you unless you 
 kept to a particular pen, for the privilege of sitting in 
 which you paid so many marks per quartal to a respectable 
 functionary, who came to collect them. Here the men 
 came and knelt down, cap in hand, and the women seemed
 
 i68 The First Violin 
 
 really to be praying, and aware of what they were praying 
 for, not looking over their prayer-books at each other's 
 clothes. 
 
 I entered the church. Within the building it was 
 already almost dark. A reddish light burnt in a great glit- 
 tering censer, which swung gently to and fro in the 
 chancel. 
 
 There were many people in the church, kneeling in 
 groups and rows, and all occupied with their prayers. I, 
 too, knelt down, and presently as the rest sat up I sat up 
 too. A sad-looking monk had ascended the pulpit, and 
 was beginning to preach. His face was thin, hollow, and 
 ascetic-looking; his eyes blazed bright from deep, sunken 
 sockets. His cowl came almost up to his ears. I could 
 dimly see the white cord round his waist as he began to 
 preach, at first in a low and feeble voice, which gradually 
 waxed into power. 
 
 He was in earnest whether right or wrong he was in 
 earnest. I listened with the others to what he said. He 
 preached the beauties of renunciation, and during his dis- 
 course quoted the very words which had so often haunted 
 me Entbehren sollst du ! sollst entbchren ! 
 
 His earnestness moved me deeply. His voice was 
 musical, sweet. His accent made the German burr soft; 
 he was half Italian. I had been at the Instrumental 
 Concert the previous night, for old associations' sake, 
 and they had played the two movements of Schubert's 
 unfinished Symphony the B Minor. The refrain in the 
 last movement haunted me a refrain of seven cadences,
 
 1 70 The First Violin 
 
 which rises softly and falls, dies away, is carried softly 
 from one instrument to another, wanders afar, returns 
 again, sinks lower and lower, deeper and deeper, till at 
 last the Celli (if I mistake not) take it up for the last time, 
 and the melody dies a beautiful death, leaving you unde- 
 cided whether to weep or smile, but penetrated through 
 and through with its dreamy loveliness. 
 
 This exquisite refrain lingered in my memory and 
 echoed in my mind, like a voice from some heavenly 
 height, telling me to rest and be at peace, in time to the 
 swinging of the censer, in harmony with the musical south- 
 ern voice of that unknown Brother Somebody. 
 
 By degrees I began to think that the censer did not 
 sway so regularly, so like a measured pendulum as it had 
 done, but was moving somewhat erratically, and borne 
 upon the gale came a low, ominous murmur, which first 
 mingled itself with the voice of the preacher, and then 
 threatened to dominate it. Still the refrain of the Sym- 
 phony rang in my ears, and I was soothed to rest by the 
 inimitable nepenthe of music. 
 
 But the murmur of which I had so long been, as it were, 
 half-conscious, swelled, and drove other sounds and the 
 thoughts of them from my mind. It grew to a deep, hol- 
 low roar a very hurricane of a roar. The preacher's 
 voice ceased, drowned. 
 
 I think none of us were at first certain about what was 
 happening; we only felt that something tremendous was 
 going on. Then, with one mighty bang and blow of the 
 tempest, the door by which I had entered the church was
 
 The First Violin 171 
 
 blown bodily in, and fell crashing upon the floor; and 
 after that the hurricane came rushing through the church 
 with the howl of a triumphant demon, and hurried round 
 the building, extinguishing every light, and turning a 
 temple of God into Hades. 
 
 Sounds there were as of things flapping from the walls, 
 as of wood falling; but all was in pitchiest darkness a 
 very " darkness which might be felt." Amid the roar of 
 the wind came disjointed, broken exclamations of terri- 
 fied women and angry, impatient men. " Ach Gott!" 
 " Mein Himmel ! " " Herr du meine Gute / " " O/ije/" 
 etc., rang all round, and hurrying people rushed past me, 
 making confusion worse confounded, as they scrambled 
 past to try and get out. 
 
 I stood still, not from any bravery or presence of mind, 
 but rather from the utter annihilation of both qualities in 
 the shock and the surprise of it all. At last I began try- 
 ing to grope my way towards the door. I found it. Some 
 people I heard and felt rather than saw were standing 
 about the battered-in door, and there was the sound of 
 water hurrying past the doorway. The Rhine was rushing 
 down the street. 
 
 " We must go to the other door the west door," said 
 some one amongst the people ; and as the group moved I 
 moved too, beginning to wish myself well out of it. 
 
 We reached the west door ; it led into a small lane or 
 Gasse, regarding the geography of which I was quite at 
 sea, for I had only been in it about once before. I 
 stepped from the street into the lane, which was in the
 
 i?2 The First Violin 
 
 very blackness of darkness, and seemed to be filled with a 
 wind and a hurricane which one could almost distinguish 
 and grasp. 
 
 The roar of wind and the surging of water were all 
 around, and were deafening. I followed, as I thought, 
 some voices which I heard, but scarcely knew where I was 
 going, as the wind seemed to be blowing all ways at once, 
 and there came to me an echo here and an echo there, mis- 
 leading rather than guiding. In a few moments I felt my 
 foot upon wood, and there was a loud creaking and rattling, 
 as of chains, a groaning, splitting, and great uproar going 
 on, as well as a motion as if I were on board a ship. 
 
 After making a few steps I paused. It was utterly 
 impossible that I could have got upon a boat wildly 
 impossible. I stood still, then went on a few steps. Still 
 the same extraordinary sounds still such a creaking and 
 groaning still the rush, rush, and swish, swish of water; 
 but not a human voice any more, not a light to be seen, 
 not a sign ! 
 
 With my hat long since stripped from my head and 
 launched into darkness and space, my hair lashed about 
 me in all directions, my petticoats twisted round me 
 like ropes, I was utterly and completely bewildered by 
 the thunder and roar of all around. I no longer knew 
 which way I had come nor where to turn. I could not 
 imagine where I was, and my only chance seemed to be to 
 hold fast and firm to the railing against which the wind 
 had unceremoniously banged me. 
 
 The creaking grew louder grew into a crash ; there was
 
 The First Violin 173 
 
 a splitting of wood, a snapping of chains, a kind of whirl, 
 and then I felt the wind blow upon me, first from this side, 
 then from that, and became conscious that the structure 
 upon which I stood was moving floating smoothly and 
 rapidly upon water. In an instant (when it was too late) 
 it all flashed upon my mind. I had wandered upon the 
 Schiffbriicke, or bridge of boats which crossed the Rhine 
 from the foot of the market-place, and this same bridge 
 had been broken by the strength of the water and wind, and 
 upon a portion of it I was now floating down the river. 
 
 With my usual wisdom, and " the shrewd application of 
 a wide experience so peculiar to yourself," as someone 
 has since insulted me by saying, I instantly gave myself 
 up as lost. This bridge would run into some other bridge, 
 or dash into a steamer, or do something horrible, and I 
 should be killed, and none would know my fate ; or it 
 would all break into little pieces, and I should have to 
 cling to one of them, and should inevitably be drowned. 
 
 In any case, my destruction was only a matter of time. 
 How I loved my life then ! How sweet, and warm, and 
 full, and fresh it seemed ! How cold the river, and how 
 undesirable a speedy release from the pomps and vanities 
 of this wicked world ! 
 
 The wind was still howling horribly chanting my 
 funeral dirge. Like grim death, I held on to my railing, 
 and longed with a desperate longing, for one glimpse of 
 light. 
 
 I had believed myself alone upon my impromptu raft 
 or rather, i^ had not -occurred to me that there might be
 
 174 The First Violin 
 
 another than myself upon it ; but at this instant, in a 
 momentary lull of the wind, almost by my side I heard a 
 sound that I knew well, and had cause to remember the 
 tune of the wild March from Lenore, set to the same words, 
 sung by the same voice as of yore. 
 
 My heart stood still for a moment, then leaped on again. 
 Then a faint, sickly kind of dread overcame me. I 
 thought I was going out of my mind was wandering in 
 some delusion, which took the form of the dearest voice, 
 and sounded with its sound in my ears. 
 
 But no. The melody did not cease. As the beating of 
 my heart somewhat settled down, I still heard it not 
 loud, but distinct. Then the tune ceased. The voice 
 ah ! there was no mistaking that, and I trembled with the 
 joy that thrilled me as I heard it conned over the words 
 as if struck with their weird appropriateness to the scene, 
 which was certainly marked : 
 
 " Und das Gesindel, husch, husch, huschl 
 Kam hinten nachgeprasselt 
 Wie Wirbelwind am Haselbusch 
 Durch diirre Blatter rasselt." 
 
 And Wirbelwind, the whirlwind, played a wild accom- 
 paniment to the words. 
 
 It seemed to me that a long time passed, during which 
 I could not speak, but could only stand with my hands 
 clasped over my heart, trying to steady its tumultuous 
 beating. I had not been wrong, thank the good God 
 above ! I had not been wrong when my heart sang for
 
 The First Violin i75 
 
 joy at being once more in this land. He was here he 
 was living he was safe. 
 
 Here were all my worst fears soothed my intensest 
 longings answered without my having spoken. It was now 
 first that I really knew how much I loved him so much, 
 that I felt almost afraid of the strength of the passion. I 
 knew not till now how it had grown how vast and all- 
 dominating it had become. 
 
 A sob broke from my lips, and his voice was silenced. 
 
 " Herr Courvoisier ! " I stammered. 
 
 " Who spoke ? " he asked, in a clear voice. 
 
 " It is you ! " I murmured. 
 
 " May ! " he uttered, and paused abruptly. 
 
 A hand touched mine warm, firm, strong his very 
 hand. In its lightest touch there seemed safety, shelter, 
 comfort. 
 
 " Oh, how glad I am ! how glad I am ! " I sobbed. 
 
 He murmured " Sonderbar /" as if arguing with him- 
 self, and I held his hand fast. 
 
 " Don't leave me ! Stay here ! " I implored. 
 
 " I suppose there is not much choice about that for 
 either of us," said he, and he laughed. 
 
 I did not remember to wonder how he came there ; I 
 only knew he was there. That tempest, which will not 
 soon be forgotten in Elberthal, subsided almost as rapidly 
 as it had arisen. The winds lulled as if a wizard had 
 bidden them be still. The gale hurried on to devastate 
 fresh fields and pastures new. There was a sudden reac- 
 tion of stillness, and I began to see in the darkness the
 
 t?6 The First Violin 
 
 outlines of a figure beside me. I looked up. There was 
 no longer that hideous, driving black mist, like chaos em- 
 bodied, between me and heaven. The sky, though dark, was 
 clear ; some stars were gleaming coldly down upon the havoc 
 which had taken place since they last viewed the scene. 
 
 Seeing the heavens so calm and serene, a sudden feel- 
 ing of shyness and terror overtook me. I tried to with- 
 draw my hand from that of my companion, and to remove 
 myself a little from him. He held my hand fast. 
 
 "You are exhausted with standing?" said he. "Sit 
 down upon this ledge." 
 
 " If you will too." 
 
 " Oh, of course. I think our voyage will be a long one, 
 and " 
 
 " Speak German ! said I. " Let me hear you speaking 
 it again." 
 
 " And I have no mind to stand all the time," he con- 
 cluded in his own tongue. 
 
 " Is there no one else here but ourselves." 
 
 " No one." 
 
 I had seated myself and he placed himself beside me^ 
 I was in no laughing mood or I might have found some- 
 thing ludicrous in our situation. 
 
 " I wonder where we are now," I half whispered, as the 
 bridge was still hurried ceaselessly down the dark and 
 rushing river. I dared not allude to anything else. I felt 
 my heart too full I felt too, too utterly uncertain of him. 
 There was sadness in his voice. I, who knew its every 
 cadence, could hear that.
 
 The First Violin m 
 
 " I think we are about passing Kaiserswerth, " said he. 
 " I wonder where we shall land at last ? " 
 
 " Do you think we shall go very far ? " 
 
 " Perhaps we may. It is on record that the Elberthal 
 Boat Bridge part of it, I mean once turned up at Rot- 
 terdam. It may happen again, why not ? J * 
 
 " How long does that take ? " 
 
 " Twelve or fourteen hours, I dare say." 
 
 I was silent. 
 
 " I am sorry for you," he said in the gentlest of voices, 
 as he wrapped my shawl more closely around me. " And 
 you are cold too shivering. My coat must do duty 
 again." 
 
 " No, no/" cried I. " Keep it ! I won't have it." 
 
 "Yes, you will, because you can't help it 1 if I make 
 you," he answered as he wrapped it round me. 
 
 " Well, please take part of it. At least wrap half of it 
 round you," I implored, " or I shall be so miserable." 
 
 " Pray don't. No, keep it ! It is like charity it has 
 not room for many sins at once." 
 
 " Do you mean you or me ? " I could not help asking. 
 
 " Are we not all sinners ? " 
 
 I knew it would be futile to resist, but I was not happy 
 in the new arrangement, and I touched his coat-sleeve 
 timidly. 
 
 " You have quite a thin coat," I remonstrated, " and I 
 .have a winter dress, a thick jacket, and a shawl." 
 
 " And my coat, unit dock list du oh, pardon ! and you 
 shivering in spite of.it," said he conclusively. 
 12
 
 i?8 The First Violin 
 
 " It is an awful storm, is it not ? " I suggested next. 
 
 " Was an awful storm, nicht wahr? Yes. And how 
 very strange that you and I, of all people, should have 
 met here, of all places. How did you get here ? " 
 
 " I had been to church." 
 
 "So! I had not." 
 
 " How did you come here ? " I ventured to ask. 
 
 "Yes you may well ask; but first you have been in 
 England, have you not ? ' ' 
 
 " Yes, and am going back again." 
 
 " Well I came here yesterday from Berlin. When the 
 war was over 
 
 " Ah, you were in the war ? " I gasped. 
 
 " Natiirlich, mein Fraulein. Where else should I have 
 been?" 
 
 "And you fought ?" 
 
 "Also naturlich." 
 
 " Where did you fight. At Sedan ? " 
 
 "At Sedan yes." 
 
 " Oh, my God ! " I whispered to myself. " And were 
 you wounded ? " I added aloud. 
 
 " A mere trifle. Friedhelm and I had the luck to 
 march side by side. I learnt to know in spirit and in let- 
 ter the meaning of : Ich hat? einen guten Cameramen." 
 
 " You were wounded ! " I repeated, unheeding all that 
 discursiveness. "Where? How? Were you in hospital? " 
 
 " Yes. Oh, it is nothing. Since then I have been, 
 learning my true place in the world, for you see, unluckily, 
 I was not killed."
 
 The Fiist Violin 179 
 
 " Thank God ! Thank God! How I have wondered! 
 How I have thought well, how did you come here ? " 
 
 " I coveted a. place in one of those graves, and couldn't 
 have it," he said bitterly. " It was a little thing to be 
 denied, but fallen men must do without much. I saw 
 boys falling around me, whose mothers and sisters are 
 mourning for them yet." 
 
 "Oh, don't." 
 
 " Well Friedel and I are working in Berlin. We shall 
 not stay there long ; we are wanderers now ! There is no 
 room for us. I have a short holiday, and I came to spend 
 it at Elberthal. This evening I set out, intending to hear 
 the opera Der fliegende Hollander very appropriate, 
 wasn't it ? " 
 
 " Very ! " 
 
 " But the storm burst over the theatre just as the per- 
 formance was about to begin, and removed part of the roof, 
 upon which one of the company came before the curtain 
 and dismissed us with his blessing and the announcement 
 that no play would be played to-night. Thus I was 
 deprived of the ungodly pleasure of watching my old 
 companions wrestling with Wagner's stormy music while I 
 looked on like a gentleman." 
 
 He laughed again a harsh laugh, utterly unlike the 
 old sweet tones a laugh that roused all my fears to 
 renewed strength. 
 
 " But when you came out of the theatre ? " 
 
 " When I came out of the theatre the storm was so mag- 
 nificent, and was telling me so much, that I resolved to
 
 i8o The First Violin 
 
 come down to its centre-point and see Vaicr Rhein in one 
 of his grandest furies. I strayed upon the bridge of boats ; 
 forgot where I was, listened only to the storm ; ere I knew 
 what was happening I was adrift and the tempest howling 
 round me and you, fresh from your devotions to lull it." 
 
 " Are you going to stay long in Elberthal ? " 
 
 " It seems 1 may not. I am driven away by storms and 
 tempests." 
 
 "And me with you," thought I. "Perhaps there is 
 some meaning in this. Perhaps Fate means us to breast 
 other storms together. If so, I am ready anything so 
 it be with you.' 11 
 
 "There's the moon," said he; " how brilliant, is she 
 not?" 
 
 I looked up into the sky wherein she had indeed appeared 
 "like a dying lady, lean and pale," shining cold and 
 drear, but very clearly upon the swollen waters, showing 
 
 us dim outlines of half-submerged trees, cottages and 
 
 i 
 hedges showing us that we were in mid-stream, and that 
 
 other pieces of wreck were floating down the river with us, 
 hurrying rapidly with the current showing me, too, in 
 a ghostly whiteness, the face of my companion turned 
 towards me, as his elbow rested on his knee and his chin 
 in his hand, and his loose dark hair was blown back from 
 his broad forehead; his strange, deep eyes were resting 
 upon my face, calmly, openly. 
 
 Under that gaze my heart fell. In former days there 
 had been in his face something not unakin to this stormy, 
 free night ; but now it was changed how changed 1
 
 The First Violin 181 
 
 A year had wrought a terrible alteration. I knew not 
 his past ; but I did know that he had long been struggling, 
 and a dread fear seized me that the struggle was growing 
 too hard for him his spirit was breaking. It was not 
 only that the shadows were broader, deeper, more perma- 
 nently sealed there was a down look a hardness and bit- 
 terness which inspired me both with pity and fear. 
 
 " Your fate is a perverse one," he remarked, as I did 
 not speak. 
 
 "So! Why?" 
 
 " It throws you so provokingly into society which must 
 be unpleasant to you." 
 
 " Whose society ? " 
 
 " Mine, naturally." 
 
 " You are much mistaken," said I composedly. 
 
 "It is kind of you to say so. For your sake, I wish it 
 had been any one but myself who had been thus thrown 
 together with you. I promise you faithfully that as soon 
 as ever we can land I will only wait to see you safely into 
 a train and then I will leave you and 
 
 He was suddenly silenced. I had composed my face to 
 an expression of indifference as stony as I knew how to 
 assume, and with my hands folded in my lap, had steeled 
 myself to look into his face and listen to him. 
 
 I could find nothing but a kind of careless mockery in 
 his face a hard half-smile upon his lips as he went on say- 
 ing the hard things which cut home and left me quivering, 
 and which he yet uttered as if they had been the most harm- 
 less pleasantries or the merest whipped-cream compliments.
 
 182 The First Violin 
 
 It was at this moment that the wind, rising again in a 
 brief spasm, blew a tress of my loosened hair across his 
 face. How it changed ! flushed crimson. His lips parted 
 a strange, sudden light came into his eyes. 
 
 " I beg your pardon ! " said I hastily, startled from my 
 assumed composure, as I raised my hand to push my hair 
 back. But he had gathered the tress together his hand 
 lingered for one moment a scarcely perceptible moment 
 upon it, then he laid it gently down upon my shoulder. 
 
 " Then I will leave you," he went on, resuming the old 
 manner, but with evident effort, " and not interfere with 
 you any more." 
 
 What was I to think ? What to believe ? I thought to 
 myself that had he been my lover and I had intercepted 
 such a glance of his to another woman my peace of mind 
 had been gone for evermore. But, on the other hand, 
 every cool word he said gave the lie to his looks or did 
 his looks give the lie to his words ? Oh that I could solve 
 the problem once for all, and have done with it for ever ! 
 
 " And you, Miss Wedderburn have you deserted Ger- 
 many ? ' ' 
 
 " I have been obliged to live in England, if that is what 
 you mean I am living in Germany at present." 
 
 " And Art die Kunst that is cruel ! " 
 
 " You are amusing yourself at my expense, as you have 
 always delighted in doing," said I sharply, cut to the 
 quick. 
 
 ' ' Aber, Frdulein May ! What do you mean ? ' ' 
 
 " From the very first," I repeated, the pain I felt giv-
 
 The First Violin 183 
 
 ing a keenness to my reproaches. " Did you not deceive 
 me and draw me out for your amusement that day we met 
 at Koln ? You found out then, I suppose, what a stupid, 
 silly creature I was, and you have repeated the process 
 now and then, since much to your own edification and 
 that of Herr Helfen, I do not doubt. Whether it was just, 
 or honorable, or kind, is a secondary consideration. 
 Stupid people are only invented for the amusement of 
 those who are not stupid." 
 
 " How dare you, how dare you talk in that manner ? " 
 said he emphatically, laying his hand upon my shoulder, 
 and somehow compelling my gaze to meet his. " But I 
 know why I read the answer in those eyes which dare 
 everything, and yet " 
 
 "Not quite everything," thought I uncomfortably, as 
 the said eyes sank beneath his look. 
 
 " Fraulein May, will you have the patience ,to listen 
 while I tell you a little story ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! " I responded readily, as I hailed the pros- 
 pect of learning something more about him. 
 
 " It is now nearly five years since I first came to Elber- 
 thal. I had never been in the town before. I came with 
 my boy may God bless him and keep him ! who was 
 then two years old, and whose mother was dead for my 
 wife died early." 
 
 A pause, during which I did not speak. It was something 
 so wonderful to me that he should speak to me of his wife. 
 
 " She was young and very beautiful," said he. " You 
 will forgive my introducing the subject ? "
 
 1 84 The First Violin 
 
 " Oh, Herr Courvoisier ! " 
 
 " And I had wronged her. I came to Friedhelm Hel- 
 fen, or rather was sent to him, and, as it happened, found 
 such a friend as is not granted to one man in a thousand. 
 When I came here, I was smarting under various griefs ; 
 about the worst was that I had recklessly destroyed my 
 own prospects. I had a good career a fair future open to 
 me. I had cut short that career, annihilated that future, 
 or any future worth speaking of, by well, something had 
 happened which divided me utterly and uncompromisingly 
 and for ever from the friends, and the sphere, and the 
 respect and affection of those who had been parents and 
 brother and sister to me. Then I knew that their good 
 opinion, their love, was my law and my highest desire. 
 And it was not their fault it was mine my very own. 
 
 " The more I look back upon it all, the more I see that 
 I have myself to thank for it. But that reflection, as you 
 may suppose, does not add to the delights of a man's posi- 
 tion when he is humbled to the dust as I was then. Biting 
 the dust you have that phrase in English. Well, I have 
 been biting the dust yes, eating it, living upon it, and 
 deservedly so, for five years; but nothing ever can, nothing 
 ever will, make it taste anything but dry, bitter, nauseat- 
 ing to the last degree." 
 
 " Go on ! " said I breathlessly. 
 
 " How kind you are to listen to the dull tale ! Well, I 
 had my boy Sigmund, and there were times when the 
 mere fact that he was mine made me forget everything 
 else, and thank my fate for the simple fact that I lived and
 
 The First Violin 185 
 
 was his father. His father he was a part of myself, he 
 could divine my every thought. But at other times, gen- 
 erally indeed, I was sick of life that life. Don't suppose 
 that I am one of those high-flown idiots who would make 
 it out that no life is worth living : I knew and felt to my 
 soul that the life from which I had locked myself out and 
 then dropped the key as it were here in mid-stream, was a 
 glorious life, worth living ten times over. 
 
 " There was the sting of it. For three years I lived 
 thus, and learnt a great deal, learnt what men in that 
 position are learnt to respect, admire, and love some of 
 them learnt to understand that man der Mensch is the 
 same, and equally to be honored everywhere. I also tried 
 to grow accustomed to the thought, which grew every day 
 more certain to me, that I must live on so for the future 
 to plan my life, and shape out a certain kind of repen- 
 tance for sins past. I decided that the only form my 
 atonement could take was that of self-effacement 
 
 " That is why you never would take the lead inanything." 
 " Exactly. I am naturally fond of leading. I love 
 beyond everything to lead those who I know like me, and 
 like following me. When I was Haupt I mean, I knew 
 that all that bygone mischief had arisen from doing what 
 I liked, so I dropped doing what I liked, and began to 
 do what I disliked. By the time I had begun to get a 
 little into training, three years had passed these things 
 are not accomplished in a day, and the effects of twenty- 
 seven years of selfishness are not killed soon. I was kill- 
 ing them, and becoming a machine in the process.
 
 i86 The First Violin 
 
 " One year the Ix>wer Rhenish Musikfcst was to be held 
 at Koln. Long before it came off the Cologne orchestra 
 had sent to us for contingents, and we had begun to attend 
 some of the Probcn regularly once or twice a week. 
 
 " One day Friedhelm and I had been at a Probe. The 
 Tower of Babel and the Lenore Symphony were amongst the 
 things we had practised. Both of them, the Lenore par- 
 ticularly, had got into my head. I broke loose for one 
 day from routine, from drudgery and harness. It was a 
 mistake. Friedhelm went off, shrugging his dear old 
 shoulders, and I at last turned up, mooning at the Kolner 
 Bahnhof. Well you know the rest. Nay, do not turn 
 so angrily away. Try to forgive a fallen man one little 
 indiscretion. When I saw you I cannot teil what feeling 
 stole warm and invigorating into my heart; it was some- 
 thing quite new something I had never felt before : it 
 was so sweet that I could not part with it. Fraulein May, 
 I have lived that afternoon over again many and many a 
 time. Have y0u ever given a thought to it ? " 
 
 " Yes, I have," said I dryly. 
 
 " My conduct after that arose half from pride wounded 
 pride, I mean, for when you cut me, it ^V/cut me I own 
 it. Partly it arose from a worthier feeling the feeling 
 that I could not see very much of you or learn to know 
 you at all well without falling very deeply in love with 
 you. You hide your face you are angry at that " 
 
 " Stop ! Did you never throughout all this give a 
 thought to the possibility that / might fall in love with 
 you? 1 '
 
 The First Violin 187 
 
 I did not look at him, but he said, after a pause : 
 " I had the feeling that if I tried I could win your love. 
 I never was such a presumptuous fool as to suppose that 
 you would love me unasked or even with much asking on 
 my part bewahre ! ' ' 
 
 I was silent, still concealing my face. He went on : 
 " Besides, I knew that you were an English lady. I 
 asked myself what was the right thing to do, and I decided 
 that though you would consider me an ill-mannered, 
 churlish clown, I would refuse those gracious, charming 
 advances which you in your charity made. Our paths in 
 life were destined to be utterly apart and divided, and 
 what could it matter to you the behavior of an insignifi- 
 cant fiddler ? You would forget him just when he de- 
 served to be forgotten, that is instantly. 
 
 " Time went on. You lived near us. Changes took 
 place. Those who had a right to arbitrate for me, since 
 I had by my own deed deprived myself of that right, wrote 
 to me and demanded my son. I had shown myself inca- 
 pable of managing my own affairs was it likely that I 
 could arrange his ? And then he was better away from 
 such a black sheep. It is true. The black sheep gave up 
 the white lambling into the care of a legitimate shepherd, 
 who carried it off to a correct and appropriate fold. Then 
 life was empty indeed, for, strange though it may seem, 
 even black sheep have feelings ridiculously out of place 
 they are, too." 
 
 " Oh, don't speak so hardly ! " said I tremulously, lay- 
 ing my hand for an instant upon his.
 
 1 88 The First Violin 
 
 His face was turned towards me ; his mien was severe, 
 but serene ; he spoke as of some far-past, distant dream. 
 
 " Then it was that in looking round my darkened hori- 
 zon for Sigmund, I found that it was not empty. You 
 rose trembling upon it like a star of light, and how beauti- 
 ful a star ! But there ! do not turn away. I will not shock 
 you by expatiating upon it. Enough that I found what I 
 had more than once suspected that I loved you. Once 
 or twice I nearly made a fool of myself; that Carnival 
 Monday do you remember ? Luckily Friedel and Karl 
 came in, but in my saner moments I worshipped you as a 
 noble, distant, good part of the beautiful life which I had 
 gambled with and lost. Be easy ! I never for one 
 instant aspired to you never thought of possessing you : 
 I was not quite mad. I am only telling you this to 
 explain, and " 
 
 " And you renounced me ? " said I in a low voice. 
 
 " I renounced you." 
 
 I removed my hand from my eyes, and looked at him. 
 His eyes, dry and calm, rested upon my face. His coun- 
 tenance was pale ; his mouth set with a grave, steady sweet- 
 ness. 
 
 Light rushed in upon my mind in a radiant flood light 
 and knowledge. I knew what was right ; an unerring 
 finger pointed it to me. I looked deep, deep into his sad 
 eyes, read his innermost soul, and found it pure. 
 
 " They say you have committed a crime," said I. 
 
 " And I have not denied, cannot deny it," he answered, 
 as if waiting for something further.
 
 The First Violin 189 
 
 " You need not," said I. "It is all one to me. I want 
 to hear no more about that. I want to know if your heart 
 is mine." 
 
 The wind wuthered wearily; the water rushed. Strange, 
 inarticulate sounds of the night came fitfully across ear and 
 sense, as he answered me : 
 
 " Yours and my honor's. What then ? " 
 
 " This," I answered, stooping, sweeping the loose hair 
 from that broad, sad forehead, and pressing my lips upon 
 it. " This : accept the gift or reject it. As your heart is 
 mine, so mine is yours for ever and ever." 
 
 A momentary silence, as I raised myself trembling, 
 and stood aside; and the water rushed, and the storm- 
 birds on untiring wing beat the sky and croaked of the 
 gale. 
 
 Then he drew me to him, folded me to his breast with- 
 out speaking, and gave me a long, tender, yearning kiss, 
 with unspeakable love, little passion in it, fit seal of a 
 love that was deeper and sadder than it was triumphant. 
 
 " Let me have a few moments of this," said he, " just a 
 few moments, May. Let me believe that I may hold you 
 to your noble, pitying words. Then I shall be my own 
 master again." 
 
 Ignoring this hint, I laid my hands upon his arm, and 
 eying him steadily, went on : 
 
 " But understand, the man I love must not be my ser- 
 vant. If you want to keep me you must be the master ; I 
 brook no feeble curb ; no weak hand can hold me. You 
 must rule, or I shall rebel ; you must show the way, for I
 
 19 The First Violin 
 
 do not know it. I don't know whether you understand 
 what you have undertaken." 
 
 " My dear, you are excited. Your generosity carries you 
 away, and your divine, womanly pity and kindness. You 
 speak without thinking. You will repent to-morrow." 
 
 " That is not kind nor worthy of you," said I. " I have 
 thought about it for sixteen months, and the end of my 
 thought has always been the same : I love Eugen Courvoi- 
 sier, and if he had loved me I should have been a happy 
 woman, and if though I thought it too good to be true, 
 you know if he ever should tell me so, nothing in this 
 world shall make me spoil our two lives by cowardice. I 
 will hold to him against the whole world." 
 
 " It is impossible, May," he said quietly, after a pause. 
 " I wish you had never seen me." 
 
 "It is only impossible if you make it so." 
 
 " My sin found me out even here, in this quiet place, 
 where I knew no one. It will find me out again. You 
 if ever you were married to me would be pointed out as 
 the wife of a man who had disgraced his honor in the 
 blackest, foulest way. I must and will live it out alone." 
 
 " You shall not live it out alone," I said. 
 
 The idea that I could stand by him the fact that he 
 was not prosperous, not stainless before the -world that 
 mine would be no ordinary flourishing, meaningless mar- 
 riage, in which " for better, for worse," signifies nothing 
 but better, no worse all this poured strength on strength 
 into my heart, and seemed to warm it and do it good. 
 
 " I will tell you your duty," said he. " Your duty is to
 
 The First Violin 191 
 
 go home and forget me. In due time some one else will 
 find you the loveliest and dearest being in the world " 
 
 " Eugen ! Eugen ! " I cried, stabbed to the quick. 
 " How can you ? You cannot love me, or you could not 
 coldly turn me over to some other man, some abstrac- 
 tion " 
 
 " Perhaps if he were not an abstraction, I might not be 
 able to do it," he said, suddenly clasping me to him, 
 with a jealous movement. " No; I am sure I should not 
 be able to do it. Nevertheless, while he yet is an abstrac- 
 tion, and because of that, I say, leave me ! " 
 
 " Eugen, I do not love lightly ! " I began with forced 
 calm. " I do not love twice. My love for you is not 
 a mere fancy I fought against it with all my strength; it 
 mastered me in spite of myself now I cannot tear it 
 away. If you send me away it will be barbarous ; away to 
 be alone, to England again, when I love you with my 
 whole soul. No one but a man no one but you could 
 have said such a thing. If you do," I added, terror at 
 the prospect overcoming me, " if you do I shall die I 
 shall die." 
 
 I could command myself no longer, but sobbed aloud. 
 
 "You will have to answer for it," I repeated; "but 
 you will not send me away." 
 
 " What, in heaven's name, makes you love me so ? " he 
 asked, as if lost in wonder. 
 
 " I don't know. I cannot imagine," said I, with happy 
 politeness. "It is no fault of mine." I took his hand 
 in mine. " Eugen, look at me." His eyes met mine.
 
 iQ2 The First Violin 
 
 They brightened as he looked at me. " That crime of 
 which you were accused you did not do it." 
 
 Silence. 
 
 " Look at me and say that you did," I continued. 
 
 Silence still. 
 
 " Friedhelm Helfen always said you had not done it. 
 He was more loyal than I," said I contritely; "but," I 
 added jealously, " he did not love you better than I, for I 
 loved you all the same even though I almost believed you 
 had done it. Well, that is an easy secret to keep, because 
 it is to your credit." 
 
 " That is just what makes it hard. If it were true, one 
 would be anxious rather than not to conceal it ; but as it 
 is not true, don't you see? Whenever you see me sus- 
 pected, it will be the impulse of your loyal, impetuous 
 heart to silence the offender, and tell him he lies." 
 
 In my haste I had not seen this aspect of the question. 
 It was quite a new idea to me. Yes, I began to see in truer 
 proportions the kind of suffering he had suffered, the kind 
 of trials he had gone through, and my breath failed at the 
 idea. Yes, I saw what lay before me. When they pointed 
 at him I must not say, " It is a lie; he is as honest as 
 you." It was a solemn prospect. It overpowered me. 
 
 " You quail before that ? " said he gently, after a pause. 
 
 "No; I realize it. I do not quail before it," said I 
 firmly. " But," I added, looking at him with a new ele- 
 ment in my glance that of awe " do you mean that for 
 five years you have effaced yourself thus, knowing all the 
 while that you were not guilty ? "
 
 The First Violin 193 
 
 " It was a matter of the clearest duty and honor," he 
 replied, flushing and looking somewhat embarrassed. 
 
 "Of duty!" I cried, strangely moved. "If you did 
 not do it, who did ? Why are you silent ? " 
 
 Our eyes met. I shall never forget that glance. It had 
 the concentrated patience, love and pride and loyalty, of 
 all the years of suffering past and to come. 
 
 " May, that is the test for you ! That is what I shrink 
 from exposing you to, what I know it is wrong to expose 
 you to. I cannot tell you. No one knows but I, and I 
 shall never tell any one, not even you, if you become my 
 other self and soul and thought. Now you know all." 
 
 He was silent. 
 
 " So that is the truth ? " said I. " Thank you for tell- 
 ing it to me. I -always thought you were a hero ; now I 
 am sure of it. Oh, Eugen ! how I do love you for this ! 
 And you need not be afraid. I have been learning to keep 
 secrets lately. I shall help, not hinder you. Eugen, we 
 will live it down together." 
 
 At last we understood each other. At last our hands 
 clasped and our lips met upon the perfect union of feeling 
 and purpose for all our future lives. All was clear 
 between us, bright, calm; and /, at least, was supremely 
 happy. How little my past looked now; how petty and 
 insignificant all my former hopes and fears ! 
 
 ***** 
 
 Dawn was breaking over the river. Wild and storm- 
 beaten was the scene on which we looked. A huge waste 
 of swollen waters around us, devastated villages, great 
 13
 
 194 The First Violin 
 
 piles of wreck on all sides; a watery sun casting pallid 
 beams upon the swollen river. We were sailing Hol- 
 land wards upon a fragment of the bridge, and in the 
 distance were the spires and towers of a town gleaming 
 in the sickly sun-rays. I stood up and gazed towards 
 that town, and he stood by my side, his arm round my 
 'waist. My chief wish was that our sail could go on 
 for ever. 
 
 " Do you know what is ringing in my ears, and will not 
 leave my mind ? " I asked. 
 
 " Indeed, no ! You are a riddle and a mystery to me." 
 
 I hummed the splendid air from the Choral Symphony, 
 the motif of the music to the choruses to "Joy" which 
 follow. 
 
 " Ah ! " said he, taking up its deep, solemn gladness, 
 " you are right, May quite right. There is a joy, if it 
 be ' beyond the starry belt.' ' 
 
 " I wonder what that town is ? " I said after a pause. 
 
 " I am not sure, but I fancy it is Emmerich. I am sure 
 I hope so." 
 
 1 Whatever the town, we were floating straight towards it. 
 I suddenly thought of my dream long ago, and told it to 
 him, adding : 
 
 " I think this must have been the floating wreck to which 
 you and I seemed clinging; though I thought that all of 
 the dream that was going to be fulfilled had already come 
 to pass on that Carnival Monday afternoon." 
 
 The boat had got into one of the twisting currents, and 
 was being propelled directly towards the town.
 
 The First Violin 195 
 
 Eugen looked at me and laughed. I asked why. 
 
 " What for a lark ! as they say in your country." 
 
 " You are quite mistaken. / never heard such an 
 expression ! But what is such a lark ? " 
 
 " We have no hats : we want something to eat ; we must 
 have tickets to get back to Elberthal, and I have just two 
 thaler in my pocket oh ! and a two-pfennig piece. I 
 left my little all behind me." 
 
 "Hurrah! At last you will be compelled to take back 
 that three thaler ten." 
 
 We both laughed at this jeu (f 'esprit as if it had been 
 something exquisitely witty; and I forgot my dishevelled 
 condition in watching the sun rise over the broad river, in 
 feeling our noiseless progression over it, and, above all, 
 in the divine sense of oneness and harmony with him at 
 my side a feeling which I can hardly describe, utterly 
 without the passionate fitfulness of the orthodox lover's 
 rapture, but as if for a long time I had been waiting for 
 some quality to make me complete, and had quietly waked 
 to find it there, and the world understandable life's riddle 
 read. 
 
 Eugen 's caresses were few, his words of endearment 
 quiet; but I knew what they stood for: a love rooted in 
 feelings deeper than those of sense, holier than mere 
 earthly love feelings which had taken root in adversity, 
 had grown in darkness and " made a sunshine in a shady 
 place " feelings which in him had their full and noble 
 growth, and beauty of development, but which it seems to 
 be the aim of the fashionable education of this period as
 
 196 The First Violin 
 
 much as possible to do away with the feelings of chivalry, 
 delicacy, reticence, manliness, modesty. 
 
 As we drew nearer the town, he said to me : 
 
 " In a few hours we shall have to part, May, for a time. 
 While we are here alone, and you are uninfluenced, let me 
 ask you something. This love of yours for me what will 
 it carry you through ? " 
 
 " Anything, now that I am sure of yours for me." 
 
 " In short, you are firmly decided to be my wife some- 
 time ?" 
 
 " When you tell me you are ready for me," said I, put- 
 ting my hand in his. 
 
 " And if I find it best to leave my Fatherland, and begin 
 life quite anew ? " 
 
 " Thy God is my God, and thy people are my people, 
 Eugen." 
 
 " One other thing. How do you know that you can 
 marry ? Your friends " 
 
 " I am twenty years old. In a year I can do as I like," 
 said I composedly. " Surely we can stand firm and faith- 
 ful for a year ? ' ' 
 
 He smiled, and it was a new smile, sweet,, hopeful, if 
 not merry. 
 
 With this silent expression of determination and trust, 
 we settled the matter.
 
 The First Violin 197 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 M What's failure or success to me ? 
 I have subdued my life to the one purpose." 
 
 EUGEN sent a telegram from Emmerich to Frau Mitten- 
 dorf to reassure her as to my safety. At four in the after- 
 noon we left that town, refreshed and rehatted, to reach 
 Elberthal at six. 
 
 I told Eugen that we were going away the next day, to 
 stay a short time at a place called Lahnburg. 
 
 He started, and looked at me. 
 
 " Lahnburg ! I when you are there nein, das ist 
 You are going to Lahnburg ? " 
 
 "Yes. Why not?" 
 
 " You will know why I ask if you go to Schloss Rothen- 
 fels?" 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I say no more, dear May. I will leave you to form 
 your own conclusions. I have seen that this fair head 
 could think wisely and well under trying circumstances 
 enough. I am rather glad that you are going to Lahn- 
 burg." 
 
 "The question is will you still be at Elberthal when 
 I return ?" 
 
 " I cannot say. We had better exchange addresses. I 
 am at Frau Schmidt's again my old quarters. I do not 
 know when or how we shall meet again. I must see 
 Friedhelm, and you when you tell your friends, you
 
 i9* The First Violin 
 
 will probably be separated at once and completely from 
 me." 
 
 " Well, a year is not much out of our lives. How old 
 are you, Eugen ? ' ' 
 
 " Thirty-two. And you ? " 
 
 " Twenty and two months : then you are twelve years 
 older than I. You were a schoolboy when I was born. 
 What were you like ? " 
 
 " A regular little brute, I should suppose, as they all 
 are." 
 
 " When we are married," said I, " perhaps, I may go 
 on with my singing, and earn some more money by it. 
 My voice will be worth something to me then." 
 
 " I thought you had given up art." 
 
 " Perhaps I shall see Adelaide," I added, " or, rather, 
 I w///see her." I looked at him rather inquiringly. To 
 my relief he said : 
 
 " Have you not seen her since her marriage ? " 
 
 " No ; have you ? " 
 
 " She was my angel nurse when I was lying in hospital 
 
 at . Did you not know that she has the Iron Cross ? 
 
 And no one ever won it more nobly." 
 
 " Adelaide your nurse the Iron Cross ! " I ejaculated. 
 " Then you have seen her ? " 
 
 " Seen her shadow to bless it." 
 
 " Do you know where she is now ? " 
 
 " With her husband at . She told me that you 
 
 were in England, and she gave me this." 
 
 He handed me a yellow, much-worn folded paper, which,
 
 The First Violin 199 
 
 on opening, I discovered to be my own letter to Adelaide, 
 written during the war, and which had received so curt an 
 answer. 
 
 " I begged very hard for it," said he, " and only got it 
 with difficulty, but I represented that she might get more 
 of them, whereas I " 
 
 He stopped, for two reasons. I was weeping as I 
 returned it to him, and the train rolled into the Elberthal 
 station. 
 
 On my way to Dr. Mittendorf's I made up my mind what 
 to do. I should not speak to Stella, nor to any one else 
 of what had happened, but I should write very soon to my 
 parents and tell them the truth. I hoped they would not 
 refuse their consent, but I feared they would. I should 
 certainly not attempt to disobey them while their authority 
 legally bound me, but as soon as I was my own mistress, I 
 should act upon my own judgment. I felt no fear of any- 
 thing; the one fear of my life the loss of Eugen had 
 been removed, and all others dwindled to nothing. My 
 happiness, I am and was well aware, was quite set upon 
 things below; if I lost Eugen I lost everything, for I, like 
 him, and like all those who have been and are dearest to 
 both of us, was a Child of the World.
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 " Oftmals hab' ich geirrt, und habe mich wiedergefunden, 
 Aber gliicklicher nie." 
 
 IT was beginning to be dusk when we alighted next daj 
 at Lahnburg, a small wayside station, where the doctor's 
 brand-new carriage met us, and after we had been bidden
 
 The First Violin 201 
 
 welcome, whirled us off to the doctor's brand-new Schloss, 
 full of brand-new furniture. I skip it all, the renewed 
 greetings, the hospitality, the noise. They were very 
 kind. It was all right to me, and I enjoyed it immensely. 
 I was in a state of mind in which I verily believe I 
 should have enjoyed eating a plate of porridge for supper, 
 or a dish of Sauerkraut for dinner. 
 
 The subject for complacency and contemplation in Frau 
 Mittendorf's life was her intimacy with the von Rothenfels 
 family, whose great, dark old Schloss, or, rather, a por- 
 tion of it, looking grimly over its woods, she pointed out 
 to me from the windows of her salon. I looked somewhat 
 curiously at it, chiefly because Eugen had mentioned it, 
 and also because it was such a stern, imposing old pile. It 
 was built of red stone, and stood upon red stone founda- 
 tions. Red were the rocks of this country, and hence its 
 name, Rothenfels, the red rocks. Woods, also dark, but 
 now ablaze with the last fiery autumn tints, billowed 
 beneath it; on the other side, said Frau Mittendorf, was a 
 great plateau covered with large trees intersected by long, 
 straight avenues. She would take us to look at it; the 
 Grafin von Rothenfels was a great friend of hers. 
 
 She was entertaining us with stories to prove the great 
 regard and respect of the Countess for her (Frau Mitten- 
 dorf) on the morning after our arrival, while I was longing 
 to go out and stroll along some of those pleasant breezy 
 upland roads, or explore the sleepy, quaint old town below. 
 
 Upon her narrative came an interruption. A servant 
 threw open the door very wide, announcing the Grafin von
 
 202 The First Violin 
 
 Rothenfels. Frau Mittendorf rose in a tremulous flurry 
 and flutter to greet her noble guest, and then introduced 
 us to her. 
 
 A tall, melancholy, meagre-looking woman, far past 
 youth on the very confines of middle age ; with iron-gray 
 hair banded across a stern, much-lined brow. Colorless 
 features of a strong, large, not unhandsome type, from 
 which all liveliness and vivacity had long since fled. A 
 stern mouth steady, lustreless, severe eyes, a dignity 
 yes, even a majesty of mien which she did not attempt to 
 soften into graciousness ; black, trailing draperies; a 
 haughty pride of movement. 
 
 Such was the first impression made upon me by Hilde- 
 garde, Countess of Rothenfels a forbidding, if grand 
 figure aristocrat in every line; utterly alien and apart, I 
 thought, from me, and every feeling of mine. 
 
 But on looking again the human element was found in 
 the deeply-planted sadness which no reserve or pride could 
 conceal. Sad the eyes, sad the mouth; she was all sad 
 together and not without reason, as I afterwards learnt. 
 
 She was a rigid Roman Catholic, and at sixteen had 
 been married for les convenances to her cousin, Count Bruno 
 von Rothenfels, a man a good deal older than herself, 
 though not preposterously so, and whose ample possessions 
 and old name gave social position of the highest kind. 
 But he was a Protestant by education, a thinker by nature, 
 a rationalist by conviction. 
 
 That was one bitter grief. Another was her childless- 
 ness. She had been married twenty-four years : no child
 
 The First Violin 203 
 
 had sprung from the union. This was a continual grief 
 which embittered her whole existence. 
 
 Since then I have seen a portrait of her at twenty a 
 splendid brunette, with high spirit and resolute will and 
 noble beauty in every line. Ah me ! What wretches we 
 become ! Sadness and bitterness, proud aloofness and a 
 yearning wistful ness were subtly mingled in the demeanor 
 of Grafin von Rothenfels. 
 
 She bowed to us, as Frau Mittendorf introduced us. 
 She did not bestow a second glance upon Stella ; but bent 
 a long look, a second, a third scrutinizing gaze upon me. 
 I I am not ashamed to own it quivered somewhat under 
 her searching glance. She impressed and fascinated me. 
 
 She seated herself, and slightly apologizing to us for 
 intruding domestic affairs, began to speak with Frau Mit- 
 tendorf of some case of village distress in which they 
 were both interested. Then she turned again to us, speak- 
 ing in excellent English, and asked us whether we were 
 staying there, after which she invited us to dine at her 
 house the following day, with Frau Mittendorf. After the 
 invitation had been accepted with sufficient reverence by 
 that lady, the Countess rose, as if to go, and turning again 
 to me with still that pensive, half-wistful, half-mistrustful 
 gaze, she said : 
 
 " I have my carriage here. Would you like to come 
 with me to see our woods and house? They are sometimes 
 interesting to strangers." 
 
 " Oh, very much ! " I said eagerly. 
 
 "Then come," said she. "I will see that you are
 
 204 The First Violin 
 
 escorted back when you are tired. It is arranged that you 
 remain until you feel gene, nichtwahr?" 
 
 " Oh, thank you ! " said I again, hastening to make my- 
 self ready, and parenthetically hoping, as I ran upstairs, 
 that Frau Mittendorf 's eyes might not start quite out of her 
 head with pride at the honor conferred upon her house and 
 visitors. 
 
 Very soon I was seated beside the Grafin in the dark- 
 green clarence with the grand coachman, and the lady's 
 ownjdgcr beside him, and we were driving along a white 
 road with a wild kind of country spreading round moor- 
 land stretches, and rich deep woods. Up and down, for 
 the way was uneven, till we entered a kind of park, and to 
 the right, high above, I saw the great red pile with its 
 little pointed towers crowned with things like extinguish- 
 ers ending in a lightning-rod, and which seemed to spring 
 from all parts of the heavy mass of the main building. 
 
 That, then, was Schloss Rothenfels. It looked the very 
 image of an aristocratic, ancient feste Burg, grim and 
 grand ; it brooded over us like a frown, and dominated the 
 landscape for miles around. I was deeply impressed; 
 such a place had always been like a dream to me. 
 
 There was something so imposingly conservative about 
 it ; it looked as if it had weathered so many storms ; defy- 
 ing such paltry forces as wind and weather, and would abide 
 through so many more, quite untouched by the roar of life 
 and progress outside a fit and firm keeping-place for old 
 shields, for weapons honorably hacked and dinted, for 
 tattered loyal flags for art treasures and for proud beauties.
 
 The First Violin 205 
 
 As we gained the height, I perceived the huge scale on 
 which the Schloss was constructed. It was a little town 
 in itself. I saw, too, that plateau on the other side, of 
 which I had heard; later I explored it. It was a natural 
 plain a kind of table-land, and was laid out in what 
 have always, since I was a child, impressed me more than 
 any other kind of surroundings to a house mile-long 
 avenues of great trees, stretching perfectly straight, like 
 lines of marching troops in every direction. 
 
 Long, melancholy alleys and avenues, with huge, moss- 
 grown stone figures and groups guarding the terraces or 
 keeping fantastic watch over the stone tanks on whose sur- 
 faces floated the lazy water-lilies. Great moss-grown gods 
 and goddesses, and strange hybrid beasts, and fauns and 
 satyrs, and all so silent and forlorn, with the lush grass 
 and heavy fern growing rank and thick under the stately 
 trees. To right they stretched and to left ; and straight 
 away westward was one long, wide, vast, deserted avenue, 
 at the end of which was an opening, and in the opening 
 a huge stone myth or figure of a runner, who in the act of 
 racing receives an arrow in his heart, and with arms madly 
 tossed in the air, staggers back. 
 
 Behind this terrible figure the sun used to set, flaming, 
 or mild, or sullen, and the vast arms of it were outlined 
 against the gorgeous sky, or in the half-dark it glimmered 
 like a ghost and seemed to move. It had been there so 
 long that none could remember the legend of it. It was a 
 grim shape. 
 
 Scattered here and there were quaint wildernesses and
 
 206 The First Violin 
 
 pleasaunces clipped yews and oddly-trained shrubs and 
 flowers trying to make a diversion, but ever dominated by 
 the huge woods, the straight avenues ; the mathematical 
 melancholy on an immense scale. 
 
 The Frau Grafin glanced at me once or twice as my head 
 turned eagerly this way and that, and my eyes could not 
 take in the strange scene quickly enough; but she said 
 nothing, nor did her severe face relax into any smile. 
 
 We stopped under a huge porte-cochere in which more 
 servants were standing about. 
 
 " Come with me," said the lady to me. " First I will 
 take you to my rooms, and then when you have rested a 
 little you can do what you like." 
 
 Pleased at the prospect, I followed her; through a hall 
 which without any joking was baronial ; through a corridor 
 into a room, through which she passed, observing to me : 
 
 " This is the Rittersaal, one of the oldest rooms in the 
 house." 
 
 The Rittersaal a real, hereditary Hall of Knights 
 where a Sdngerkrieg might have taken place where Tann- 
 ha'user and the others might have contended before Eliza- 
 beth. A polished parquet a huge hearth on which burnt 
 a large bright wood fire whose flames sparkled upon suits 
 of mail in dozens crossed swords and lances, over which 
 hung tattered banners and bannerets. Shields and lances, 
 portraits with each a pair of spurs beneath it the men 
 were all knights, of that line ! dark and grave chiefly were 
 these lords of the line of Sturm. In the centre of the 
 hall a great trophy of arms and armor, all of which had
 
 The First Violin 207 
 
 been used, and used to purpose ; the only drapery the 
 banners over these lances and portraits. The room 
 delighted me while it made me feel small very small. 
 The Countess turned at a door at the other end and looked 
 back upon me where I stood gasping in the doorway by 
 which we had entered. She was one of the house ; this 
 had nothing overpowering for her, if it did give some of 
 the pride to her mien. 
 
 I hurried after her, apologizing for my tardiness; she 
 waved the words back, and led me on to a smaller room, 
 which appeared to be her own private sitting-room. Here 
 she asked me to lay aside my things, adding that she 
 hoped I should spend the day at the Schloss. 
 
 " If you find it not too intolerably stupid," she added. 
 "It is a dull place." 
 
 I said that it seemed to me like something out of a fairy 
 tale, and that I longed to see more of it if I might. 
 
 " Assuredly you shall. There may be some few things 
 which you may like to see. I forget that every one is not 
 like myself tired. Are you musical ?" 
 
 " Very ! " said I emphatically. 
 
 " Then you will be interested in the music-rooms here. 
 How old are you ? " 
 
 I told her. She bowed gravely. " You are young, and, 
 I suppose, happy ? ' ' she remarked. 
 
 " Yes, I am very happy perfectly happy," said I, 
 smiling, because I could not help it. 
 
 " When I saw you I was so struck with that look," said 
 she. " I thought I had never seen any one look so radi-
 
 zo8 The First Violin 
 
 antly, transcendently happy. I so seldom see it and 
 never feel it, and I wished to see more of you. I am very 
 glad you are so happy very glad. Now I will not keep 
 you talking to me. I will send for Herr Nahrath, who 
 shall be your guide." 
 
 She rang the bell. I was silent, although I longed to 
 say that I could talk to her for a day without thinking of 
 weariness, which indeed was true. She impressed and fas- 
 cinated me. 
 
 "Send Herr Nahrath here," she said, and presently 
 there came into the room a young man in the garb of 
 what is called in Germany a Candidat that is to say, an 
 embryo Pastor, or Parish Priest. He bowed very deeply to 
 the Countess and did not speak or advance much beyond 
 the door. 
 
 Having introduced us, she desired him to act as cice- 
 rone to me until I was tired. He bowed, and I did not dis- 
 pute the mandate, although I would rather have remained 
 with her, and got to know something of the nature that 
 lay behind those gray passionless features, than turn to the 
 society of that smug-looking young gentleman who waited 
 so respectfully, like a machine whose mainspring was awe. 
 
 I accompanied him nevertheless, and he showed me part 
 of the Schloss, and endeavored in the intervals of his 
 tolerably arduous task of cicerone to make himself agree- 
 able to me. It was a wonderful place indeed this 
 Schloss. The deeper we penetrated into it, the more 
 absorbed and interested did I become. Such piled-up, 
 profusely-scattered treasures of art it had never before
 
 The First Violin 209 
 
 fallen to my lot to behold. The abundance was prodigal ; 
 the judgment, cultivation, high perception of truth, rarity 
 and beauty, seemed almost faultless. Gems of pictures 
 treasures of sculpture, bronze, china, carvings, glass, 
 coins, curiosities, which it would .have taken a lifetime 
 properly to learn. Here I saw for the first time a private 
 library on a large scale, collected by generation after gen- 
 eration of highly-cultured men and- women a perfect 
 thing of its kind, and one which impressed me mightily; 
 but it was not there that I was destined to find the treasure 
 which lay hidden for me in this enchanted palace. We 
 strayed over an acre or so of passage and corridor till he 
 paused before an arched door across which hung a curtain, 
 and over which was inscribed Musikkammern (The Music 
 Rooms) . 
 
 " If you wish to see the music, mein Frdulein, I must 
 leave you in the hands of Herr Brunken, who will tolerate 
 no cicerone but himself." 
 
 " Oh, I wish to see it, certainly," said I, on fire with 
 curiosity. 
 
 He knocked, and was bidden Herein ! but not going in, 
 told some one inside that he recommended to his charge a 
 young lady staying with the Countess, and who was desir- 
 ous of seeing the collection. 
 
 " Pray, mein Frdulein, come in ! " said a voice. 
 
 Herr Nahrath left me, and I, lifting the curtain and 
 
 pushing open the half-closed door, found myself in an 
 
 octagonal room, confronted by the quaintest figure I had 
 
 ever seen. An old man whose iong gray hair, long white 
 
 14
 
 The First Violin 
 
 beard, and long black robe made him look like a wizard or 
 astrologer of some mediaeval romance, was smiling at me 
 and bidding me welcome to his domain. He was the 
 librarian and general custodian of the musical treasures of 
 Schloss Rothenfels, and his name was Brunken. He loved 
 his place and his treasures with a jealous love, and would 
 talk of favorite instruments as if they had been dear chil- 
 dren, and of great composers as if they were gods. 
 
 All around the room were large shelves filled with music 
 and over each division stood a name such mighty 
 names as Scarlatti, Bach, Handel, Beethoven, Schumann, 
 Mozart, Haydn all the giants, and apparently all the pig- 
 mies too, were there. It was a complete library of music. 
 and though I have seen many since, I have never beheld 
 any which in the least approached this in richness and 
 completeness. Rare old manuscript scores; priceless edi- 
 tions of half-forgotten music ; the literature of the pro- 
 ductions of half-forgotten composers ; Eastern music, 
 Western music ; and music of all ages ; it was an ideal- 
 ized collection a musician's paradise, only less so than 
 that to which he now led me, from amidst the piled-up 
 scores and the gleaming busts of those mighty men, who 
 here at least were honored with never-failing reverence. 
 
 He took me into a second room, or rather hall, of great 
 size, height, and dimensions, a museum of musical instru- 
 ments. It would take far too long to do it justice in 
 description ; indeed, on that first brief investigation I 
 could only form a dim, general idea of the richness of its 
 treasures. What histories what centuries of story were
 
 The First Violin 211 
 
 there piled up ! Musical instruments of every imaginable 
 form and shape, and in every stage of development. Odd- 
 looking, pre-historic bone embryo instruments from differ- 
 ent parts of France. Strange old things from Nineveh, 
 and India, and Peru ; . ir Sitruments from tombs and pyra- 
 mids, and ancient ruined temples in tropic groves things 
 whose very nature and handling is a mystery and a dispute 
 tuned to strange scales which produce strange melodies, 
 and carry us back into other worlds. On them, perhaps, 
 has the swarthy Ninevan, or slight Hindoo, or some 
 
 " Dusky youth with painted plumage gay," 
 
 performed as he apostrophized his mistress's eyebrow. On 
 that queer-looking thing which may be a fiddle or not 
 which may have had a bow or not a slightly-clad slave 
 made music while his master the Rayah played chess with 
 his favorite wife. They are all dead and gone now, and 
 their jewels are worn by others, and the memory of them 
 has vanished from off the earth ; and these, their musical 
 instruments, repose in a quiet corner amid the rough hills 
 and oak-woods and under the cloudy skies of the land of 
 musi c Deutschland. 
 
 Down through the changing scale, through the whole 
 range of cymbal and spinet, " flute, harp, sackbut, psal- 
 tery, dulcimer, and all kinds of music" stand literally 
 before me, and a strange revelation it is. Is it the same 
 faculty which produces that grand piano of Bechstein's, 
 and that clarion organ of Silbermann's, and that African 
 drum dressed out with human skulls, that war-trumpet
 
 212 The First Violin 
 
 hung with tiger's teeth ? After this nothing is wonderful ! 
 Strange, unearthly-looking Chinese frames of sonorous 
 stones or modulated bells ; huge drums, painted and 
 carved, and set up on stands six feet from the ground ; 
 quaint instruments from the palaces of Aztec Incas, down 
 to pianos by Broadwood, Col lard and Col lard, and Bech- 
 stein. 
 
 There were trophies of Streichinstrumente and Blasin- 
 strumente. I was allowed to gaze upon two real Stradiva- 
 rius fiddles. I might see the development by evolution, 
 and the survival of the fittest in violin, cello, contrabass, 
 alto, beside countless others whose very names have per- 
 ished with the time that produced them, and the fingers 
 which played them ingenious guesses, clever misses the 
 tragedy of harmony as well as its lo Paean ! 
 
 There were wind instruments, quaint old double flutes 
 from Italy ; pipes, single, double, treble, from ages much 
 farther back; harps Assyrian, Greek, and Roman; instru- 
 ments of percussion, guitars, and cithers in every form and 
 kind ; a dulcimer I took it up and thought of Coleridge's 
 " damsel with a dulcimer " ; and a grand organ, as well as 
 many incipient organs, and the quaint little things of that 
 nature from China, Japan, and Siam. 
 
 I stood and gazed in wonder and amazement. 
 
 " Surely the present Graf has not collected all these 
 instruments ! " said I. 
 
 "Oh no, mein Fraulein ; they have been accumulating 
 for centuries. They tell strange tales of what the Sturms 
 will do for music."
 
 The First Violin 213 
 
 With which he proceeded to tell me certain narratives of 
 certain instruments in the collection, in which he evidently 
 firmly believed, including one relating to a quaint old 
 violin for which he said a certain Graf von Rothenfels called 
 Max der Tolle, or the mad Count Max, had sold his soul. 
 
 As he finished this last he was called away, and excusing 
 himself, left me. I was alone in this voiceless temple of 
 so many wonderful sounds. I looked round, and a feeling 
 of awe and weirdness crept over me. My eyes would not 
 leave that shabby old fiddle, concerning whose demoniac 
 origin I had just heard such a cheerful little anecdote. 
 Every one of those countless instruments was capable of 
 harmony and discord had sometime been used; pressed, 
 touched, scraped, beaten or blown into by hands or mouths 
 long since crumbled to dust. What tales had been told ! 
 what songs sung, and in what languages ; what laughs 
 laughed, tears shed, vows spoken, kisses exchanged, over 
 some of those silent pieces of wood, brass, ivory, and 
 catgut ! The feelings of all the histories that surrounded 
 me had something eerie in it. 
 
 I stayed until I began to feel nervous, and was thinking 
 of going away when sounds from a third room drew my 
 attention. Some one in there began to play the violin, 
 and to play it with no ordinary delicacy of manipulation. 
 There was something exquisitely finished, refined, and deli- 
 cate about the performance ; it lacked the bold splendor 
 and originality of Eugen's playing, but it was so lovely as 
 to bring tears to my eyes, and, moreover, the air was my 
 favorite Trdumerei, Something in those sounds, too, was
 
 214 The First Violin 
 
 familiar to me. With a sudden beating of the heart, a 
 sudden eagerness, I stepped hastily forward, pushed back 
 the dividing curtain, and entered the room whence pro- 
 ceeded those sounds. 
 
 In the middle of the room, which was bare and empty, 
 but which had large windows looking across the melan- 
 choly plateau, and to the terrible figure of the runner at 
 the end of the avenue stood a boy a child with a vio- 
 lin. He was dressed richly, in velvet and silk; he was 
 grown the slender delicacy of his form was set off by the 
 fine clothing that rich men's children wear; his beautiful 
 waving black hair was somewhat more closely cut, but the 
 melancholy yet richly-colored young face that turned 
 towards me the deep and yearning eyes, the large, solemn 
 gaze, the premature gravity, were all his it was Sigmund, 
 Courvoisier's boy. 
 
 For a moment we both stood motionless hardly breath- 
 ing; then he flung his violin down, sprang forward with a 
 low sound of intense joy, exclaiming : 
 
 " Das Frdulein, das Frdulein, from home ! " and stood 
 before me trembling from head to foot. 
 
 I snatched the child to my heart (he looked so much 
 older and sadder), and covered him with kisses. 
 
 He submitted nay, more, he put his arms about my 
 neck and laid his face upon my shoulder, and presently, as 
 if he had choked down some silent emotion, looked up at 
 me with large, imploring, sad eyes, and asked: 
 
 " Have you seen my father ? " 
 
 " Sigmund, I saw him the day before yesterday."
 
 216 The First Violin 
 
 " You saw him you spoke to him, perhaps ?" 
 
 " Yes. I spoke long with him." 
 
 "What did he look like?" 
 
 " As he always does brave and true and noble." 
 
 "Nicht wahr?" said the boy, with flashing eyes. " I 
 know how he looks, just. I am waiting till I am grown 
 up, that I may go to him again." 
 
 " Do you like me, Sigmund ? " 
 
 " Yes ; very much." 
 
 " Do you think you could love me ? Would you trust 
 me to love those you love ? ' ' 
 
 " Do you mean him ? " he asked point-blank, and looked 
 at me, somewhat startled. 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " I don't know." 
 
 " I mean, to take care of him, and try to make him 
 happy till you come to him again, and then we will all be 
 together." 
 
 He looked doubtful still. 
 
 " What I mean, Sigmund, is that your father and I are 
 going to be married ; but we shall never be quite happy 
 until you are with us." 
 
 He stood still, taking it in, and I waited in much anxi- 
 ety. I was certain that if I had time and opportunity I 
 could win him; but I feared the result of this sudden 
 announcement, and then separation. He might only see 
 that his father his supreme idol could turn for comfort 
 to another, while he would not know how I loved him and 
 longed to make his grave young life happy for him. I put
 
 The First Violin 217 
 
 my arm round his shoulder, and kneeling down beside 
 him, said : 
 
 " You must say you are glad, Signmnd, or you will make 
 me very unhappy. I want you to love me as well as him. 
 Ix>ok at me and tell me you will trust me till we are all 
 together, for I am sure we shall be together some day." 
 
 He still hesitated some little time, but at last said, with 
 the sedateness peculiar to him, as of one who overcame a 
 struggle and made a sacrifice : 
 
 " If he has decided it so it must be right, you know, but 
 but you won't let him forget me, will you ? " 
 
 The child's nature overcame that which had been as it 
 were supplanted and grafted upon it. The lip quivered, 
 the dark eyes filled with tears. Poor little lonely child ! 
 desolate and sad in the midst of all the grandeur ! My 
 heart yearned to him. 
 
 " Forget you, Sigmund ? Your father never forgets ; he 
 cannot." 
 
 " I wish I was grown up," was all he said. 
 
 Then it occurred to me to wonder how he got there, and 
 in what relation he stood to these people. 
 
 " Do you live here, Sigmund ? " 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What relation are you to the Herrn Grafen ?" 
 
 " Graf von Rothenfels is my uncle." 
 
 " And are they kind to you ? " I asked in a hasty whis- 
 per, for his intense gravity and sadness oppressed me. I 
 trembled to think of having to tell his father in what state 
 I had found him.
 
 218 The First Violin 
 
 " Oh yes ! " said he. " Yes, very." 
 
 " What do you do all day ? " 
 
 " I learn lessons from Herr Nahrath, and I ride with 
 Uncle Bruno, and and oh ! I do whatever I like. 
 Uncle Bruno says that some time I shall go to Bonn, or 
 Heidelberg, or Jena, or England, whichever I like." 
 
 " And have you no friends ? " 
 
 " I like being with Brunken the best. He talks to me 
 about my father sometimes. He knew him when he was 
 only as old as I am." 
 
 " Did he ? Oh, I did not know that." 
 
 " But they won't tell me why my father never comes 
 here, and why they never speak of him," he added wearily, 
 looking with melancholy eyes across the lines of wood, 
 through the wide window. 
 
 " Be sure it is for nothing wrong. He does nothing but 
 what is good and right," said I. 
 
 " Oh, of course ! But I can't tell the reason. I think 
 and think about it." He put his hand wearily to his 
 head. " They never speak of him. Once I said some- 
 thing about him. It was at a great dinner they had. 
 Aunt Hildegarde turned quite pale, and Uncle Bruno 
 called me to him and said no one heard it but me, you 
 know ' Never let me hear that name again ! ' and his 
 eyes looked so fierce. I'm tired of this place," he added 
 mournfully. " I want to be at Elberthal again at the 
 Wehrhahn, with my father and Friedhelm and Karl Lin- 
 ders. I think of them every hour. I liked Karl and 
 Friedhelm, and Gretchen, and Frau Schmidt."
 
 The First Violin 219 
 
 " They do not live there now, dear, Friedhelm and your 
 father," said I gently. 
 
 " Not ? Then where are they ? " 
 
 " I do not know," I was forced to say. " They were 
 fighting in the war. I think they live at Berlin now, but 
 I am not at all sure." 
 
 This uncertainty seemed to cause him much distress, and 
 he would have added more, but our conversation was brought 
 to an end by the entrance of Brunken, who looked rather 
 surprised to see us in such close and earnest consultation. 
 
 "Will you show me the way back to the Countess's 
 room ?" said I to Sigmund. 
 
 He put his hand in mine, and led me through many of 
 those interminable halls and passages until we came to the 
 Rittersaal again. 
 
 " Sigmund," said I, " are you not proud to belong to 
 these?" and I pointed to the dim portraits hanging 
 around. 
 
 "Yes, "said he doubtfully. "Uncle Bruno is always 
 telling me that I must do nothing to disgrace their name, 
 because I shall one day rule their lands; but," he added, 
 with more animation, " do you not see all these like- 
 nesses? These are all counts of Rothenfels, who have 
 been heads of the family. You see the fast one is here 
 Graf Bruno my uncle. But in another room there are a 
 great many more portraits, ladies and children and young 
 men, and a man is painting a likeness of me, which is 
 going to be hung up there : but my father is not there, 
 What does it mean ?"
 
 *2d The First Violin 
 
 I was silent. I knew his portrait must have been 
 removed because he was considered to be living in dis- 
 honor a stain to the house, who was perhaps the most 
 chivalrous of the whole race; but this I could not tell 
 Sigmund. It was beginning already, the trial, the " test " 
 of which he had spoken to me, and it was harder in reality 
 than in anticipation. 
 
 " I don't want to be stuck up there where he has no 
 place," Sigmund went on sullenly. " And I should like 
 to cut the hateful picture to pieces when it comes." 
 
 With this he ushered me into Grafin Hildegarde's bou- 
 doir again. She was still there, and a tall, stately, stern- 
 looking man of some fifty years was with her. 
 
 His appearance gave me a strange shock. He was 
 Eugen, older and without any of his artist brightness; 
 Eugen's grace turned into pride and stony hauteur. He 
 looked as if he could be savage upon occasion ; a nature 
 born to power and nurtured in it. Ruggedly upright, but 
 narrow. I learnt him by heart afterwards, and found that 
 every act of his was the direct, unsoftened outcome of his 
 nature. 
 
 This was Graf Bruno ; this was the proud, intensely 
 feeling man who had never forgiven the stain which he 
 supposed his brother had brought upon their house ; this 
 was he who had proposed such hard, bald, pitiless terms 
 concerning the parting of father and son who forbade 
 the child to speak of the loved one. 
 
 "Ha!" said he, "you have found Sigmund, mein 
 Frdulein ? Where did you meet, then ? "
 
 The First Violin 221 
 
 His keen eyes swept me from head to foot. In that, 
 at least, Eugen resembled him ; my lover's glance was as 
 hawk-like as this, and as impenetrable. 
 
 " In the music-room," said Sigmund : and the uncle's 
 glance left me and fell upon the boy. 
 
 I soon read that story. The child was at once the light 
 of his eyes and the bitterness of his life. As for Coun- 
 tess Hildegarde, she gazed at her nephew with all a 
 mother's soul in her pathetic eyes, and was silent. 
 
 "Come here," said the Graf, seating himself, and 
 drawing the boy to him. " What hast thoubeen doing ? " 
 
 There was no fear in the child's demeanor he was too 
 thoroughly a child of their own race to know fear but 
 there was no love, no lighting up of the features, no glad 
 meeting of the eyes. 
 
 " I was with Nahrath till Aunt Hildegarde sent for him, 
 and then I went to practise." 
 
 " Practise what ? Thy riding or fencing ? " 
 
 " No ; my violin." 
 
 " Bah ! What an extraordinary thing it is that this lad 
 has no taste for any thing but fiddling," observed the uncle, 
 half aside. 
 
 Grafin Hildegarde looked sharply and apprehensively up. 
 
 Sigmund shrank a little away from his uncle, not timidly, 
 but with some distaste. Words were upon his lips; his 
 eyes flashed, his lips parted; then he checked himself, 
 and was silent. 
 
 "Nun denn!" said the Count. "What hast thou ? 
 Out with it!"
 
 222 The First Violin 
 
 " Nothing that it would please thee to hear, uncle ; 
 therefore I will not say it," was the composed retort. 
 
 The grim-looking man laughed a grim little laugh, as if 
 satisfied with the audacity of the boy, and his grizzled 
 moustache swept the soft cheek. 
 
 " I ride no further this morning; but this afternoon I 
 shall go to Mulhausen. Wilt thou come with me ? " 
 
 "Yes, uncle." 
 
 Neither willing nor unwilling was the tone, and the 
 answer appeared to dissatisfy the other, who said : 
 
 " ' Yes, uncle ' what does that mean ? Dost thou not 
 wish to go ? " 
 
 " Oh yes ! I would as soon go as stay at home." 
 
 " But the distance, Bruno," here interposed the Coun- 
 tess in a low tone. " I am sure it is too far. He is not 
 strong. ' ' 
 
 "Distance? Pooh! Hildegarde, I wonder at you; 
 considering what stock you come of, you should be supe- 
 rior to such nonsense ! Wert thou thinking of the distance, 
 Sigmund ? " 
 
 " Distance no," said he indifferently. 
 
 " Come with me," said the elder. "I want to show 
 thee something." 
 
 They went out of the room together. Yes, it was self- 
 evident ; the man idolized the child. Strange mixture of 
 sternness and softness ! The supposed sin of the father 
 was never to be pardoned ; but natural affection was to 
 have its way, and be lavished upon the son ; and the son 
 could not return it, because the influence of the banished
 
 The First Violin 223 
 
 scapegrace was too strong he had wen it all for himself, 
 as scapegraces have the habit of doing. 
 
 Again I was left alone with the Countess, sitting upright 
 over her embroidery. A dull life this great lady led. 
 She cared nothing for the world's gaieties, and she had 
 neither chick nor child to be ambitious for. Her husband 
 was polite enough to her; but she knew perfectly well, and 
 accepted it as a matter of course, that the death of her who 
 had lived with him and been his companion for twenty-five 
 years, would have weighed less by half with him than any 
 catastrophe to that mournful, unenthusiastic child, who 
 had not been two years under their roof, and who displayed 
 no delight in the wealth of love lavished upon him. 
 
 She knew that she also adored the child, but that his 
 affection was hard to get. She dared not show her love 
 openly, or in the presence of her husband, who seemed to 
 look upon the boy as his exclusive property, and was as 
 jealous as a tiger of the few and faint testimonies of affec- 
 tion manifested by his darling. A dull journey to Berlin 
 once a year, an occasional visitor, the society of her 
 director and that of her husband who showed how much 
 at home with her he felt by going to sleep whenever he 
 was more than quarter of an hour in her presence a 
 little interest of a lofty, distant kind in her townspeople 
 of the poorer sort, an occasional call upon or from some 
 distant neighbor of a rank approaching her own; for the 
 rest, embroidery in the newest patterns and most elegant 
 style; some few books, chiefly religious and polemical 
 works and what can be drearier than Roman Catholic
 
 224 The First Violin 
 
 polemics, unless, indeed, Protestant ones eclipse them ? 
 a large house, vast estates, servants who never raised their 
 voices beyond a certain tone ; the envy of all the middle- 
 class women, the fear and reverential curtseys of the poorer 
 ones a cheerful existence, and one which accounted for 
 some of the wrinkles which so plentifully decked her 
 brow. 
 
 " That is our nephew," said she ; " my husband's heir." 
 
 " I have often seen him before," said I ; " but I should 
 have thought that his father would be your husband's next 
 heir." 
 
 Never shall I forget the look she darted upon me the 
 awful glance which swept over me scathingly, ere she said, 
 in icy tones : 
 
 " What do you mean ? Have you seen or do you know 
 Graf Eugen ?" 
 
 There was a pause, as if the name had not passed her 
 lips for so long that now she had difficulty in uttering it. 
 
 " I knew him as Eugen Courvoisier," said I; but the 
 other name was a revelation to me, and told me that he 
 was also ' to the manner born.' " I saw him two days 
 ago, and I conversed with him," I added. 
 
 She was silent for a moment, and surveyed me with a 
 haggard look. I met her glance fully, openly. 
 
 *' Do you wish to know anything about him ? " I asked. 
 
 "Certainly not," said she, striving to speak frigidly; 
 but there was a piteous tremble in her low tones. " The 
 
 man has dis What am I saying ? It is sufficient to 
 
 say that he is not on terms with his family."
 
 The First Violin 225 
 
 " So he told me," said I, struggling on my own part to 
 keep back the burning words that rose within me. 
 
 The Countess looked at me looked again. I saw now 
 that this was one of the great sorrows of her sorrowful 
 life. She felt that to be consistent she ought to wave 
 aside the subject with calm contempt; but it made her 
 heart bleed. I pitied her; I felt an odd kind of affection 
 for her already. The promise I had given to Eugen lay 
 hard and heavy upon me. 
 
 "What did he tell you?" she asked at last; and I 
 paused ere I answered, trying to think what I could make 
 of this opportunity. " Do you know the facts of the 
 case ? ' ' she added. 
 
 " No; he said he would write." 
 
 " Would write /" she echoed, suspending her work, and 
 fixing me with her eyes. " Would write to whom ? " 
 
 "To me." 
 
 " You correspond with him ? " There was a tremulous 
 eagerness in her manner. 
 
 " I have never corresponded with him yet," said I, 
 " but I have known him long, and loved him almost from 
 the first. The other day I promised to marry him." 
 
 "You?" said she; "you are going to marry Eugen ! 
 Are you " Her eyes said, "Are you good enough for 
 him?" but she came to an abrupt conclusion. "Tell 
 me," said she, " where did you meet him, and how ? " . 
 
 I told her in what capacity I had become acquainted 
 with him, and she listened breathlessly. Every moment I 
 felt the prohibition to speak heavier, for I saw that the 
 15
 
 226 The First Violin 
 
 Countess of Rothenfels would have been only too de- 
 lighted to hail any idea, any suggestion, which would 
 allow her to indulge the love that, though so strong, she 
 rigidly repressed. I dare say I told my story in a halting 
 kind of way; it was difficult for me on the spur of the 
 moment to know clearly what to say and what to leave 
 unsaid. As I told the Countess about Eugen's and my 
 voyage down the river, a sort of smile tried to struggle 
 out upon her lips ; it was evidently as good as a romance 
 to her. I finished, saying : 
 
 " That is the truth, gnadige Fran. All I fear is that I 
 am not good enough for him shall not satisfy him." 
 
 " My child ! " said she, and paused. " My dear child," 
 she took both my hands, and her lips quivered, " you do 
 not know how I feel for you. I can feel for you because I 
 fear that with you it will be as it was with me. Do you 
 know any of the circumstances under which Eugen von 
 Rothenfels left his friends ? " 
 
 " I do not know them circumstantially. I know he was 
 accused of something, and and did not I mean " 
 
 " Could not deny it," she said. " I dare not take the 
 responsibility of leaving you in ignorance. I must tell 
 you all, and may Our Lady give me eloquence ! " 
 
 " I should like to hear the story, madame, but I do not 
 think any eloquence will change my mind." 
 
 " He always had a manner calculated to deceive and 
 charm," said she; "always. Well, my husband is his 
 half-brother. I was their cousin. They are the sons of 
 different mothers, and my husband is many years older
 
 The First Violin 227 
 
 than Eugen eighteen years older. He, my husband, was 
 thirty years old when he succeeded to the name and estates 
 of his father Eugen, you see, was just twelve years old, 
 a schoolboy. We were just married. It is a very long 
 time ago ach,ja ! a very long time ago ! We played the 
 part of parents to that boy. We were childless, and, as 
 time went on, we lavished upon him all the love which 
 we should have bestowed upon our own children had we 
 been happy enough to have any. I do not think any one 
 was better loved than he. It so happened that his own 
 inheritance was not a large one; that made no difference. 
 My husband, with my fullest consent and approbation, had 
 every intention of providing for him ; we had enough and 
 to spare : money and land and house-room for half-a-dozen 
 families, and our two selves alone to enjoy it all. He 
 always seemed fond of us. I suppose it was his facile 
 manner, which could take the -appearance of an interest 
 and affection which he did not feel " 
 
 " No, Frau Grafin ! no, indeed ! " 
 
 " Wait till you have heard all, my poor child. Every 
 one loved him. How proud I was of him ! Sometimes I 
 think it is a chastisement, but had you been in my place 
 you would have been proud too ; so gallant, so handsome, 
 such grace, and such a charm. He was the joy of my 
 life," she said in a passionate undertone. " He went by 
 the name of a worthy descendant of his ancestors in all 
 essential things : honor and loyalty and bravery, and so 
 on. They used to call him Prinz Eugen, der edle Rttter, 
 after the old song. He was wild and impatient of
 
 228 The First Violin 
 
 trol, but who is not ? I hate your young men whose veins 
 run milk, not blood. He was one of a fiery, passionate 
 line. At the universities he was extravagant; we heard of 
 all sorts of follies." 
 
 " Did you ever hear of anything base anything under- 
 hand or dishonorable ? " 
 
 " Never oh, never. High play. He was very inti- 
 mate with a set of young Englishmen, and the play was 
 dreadful, it is true ; he betted too. That is a curse. Play 
 and horses, and general recklessness and extravagance, but 
 no wine and no women. I never heard that he had the 
 least affinity for either of these dissipations. There were 
 debts I suppose all young men in his position make 
 debts," said the Countess placidly. " My husband made 
 debts at college, and I am sure my brothers did. Then 
 he left college and lived at home awhile, and that was the 
 happiest time of my life. But it is over. 
 
 " Then he entered the army of course. His family 
 interest procured him promotion. He was captain in a 
 fine Uhlan regiment. He was with his regiment at Berlin 
 
 and Munich, and And always we heard the same tales 
 
 play and wild, fast living. Music always had a hold 
 upon him. 
 
 " In the midst of his extravagance he was sometimes so 
 simple. I remember we were dreadfully frightened at a 
 
 rumor that he had got entangled with Fraulein , a singer 
 
 of great beauty at the Hofoper at . I got my husband 
 
 to let me write about it. I soon had an answer from Eugen. 
 How he laughed at me ! He had paid a lot of debts for the
 
 The First Violin 229 
 
 girl, which had been pressing heavily upon her since her 
 career began ; now he said he trusted she would get along 
 swimmingly ; he was going to her benefit that night. 
 
 " But when he was at , and when he was about six 
 
 and twenty, he really did get engaged to be married. He 
 wrote and told us about it. That was the first bitter blow : 
 she was an Italian girl of respectable but by no means 
 noble family he was always a dreadful radical in such 
 matters. She was governess in the house of one of his 
 friends in . 
 
 " We did everything we could think of to divert him 
 from it. It was useless. He married her, but he did not 
 become less extravagant. She did not help him to become 
 steady, I must say. She liked gaiety and admiration, and 
 he liked her to be worshipped. He indulged her fright- 
 fully. He played he would play so dreadfully. 
 
 " We had his wife over to see us, and he came with her. 
 We were agreeably surprised. She quite won our hearts. 
 She was very beautiful and very charming had rather a 
 pretty voice, though nothing much. We forgave all his 
 misconduct, and my husband talked to him and implored 
 him to amend. He said he would. Mere promises ! It 
 was so easy to him to make promises. 
 
 "That poor young wife! Instead of pitying him for 
 having made a mesalliance, we know now that it was she 
 who was to be pitied for having fallen into the hands of 
 such a black-hearted, false man " 
 
 The lady paused. The recital evidently cost her some 
 pain and some emotion.
 
 230 The First Violin 
 
 She went on : 
 
 " She was expecting her confinement. They returned 
 
 to , where we also had a house, and we went with 
 
 them. Vittoria shortly afterwards gave birth to a son. 
 That was in our house. My husband would have it so. 
 That son was to reconcile all and make everything straight. 
 At that time Eugen must have been in some anxiety: he 
 had been betting heavily on the English Derby. We did 
 not know that, nor why he had gone to England. At last 
 it came out that he was simply ruined. My husband was 
 dreadfully cut up. I was very unhappy so unhappy that 
 I was ill and confined to my room. 
 
 " My husband left town for a few days to come over to 
 Rothenfels on business. Eugen was scarcely ever in the 
 house. I thought it was our reproachful faces that he did 
 not wish to see. Then my husband came back. He was 
 more cheerful. He had been thinking things over, he 
 said. He kissed me, and told me to cheer up : he had a 
 plan for Eugen, which, he believed, would set all right 
 again. 
 
 " In that very moment some one asked to see him. It 
 was a clerk from the bank with a check which they had 
 cashed the day before. Had my husband signed it ? I 
 saw him look at it for a moment. Then he sent the man 
 away, saying that he was then busy and would communi- 
 cate with him. Then he showed me the check. It was 
 payable to the bearer, and across the back was written 
 ' Vittoria von Rothenfels.' 
 
 " You must bear in mind that Eugen was living in his
 
 The First Violin 231 
 
 own house, in another quarter of the town. My husband 
 sent the check to him with a brief inquiry as to whether 
 he knew anything about it. Then he went out : he had an 
 appointment, and when he returned he found a letter from 
 Eugen. It was not long: it was burnt into my heart, and 
 I have never forgotten a syllable of it. It was : 
 
 " ' I return the check. I am guilty. I relieve you of 
 all further responsibility about me. It is evident that I 
 am not fit for my position. I leave this place for ever, 
 taking the boy with me. Vittoria does not seem to care 
 about having him. Will you look after her ? Do not let 
 her starve in punishment for my sin. For me I leave 
 you forever. 
 
 " ' EUGEN.' 
 
 " That was the letter. Mein Gott mein Gott 7 Oh, it 
 is hideous, child, to find that those in whom you believed 
 so intensely are bad rotten to the core. I had loved 
 Eugen : he had made a sunshine in my not very cheerful 
 life. His coming was a joy to me, his going away a sor- 
 row. It made everything so much blacker when the truth 
 came out. Of course the matter was hushed up. 
 
 " My husband took immediate steps about it. Soon 
 afterwards we came here; Vittoria with us. Poor girl! 
 Poor girl ! She did nothing but weep and wring her 
 hands, moan and lament and wonder why she had ever 
 been born, and at last she died of decline that is to say, 
 they called it decline, but it was really a broken heart. 
 That is the story a black chronicle, is it not ? You know 
 about Sigmund's coming here. My husband remembered
 
 232 The First Violin 
 
 that he was heir to our name, and we were in a measure 
 responsible for him. Eugen had taken the name of a dis- 
 tant family connection on his mother's side she had 
 French blood in her veins Courvoisier. Now you know 
 all, my child he is not good. Do not trust him." 
 
 I was silent. My heart burned ; my tongue longed to 
 utter ardent words, but I remembered his sad smile as he 
 said, "You shrink from that," and I braced myself to 
 silence. The thing seemed to me altogether so pitiable 
 and yet and yet, I had sworn. But how had he lived out 
 these five terrible years ? 
 
 By-and-by the luncheon-bell rang. We all met once 
 more. I felt every hour more like one in a dream or in 
 some impossible old romance. That piece ,of outward 
 death-like reserve, the Countess, with the fire within which 
 she was forever spending her energy in attempts to 
 quench ; that conglomeration of ice, pride, roughness and 
 chivalry, the Herr Graf himself; the thin, wooden-look- 
 ing priest, the director of the Grafin ; that lovely picture 
 of grace and bloom, with the dash of melancholy, Sig- 
 mund; certainly it was the strangest company in which I 
 had ever been present. 
 
 The Countess sent me home in the afternoon, reminding 
 me that I was engaged to dine there with the others to- 
 morrow. I managed to get a word aside with Sigmund 
 to kiss him and tell him I should come to see him again. 
 Then I left them; interested, enthralled, fascinated with 
 them and their life, and more in love with Eugen than 
 ever.
 
 ...., 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 " Where is my Father ? " 
 
 WE had been bidden to dine at the Schloss Frau Mit- 
 tendorf, Stella, and I. In due time the Doctor's new car- 
 riage was called out, and seated in it we were driven to 
 the great castle. With a renewed joy and awe, I looked 
 at it by twilight, with the dusk of sunset veiling its woods 
 and turning the whole mass to the color of a deep earth- 
 stain. Eugen's home: there he had been born; as the 
 child of such a race, and in its traditions he had been 
 nurtured by that sad lady whom we were going to see. I 
 at least knew that he had acted, was now acting, up to the 
 very standard of his high calling. The place had lost 
 much of its awfulness for me ; it had become even friendly 
 and lovely. 
 
 The dinner was necessarily a solemn one. I was look- 
 ing out for Sigmund, who, however, did not put in any 
 appearance. 
 
 After dinner, when we were all assembled in a vast salon
 
 234 The First Violin 
 
 which the numberless wax-lights did but partially and in 
 the centre illuminate, I determined to make an effort at 
 release from this seclusion, and asked the Countess (who 
 had motioned me to a seat beside her) where Sigmund was. 
 
 " He seemed a little languid and not inclined to come 
 downstairs," said she. " I expect he is in the music-room 
 he generally finds his way there." 
 
 " Oh, I wish you would allow me to go and see him." 
 
 " Certainly, my child," said she, ringing ; and presently 
 a servant guided me to the door of the music-room, and 
 in answer to my knock I was bidden Herein ! 
 
 I entered. The room was in shadow ; but a deep, glow- 
 ing fire burnt in a great cavernous, stone fire-place, and 
 shone upon huge brass andirons on either side the hearth. 
 In an easy-chair sat Brunken, the old librarian, and his 
 white hair and beard were also warmed into rosiness by the 
 fire-glow. At his feet lay Sigmund, who had apparently 
 been listening to some story of his old friend. His hands 
 were clasped about the old man's knee, his face upturned, 
 his hair pushed back. 
 
 Both turned as I came in ; and Sigmund sprang up, but 
 ere he had advanced two paces, paused and stood still, as 
 if overcome with languor or weariness. 
 
 " Sigmund, I have come to see you," said I, coming to 
 the fire and greeting the old man, who welcomed me hos- 
 pitably. 
 
 I took Sigmund's hand: it was hot and dry. I kissed 
 him : lips and cheeks were burning and glowing crimson. 
 I swept the hair from his brow : that too was burning, and
 
 The First Violin 235 
 
 his temples throbbed. His eyes met mine with a strange, 
 misty look. Saying nothing, I seated myself in a low 
 chair near the fire, and drew him to me. He nestled up 
 to me, and I felt that if Eugen could see us he would 
 be almost satisfied. Sigmund did not say anything. He 
 merely settled his head upon my breast, gave a deep sigh 
 as if of relief, and closing his eyes, said : 
 
 " Now, Brunken, go on ! " 
 
 " As I was saying, mein Liebling, I hope to prove all 
 former theorists and writers upon the subject to have been 
 
 wrong ' ' 
 
 '" He's talking about a Magrepha" said Sigmund, still 
 not opening his eyes. 
 
 " A Magrepha what may that be ? " I inquired. 
 
 " Yes. Some people say it was a real full-blown 
 organ," explained Sigmund in a thick, hesitating voice, 
 " and some say it was nothing better than a bagpipe oh 
 dear ! how my head does ache ! and there are people who 
 say it was a kettle-drum nothing more or less; and 
 Brunken is going to show that not one of them knew any- 
 thing about it." 
 
 " I hope so, at least," said Brunken, with modest 
 placidity. 
 
 "Oh, indeed!" said I, glancing a little timidly into 
 the far recesses of the deep, ghostly room, where the fire- 
 light kept catching the sheen of metal ; the yellow white- 
 ness of ivory keys or pipes, or the polished case of some 
 stringed instrument. 
 
 Strange, grotesque shapes loomed out in the uncertain,
 
 236 The First Violin 
 
 flickering light; but was it not a strange and haunted 
 chamber ? Ever it seemed to me as if breaths of air blew 
 through it, which came from all imaginable kinds of 
 graves, and were the breaths of those departed ones who 
 had handled the strange collection, and who wished to 
 finger, or blow into, or beat the dumb, unvibrating things 
 once more. 
 
 Did I say unvibrating ? I was wrong, then. The strings 
 sometimes quivered to sounds that set them trembling; 
 something like a whispered tone I have heard from the 
 deep, upturned throats of great brazen trumpets some- 
 thing like a distant moan floating around the gilded organ- 
 pipes. In after-days, when Friedhelm Helfen knew this 
 room he made a wonderful fantasia about it, in which all 
 the dumb instruments woke up, or tried to waken up to 
 life again, for the whole place impressed him, he told me, 
 as nothing that he had ever known before. 
 
 Brunken went on in a droning tone, giving theories of 
 his own as to the nature of the Magrepha, and I, with my 
 arms around Sigmund, half listened to the sleepy mono- 
 tone of the good old visionary. But what spoke to me 
 with a more potent voice was the soughing and wuthering 
 of the sorrowful wind without, which verily moaned around 
 the old walls, and sought out the old corners, and wailed 
 and plained, and sobbed in a way that was enough to break 
 one's heart. 
 
 By degrees a silence settled upon us. Brunken, having 
 satisfactorily annihilated his enemies, ceased to speak; 
 the fire burnt lower; Sigmund's eyes were closed; his
 
 The First Violin 237 
 
 cheeks were not less flushed than before, nor his brow less 
 hot, and a frown contracted it. I know not how long a 
 time had passed, but I had no wish to rise. 
 
 The door was opened, and some one came into the 
 room. I looked up. It was the Grafin. Brunken rose 
 and stood to one side, bowing. 
 
 I could not get up, but some movement of mine, per- 
 haps, disturbed the heavy and feverish slumber of the 
 child. He started wide awake, with a look of wild ter- 
 ror, and gazed down into the darkness, crying out : 
 
 " Papa, where art thou ? " 
 
 A strange, startled, frightened look crossed the face of 
 the Countess when she heard the words. She did not 
 speak, and I said some soothing words to Sigmund. 
 
 But there could be no doubt that he was very ill. It 
 was quite unlike his usual silent courage and reticence to 
 wring his small hands and with ever- increasing terror turn 
 a deaf ear to my soothings, sobbing out in tones of pain 
 and insistence : 
 
 " Father ! father ! where art thou ? I want thee ! " 
 
 Then he began to cry pitifully, and the only word that 
 was heard was " Father!" It was like some recurrent 
 wail in a piece of music, which warns one all through of 
 a coming tragedy. 
 
 "Oh dear! What is to be done? Sigmund! Was 
 ist denn mit dir, mein Engel?" said the poor Countess, 
 greatly distressed. 
 
 " He is ill," said I. " I think he has taken an illness. 
 Does thy head ache, Sigmund ? "
 
 238 The First Violin 
 
 " Yes," said he, " it does. Where is my own father ? 
 My head never ached when I was with my father." 
 
 "Mem Gott! mein Gott > '" said the Countess in a low 
 tone. " I thought he had forgotten his father." 
 
 " Forgotten ! " echoed I. " Frau Grafin, he is one of 
 yourselves. You do not seem to forget." 
 
 li Herrgott ! " she exclaimed, wringing her hands. 
 " What can be the matter with him ? What must I say to 
 Bruno ? Sigmund, darling, what hast thou then ? What 
 ails thee ? " 
 
 " I want my father ! " he repeated. Nor would he utter 
 any other word. The one idea, long dormant, had now 
 taken full possession of him ; in fever, half delirious, out 
 of the fulness of his heart his mouth spake. 
 
 " Sigmund, Liebchen," said the Countess, " control thy- 
 self. Thy uncle must not hear thee say that word." 
 
 " I don't want my uncle. I want myfafker/ " said Sig- 
 mund, looking restlessly round. " Oh, where is he ? I 
 have not seen him it is so long, and I want him. I love 
 him ; I do love my father, and I want him." 
 
 It was pitiful, pathetic, somewhat tragic, too. The 
 poor Countess had not the faintest idea what to do with 
 the boy, whose illness frightened her. I suggested that he 
 should be put to bed and the doctor sent for, as he had 
 probably taken some complaint which would declare itself 
 in a few days, and might be merely some childish disorder. 
 
 The Countess seized my suggestion eagerly. Sigmund 
 was taken away. I saw him no more that night. Pres- 
 ently we left the Schloss and drove home.
 
 The First Violin 239 
 
 I found a letter waiting for me from Eugen. He was 
 still at Elberthal, and appeared to have been reproaching 
 himself for having accepted my " sacrifice," as he called 
 it. He spoke of Sigmund. There was more, too, in the 
 letter, which made me both glad and sad. I felt life 
 spreading before me, endowed with a gravity, a largeness 
 of aim, and a dignity of purpose such as I had never 
 dreamt of before. 
 
 It seemed that for me, too, there was work to do. I 
 also had a love for whose sake to endure. This made me 
 feel grave. Eugen's low spirits, and the increased bitter- 
 ness with which he spoke of things, made me sad; but 
 something else made me glad. Throughout his whole let- 
 ter there breathed a passion, a warmth restrained, but 
 glowing through its bonds of reticent words an eager- 
 ness which told me that at last 
 
 " As I love, loved am I." 
 
 Even after that sail down the river I had felt a half mis- 
 trust : now all doubts were removed. He loved me. He 
 had learnt it in all its truth and breadth since we last 
 parted. He talked of renunciation, but it was with an 
 anguish so keen as to make me wince for him who felt it. 
 If he tried to renounce me now, it would not be the cold 
 laying aside of a thing for which he did not care, it would 
 be the wrenching himself away from his heart's desire. I 
 triumphed in the knowledge, and this was what made me 
 glad. 
 
 Almost before \ve had finished breakfast in the morning,
 
 240 The First Violin 
 
 there came thundering of wheels up to the door, and a 
 shriek of excitement from Frau Mittendorf, who, a Morgen- 
 haube on her head, a shapeless old morning gown clinging 
 hideously about her ample figure, rushed to the window, 
 looked out, and announced the carriage of the FrauGrafin. , 
 
 " What can she want at this early hour ?" she specu- 
 lated, coming into the room again and staring at us both 
 with wide-open eyes, round with agitation and importance. 
 " But I dare say she wishes to consult me upon some mat- 
 ter. I wish I were dressed more becomingly. I have 
 heard that is, I know, for I am so intimate with her 
 that she never wears n/glige 1 . I wonder if I should have 
 time to " 
 
 She stopped to hold out her hand for the note which a 
 servant was bringing in ; but her face fell when the missive 
 was presented to me. 
 
 " LIEBE MAY " (it began), 
 
 " Will you come and help me in my trouble ? Sigmund 
 is very ill. Sometimes he is delirious. He calls for you 
 often. It breaks my heart to find that after all not a word 
 is uttered of us, but only of Eugen (burn this when you 
 have read it), of you, and of ' Karl,' and ' Friedhelm,' 
 and one or two other names which I do not know. I fear 
 this petition will sound troublesome to you, who were cer- 
 tainly not made for trouble, but you are kind. I saw it in 
 your face. I grieve too much. Truly the flesh is fear- 
 fully weak. I would live as if earth had no joys for me 
 as indeed it has none and yet that does not prevent my 
 suffering. May God help me ! Trusting to you, 
 " Your 
 
 " HlLDEGARDE V. ROTHENFELS."
 
 The First Violin 241 
 
 I lost no time in complying with this summons. In a 
 few moments I was in the carriage; ere long I was at the 
 Schloss, was met by Countess Hildegarde, looking like a 
 ghost that had been keeping a strict Lent, and was at last 
 by Sigmund's bedside. 
 
 He was tossing feverishly from side to side, murmuring 
 and muttering. But when he saw me he was still ; a 
 sweet, frank smile flitted over his face a smile wonder- 
 fully like that which his father had lately bent upon me. 
 He gave a little laugh, saying: 
 
 " Fraulein May ! IVillkommen ! Have you brought my 
 father ? And I should like to see Friedhelm too. You 
 and der Vater and Friedel used to sit near together at the 
 concert, don't you remember ? I went once, and you 
 sang. That tall black man beat time, and my father 
 never stopped looking at you and listening Friedel too. 
 I will ask them if they remember." 
 
 He laughed again at the reminiscence, and took my 
 hand, and asked me if I remembered, so that it was with 
 difficulty that I steadied my voice and kept my eyes from 
 running over as I answered him. Grafin Hildegarde 
 behind wrung her hands and turned to the window. He 
 did not advance any reminiscences of what had happened 
 since he came to the Schloss. 
 
 There was no doubt that our Sigmund was very ill. A 
 visitation of scarlet fever, of the worst kind, was raging in 
 Lahnburg, and in the hamlet of Rothenfels, which lay 
 about the gates of the Schloss. 
 
 Sigmund, some ten days before, had ridden with his 
 16
 
 242 The First Violin 
 
 uncle, and waited on his pony for some time outside a row 
 of cottages, while the Count visited one of his old ser- 
 vants, a man who had become an octogenarian in the 
 service of his family, and upon whom Graf Bruno peri- 
 odically shed the light of his countenance. 
 
 It was scarcely to be doubted that the boy had taken the 
 infection then and there, and the doctor did not conceal 
 that he had the complaint in its worst form, suppressed, 
 and that his recovery admitted of the gravest doubts. 
 
 A short time convinced me that I must not again leave 
 the child till the illness were decided in one way or an- 
 other. He was mine now, and I felt myself in the place 
 of Eugen, as I stood beside his bed, and told him the hard 
 truth that his father was not there, nor Friedhelm, nor 
 Karl, for whom he also asked, but only I. 
 
 The day passed on. A certain conviction was growing 
 every hour stronger within me. An incident at last 
 decided it. I had scarcely left Sigmund's side for eight 
 or nine hours, but I had seen nothing of the Count, nor 
 heard his voice, nor had any mention been made of him, 
 and remembering how he adored the boy, I was surprised. 
 
 At last Grafin Hildegarde, after a brief absence, came 
 into the room, and with a white face and parted lips, said 
 to me in a half-whisper : 
 
 " Liebe Miss Wedderburn, will you do something for 
 me ? Will you speak to my husband ? " 
 
 " To your husband ! " I ejaculated. 
 
 She bowed. 
 
 '* He longs to see Sigmund, but dare not come. For
 
 The First Violin 243 
 
 me, I have hardly dared go near him since the little one 
 began to be ill. He believes that Sigmund will die, and 
 that he will be his murderer, having taken him out that 
 day. I have often spoken to him about making the dear 
 child ride too far, and now the sight of me reminds him 
 of it ; he cannot endure to look at me. Heaven help me ! 
 Why was I ever born ? ' ' 
 
 She turned away without tears tears were not in her 
 line and I went, much against my will, to find the 
 Graf. 
 
 He was in his study. Was that the same man, I won- 
 dered, whom I had seen the very day before, so strong, and 
 full of pride and life ? He raised a haggard, white, and 
 ghastly face to me, which had aged and fallen in unspeak- 
 ably. He made an effort, and rose with politeness as I 
 came in. 
 
 " Man Frdukin, you are loading us with obligations. 
 It is quite unheard of." 
 
 But no thanks were implied in the tone only bitter- 
 ness. He was angry that I should be in the place he dared 
 not come to. 
 
 If I had not been raised by one supreme fear above all 
 smaller ones, I should have been afraid of this haggard, 
 eager-looking old man for he did look very old in his 
 anguish. I could see the rage of jealousy with which he 
 regarded me, and I am not naturally fond of encountering 
 an old wolf who has starved. 
 
 But I used my utmost efforts to prevail upon him to 
 visit his nephew, and at last succeeded. I piloted him to
 
 244 The First Violin 
 
 Sigmund's room ; led him to the boy's bedside. The sick 
 child's eyes were closed, but he presently opened them. 
 The uncle was stooping over him, his rugged face all 
 working with emotion, and his voice broken as he mur- 
 mured : 
 
 " Ach, mein Licbling! art thou then so ill ?" 
 
 With a kind of shuddering cry, the boy pushed him 
 away with both hands, crying: 
 
 " Go away ! I want my father my father, my father, I 
 say ! Where is he ? Why do you not fetch him ? You 
 are a bad man, and you hate him." 
 
 Then I was frightened. The Count recoiled ; his face 
 turned deathly white livid; his fist clenched. He glared 
 down upon the now unrecognizing young face, and stut- 
 tered forth something, paused, then said, in a low, distinct 
 voice, which shook me from head to foot : 
 
 " So ! Better he should die. The brood is worthy the 
 nest it sprang from. Where is our blood, that he whines 
 after that hound that hound? " 
 
 With which, and with a fell look around, he departed, 
 leaving Sigmund oblivious of all that had passed, utterly 
 indifferent and unconscious, and me shivering with fear at 
 the outburst I had seen. 
 
 But it seemed to me that my charge was worse. I left 
 him for a few moments, and seeking out the Countess, 
 spoke my mind. 
 
 " Frau Grafin, Eugen must be sent for. I fear that Sig- 
 mund is going to die, and I dare not let him die without 
 sending for his father."
 
 The First Violin *45 
 
 " I dare not ! " said the Countess. 
 
 She had met her husband, and was flung, unnerved, 
 upon a couch, her hand over her heart. 
 
 " But I dare, and I must do it ! " said I, secretly won- 
 dering at myself. " I shall telegraph for him." 
 . " If my husband knew ! " she breathed. 
 
 " I cannot help it," said I. " Is the poor child to die 
 amongst people who profess to love him, with the one wish 
 ungratified which he has been repeating ever since he 
 began to be ill ? I do not understand such love ; I call it 
 horrible inhumanity." 
 
 " For Eugen to enter this house again ! " she said in a 
 whisper. 
 
 " I would to God that there were any other head as 
 noble under its roof!" was my magniloquent and 
 thoroughly earnest aspiration. " Well, gnddige Fran, will 
 you arrange this matter, or shall I ? " 
 
 " I dare not," she moaned, half distracted; " I dare 
 not but I will do nothing to prevent you. Use the whole 
 household ; they are at your command." 
 
 I lost not an instant in writing out a telegram and 
 despatching it by a man on horseback to Lahnburg. I 
 summoned Eugen briefly : 
 
 " Sigmund is ill. I am here. Come to us." 
 
 I saw the man depart, and then I went and told the 
 Countess what I had done. She turned, if possible, a 
 shade paler ; then said : 
 
 " I am not responsible for it." 
 
 Then I left the poor pale lady to still her beating heart
 
 246 The First Violin 
 
 and kill her deadly apprehensions in the embroidery of 
 the lily of the field and the modest violet. 
 
 jfa change in the child's condition. A lethargy had 
 fallen upon him. That awful stupor, with the dark, 
 flushed cheek and heavy breath, was to me more ominous 
 than the restlessness of fever. 
 
 I sat down and calculated. My telegram might be in 
 Eugen's hands in the course of an hour. 
 
 When could he be here ? Was it possible that he might 
 arrive this night ? I obtained the German equivalent for 
 Bradshaw, and studied it till I thought I had made out 
 that, supposing Eugen to receive the telegram in the short- 
 
 
 
 est possible time, he might \>t here by half-past eleven that 
 night. It was now five in the afternoon. Six hours and a 
 half and at the end of that time his non-arrival might 
 tell me that he could not be here before the morrow. 
 
 I sat still, and now that the deed was done gave myself 
 up, with my usual enlightenment and discretion, to fears 
 and apprehensions. The terrible look and tone of Graf 
 von Rothenfels returned to my mind in full force. Clearly 
 it was just the most dangerous thing in the world for 
 Eugen to do to put in an appearance at the present time. 
 But another glance at Sigmund somewhat reassured me. 
 In wondering whether girl had ever before been placed in 
 such a bizarre situation as mine, darkness overtook me. 
 
 Sigmund moved restlessly and moaned, stretching out 
 little hot hands, and saying, " Father ! " 
 
 I caught those hands to my lips, and knew that I had 
 done right.
 
 The First Violin 247 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 Vindicated 
 
 IT was a wild night. Driving clouds kept hiding and 
 revealing the stormy-looking moon. I was out of doors ; 
 I could not remain in the house ; it had felt too small for 
 me, but now nature felt too large. I dimly saw the huge 
 pile of the Schloss defined against the gray light ; some- 
 times when the moon unveiled herself it started out, clear 
 and black and grim. I saw a light in a corner window 
 that was Sigmund's room ; another in a room below 
 that was the Graf's study, and there the terrible man sat. 
 I heard the wind moan amongst the trees, heard the great 
 dogs baying from the kennels ; from an open window 
 came rich, low, mellow sounds. Old Brunken was in the 
 music-room, playing to himself upon his violoncello. 
 That was a movement from the Grand ' Septuor the second 
 movement, which is, if one may use such an expression, 
 painfully beautiful. I bethought myself of the woods 
 which lay hidden from me, the vast avenues, the lonely 
 tanks, the grotesque statues, and that terrible figure with 
 its arms cast upward, at the end of the long walk, and I 
 shivered faintly. 
 
 I was some short distance down the principal avenue, 
 and dared not go any farther. A sudden dread of the 
 loneliness and the night-voices came upon me; my heart 
 beating thickly, I turned to go back to the house. I would 
 try to comfort poor Countess Hildegarde in her watching 
 and her fears.
 
 248 The First Violin 
 
 But that is a step near me. Some one comes up the 
 avenue, with foot that knows its windings, its turns and 
 twists, its ups and downs. 
 
 " Eugen ! " I said tremulously. 
 
 A sudden pause a stop ; then he said, with a kind of 
 laugh : 
 
 " Witchcraft Zauberei /" and was going on. 
 
 But now I knew his whereabouts, and coming up to him, 
 touched his arm. 
 
 "This, however, is reality!" he exclaimed, enfolding 
 me and kissing me as he hurried on. " May, how is he ? " 
 
 " Just the same," said I, clinging to him. " Oh, thank 
 heaven that you are come ! " 
 
 " I drove to the gates, and sent the fellow away. But 
 what art thou doing alone at the Ghost's Corner on a 
 stormy night ? " 
 
 We were still walking fast towards the Schloss. My 
 heart was beating fast, half with fear of what was impend- 
 ing, half with intensity of joy at hearing his voice again, 
 and knowing what that last letter had told me. 
 
 As we emerged upon the great terrace before the house 
 Eugen made one (the only one) momentary pause, pressed 
 my arm, and bit his lips. I knew the meaning of it all. 
 Then we passed quickly on. We met no one in the great 
 stone hall no one on the stairway or along the passages 
 straight he held his way, and I with him. 
 
 We entered the room. Eugen's eyes leapt swiftly to his 
 child's face. I saw him pass his hand over his mouth. 
 I withdrew my hand from his arm and stood aside, feeling
 
 The First Violin 249 
 
 a tremulous thankfulness that he was here, and that that 
 restless plaining would at last be hushed in satisfaction. 
 
 A delusion ! The face over which my lover bent did 
 not brighten; nor the eyes recognize him. The child did 
 not know the father for whom he had yearned out his little 
 heart he did not hear the half-frantic words spoken by 
 that father as he flung himself upon him, kissing him, 
 beseeching him, conjuring him with every foolish word of 
 fondness that he could think of, to speak, answer, look up 
 once again. 
 
 Then fear, terror overcame the man for the first time I 
 saw him look pale with apprehension. 
 
 "Not this cup not this!" muttered he. " Gott im 
 Himmcl! anything short of this. I will give him up 
 leave him anything only let him live ! " 
 
 He had flung himself, unnerved, trembling, upon a 
 chair by the bedside his face buried in his hands. I saw 
 the sweat stand upon his brow I could do nothing to help 
 nothing but wish despairingly that some blessed miracle 
 would reverse the condition of the child and me lay me 
 low in death upon that bed place him safe and sound in 
 his father's arms. 
 
 Is it not hard, you father of many children, to lose one 
 of them ? Do you not grudge Death his prize ? But this 
 man had but the one ; the love between them was such a 
 love as one meets perhaps once in a lifetime. The child's 
 life had been a mourning to him, the father's, a burden, 
 ever since they had parted. 
 
 I felt it strange that /should be trying to comfort him,
 
 250 The First Violin 
 
 and yet it was so : it was his brow which leaned on my 
 shoulder; it was he who was faint with anguish, so that he 
 could scarce see or speak his hand that was cold and 
 nerveless. It was I who said : 
 
 " Do not despair: I hope still." 
 
 "If he is dying," said Eugen, "he shall die in my 
 arms." 
 
 With which, as if the idea were a dreary kind of com- 
 fort, he started up, folded Sigmund in a shawl, and lifted 
 him out of bed, enfolding him in his arms, and pillowing 
 his head, upon his breast. 
 
 It was a terrible moment, yet, as I clung to his arm, 
 and with him looked into our darling's face, I felt that 
 von Francius' words, spoken long ago to my sister, con- 
 tained a deep truth. This joy, so like a sorrow would I 
 have parted with it ? A thousand times no ! 
 
 Whether the motion and movement roused him or 
 whether that were the crisis of some change, I know not. 
 Sigmund's eyes opened. He bent them upon the face above 
 him, and after a pause of reflection said, in a voice whose 
 utter satisfaction passed anything I had ever heard : " My 
 own father! " released a pair of little wasted arms from 
 his covering, and clasped them round E.ugen's neck, put- 
 ting his face close to his, and kissing him as if no number 
 of kisses could ever satisfy him. 
 
 Upon this scene, as Eugen stood in the middle of the 
 room, his head bent down a smile upon his face which 
 no ultimate griefs could for the moment quench, there 
 entered the Countess.
 
 The First Violin 251 
 
 Her greeting, after six years of absence, separation, 
 belief in his dishonesty, was a strange one. She came 
 quickly forward, laid her hand on his arm, and said : 
 
 " Eugen, it is dreadfully infectious ! Don't kiss the 
 child in that way, or you will take the fever and be laid 
 up too." 
 
 He looked up, and at his look a shock passed across 
 her face; with pallid cheeks and parted lips she gazed at 
 him, speechless. 
 
 His mind, too, seemed to bridge the gulf it was in a 
 strange tone that he answered : 
 
 " Ah, Hildegarde ! What does it matter what becomes 
 of me ? Leave me this ! " 
 
 " No, not that, Eugen," said I, going up to him, and I 
 suppose something in my eyes moved him, for he gave the 
 child into my arms in silence. 
 
 The Countess had stood looking at him. She strove for 
 silence ; sought tremulously after coldness, but in vain. 
 
 " Eugen " She came nearer, and looked more closely 
 at him. " Herrgott! how you are altered ! What a meet- 
 ing ! I can it be six years ago ? and now oh ! " Her 
 voice broke into a very wail, " We loved you why did you 
 deceive u s ? " 
 
 My heart stood still. Would he stand this test ? It was 
 the hardest he had had. Grafin Hildegarde had been 
 was dear to him. That he was dear to her intensely 
 dear ; that love for him was entwined about her very heart- 
 strings stood confessed now. " Why did you deceive us ?" 
 It sounded more like " Tell us we may trust you ; make us
 
 252 The First Violin 
 
 happy again ! " One word from him, and the poor sad 
 lady would have banished from her heart the long-staying, 
 unwelcome guest belief in his falseness, and closed it 
 away from her for ever. 
 
 He was spared the dreadful necessity of answering her. 
 A timid summons from her maid at the door told her the 
 Count wanted to speak to her, and she left us quickly. 
 ***** 
 
 Sigmund did not die : he recovered, and lives now. 
 But with that I am not at present concerned. 
 
 It was the afternoon following that never-to-be-forgotten 
 night. I had left Eugen watching beside Sigmund, who 
 was sleeping, his hand jealously holding two of his father's 
 fingers. 
 
 I intended to call at Frau Mittendorf's door to say that 
 I could not yet return there, and when I came back, said 
 Eugen, he would have something to tell me; he was going 
 to speak with his brother to tell him that we should be 
 married, " and to speak about Sigmund," he added deci- 
 sively. " I will not risk such a thing as this again. If 
 you had not been here he might have died without my 
 knowing it. I feel myself absolved from all obligation to 
 let him remain. My child's happiness shall not be further 
 sacrificed." 
 
 With this understanding I left him. I went towards the 
 Countess's room, to speak to her, and tell her of Sigmund 
 before I went out. I heard voices ere I entered the room, 
 and when I entered it I stood still, and a sickly apprehen- 
 sion clutched my very heart. There stood my evil genius
 
 The First Violin 253 
 
 the hose Geist of my lover's fate Anna Sar tori us. And 
 the Count and Countess were present, apparently waiting 
 for her to begin to speak. 
 
 " You are here," said the Gra'fin to me. " I was just 
 about to send for you. This lady says she knows you." 
 
 " She docs," said I hesitatingly. 
 
 Anna looked at me. There was gravity in her face, and 
 the usual cynical smile in her eyes. 
 
 " You arc surprised to see me," said she. " You will 
 be still more surprised to hear that I have journeyed all 
 the way from Elberthal to Lahnburg on your account, and 
 for your benefit." 
 
 I did not believe her, and composing myself as well as 
 I could, sat down. After all, what could she do to harm 
 me ? She could not rob me of Eugen's heart, and she had 
 already done her worst against him and his fair name. 
 
 Anna had a strong will : she exerted it. Graf Bruno was 
 looking in some surprise at the unexpected guest; the 
 Countess sat rigidly upright, with a puzzled look, as if at 
 the sight of Anna she recalled some far-past scene. Anna 
 compelled their attention; she turned to me, saying: 
 
 " Please remain here, Miss Wedderburn. What I have 
 to say concerns you as much as any one here. You wonder 
 who I am, and what business I have to intrude myself upon 
 you," she added to the others. 
 
 " I confess " began the Countess, and Anna went 
 
 on : 
 
 " You, gnddige Frau, have spoken to me before, and I 
 to you. I see you remember, or feel you ought to
 
 254 The First Violin 
 
 remember me. I will recall the occasion of our meeting 
 to your mind. You once called at my father's house he 
 was a music teacher to ask about lessons for some friend 
 or prote'ge'e of yours. My father was engaged at the 
 moment, and I invited you to my sitting-room and endeav- 
 ored to begin a conversation with you. You were very 
 distant and very proud, scarcely deigning to answer me. 
 When my father came into the room, I left it. But I 
 could not help laughing at your treatment of me. You 
 little knew from your shut-up, cossue existence amongst 
 the lofty ones of the earth, what influence even such insig- 
 nificant persons as I might have upon your lot. At that 
 time I was the intimate friend of, and in close corre- 
 spondence with, a person who afterwards became one of 
 your family. Her name was Vittoria Leopardi, and she 
 married your brother-in-law, Graf Eugen. " 
 
 The plain-spoken, plain-looking woman had her way. 
 She had the same power as that which shone in the " glit- 
 tering eye" of the Ancient Mariner. Whether we liked 
 or not we gave her our attention. All were listening now, 
 and we listened to the end. 
 
 " Vittoria Leopardi was the Italian governess at General 
 
 von 's in . At one time she had several music 
 
 lessons from my father. That was how I became ac- 
 quainted with her. She was very beautiful almost as 
 beautiful as you, Miss Wedderburn, and I, dull and plain 
 myself, have a keen appreciation of beauty and of the 
 gentleness which does not always accompany it. When I 
 first knew her she was lonely and strange, and I tried to
 
 The First Violin 255 
 
 befriend her. I soon began to learn what a singular mix- 
 ture of sordid worldliness and vacant weakmindedness 
 dwelt behind her fair face. She wrote to me often, for 
 she was one of the persons who must have some one to 
 whom to relate their ' triumphs ' and conquests, and I sup- 
 pose I was the only person she could get to listen to her. 
 
 " At that time the time you called at our house, gnddige 
 Frau her epistles were decidedly tedious. What sense 
 she had there was never too much of it was completely 
 eclipsed. At last came the announcement that her noble 
 and gallant Uhlan had proposed, and been accepted 
 naturally. She told me what he was, and his possessions 
 and prospects; his chief merit in her eyes appeared to be 
 that he would let her do anything she liked, and release 
 her from the drudgery of teaching, for which she never 
 had the least affinity. She hated children. She never on 
 any occasion hinted that she loved him very much. 
 
 " In due time the marriage, as you all know, came off. 
 She almost dropped me then, but never completely so ; I 
 suppose she had that instinct which stupid people often 
 have as to the sort of people who may be of use to them 
 sometime. I received no invitations to her house. She 
 used awkwardly to apologize for the negligence sometimes, 
 and say she was so busy, and it would be no compliment 
 to me to ask me to meet all those stupid people of whom 
 the house was always full. 
 
 "That did not trouble me much, though I loved her 
 none the better for it. She had become more a study to 
 me now than anything I really cared for. Occasionally I
 
 256 The First Violin 
 
 used to go and see her, in the morning, before she had 
 left her room ; and once, and once only, I met her hus- 
 band in the corridor. He was hastening away to his duty, 
 and scarcely saw me as I hurried past. Of course i knew 
 him by sight as well as possible. Who did not ? Occa- 
 sionally she came to me to recount her triumphs and make 
 me jealous. She did not wish to reign supreme in her 
 husband's heart; she wished idle men to pay her compli- 
 ments. Everybody in knew of the extravagance of 
 
 that household, and the reckless, neck-or-nothing habits of 
 its master. People were indignant with him that he did 
 not reform. I say it would have been easier for him to 
 find his way alone up the Matterhorn in the dark than to 
 reform after his marriage. 
 
 " There had been hope for him before there was none 
 afterwards. A pretty inducement to reform, she offered 
 him ! I knew that woman through and through, and I tell 
 you that never lived a more selfish, feeble, vain, and mis- 
 erable thing. All was self self self. When she was 
 mated to a man who never did think of self whose one 
 joy was to be giving, whose generosity was no less a by- 
 word than his recklessness, who was delighted if she 
 expressed a wish, and would move heaven and earth to 
 gratify it ; the more eagerly the more unreasonable it was 
 mes amis, I think it is easy to guess the end the end 
 was ruin. I watched it coming on, and I thought of you, 
 Frau Grafin. Vittoria was expecting her confinement in 
 the course of a few months. I never heard her express a 
 hope as to the coming child, never a word of joy, never a
 
 The First Violin - 57 
 
 thought as to the wider cares which a short time would 
 bring to her. She did say often, with a sigh, that women 
 with young children were so tied : they could not do this, 
 and they could not do that. She was in great excitement 
 when she was invited to come here : in great triumph when 
 she returned. 
 
 " Eugen, she said, was a fool not to conciliate his 
 brother and that doating old saint (her words, gnddige 
 Frau, not mine) more than he did. It was evident that 
 they would do anything for him if he only flattered them, 
 but he was so insanely downright she called it stupid, she 
 said. The idea of missing such advantages when a few 
 words of common politeness would have secured them. I 
 may add that what she called ' common politeness ' was 
 just the same thing that I called smooth hypocrisy. 
 
 " Very shortly after this her child was born. I did not 
 see her then. Her husband lost all his money on a race, 
 and came to smash, as you English say. She wrote to me. 
 She was in absolute need of money, she said; Eugen had 
 not been able to give her any. He had said they must 
 retrench. Retrench ! was that what she married him for ? 
 There was a set of turqouises that she must have, or 
 another woman would get them, and then she would die. 
 And her milliner, a most unreasonable woman, had sent 
 word that she must be paid. 
 
 " So she was grumbling in a letter which I received one 
 
 afternoon, and the next I was frightfully startled to see 
 
 her herself. She came in, and said smilingly that she 
 
 was going to ask a favor of me. Would I take her cab on 
 
 17
 
 258 The First Violin 
 
 to the bank and get a check cashed for her ? She did 
 not want to go there herself. And then she explained how 
 her brother-in-law had given her a check for a thousand 
 thaler was it not kind of him ? It really did not enter 
 my head at the moment to think there was anything wrong 
 about the check. She had indorsed it, and I took it, 
 received the money for it, and brought it to her. She 
 trembled so as she took it, and was so remarkably quiet 
 about it, that it suddenly flashed upon my mind that there 
 must be something not as it ought to be about it. 
 
 " I asked her a question or two, and she said, deliber- 
 ately contradicting herself, that the Herr Graf had not 
 given it to her, but to her husband, and then she went 
 away, and I was sure I should hear more about it. I did. 
 She wrote to me in the course of a few days saying she 
 wished she were dead, since Eugen, by his wickedness, had 
 destroyed every chance of happiness ; she might as well be 
 a widow. She sent me a package of letters my letters 
 and asked me to keep them, together with some other 
 things, an old desk amongst the rest. She had no means 
 of destroying them all, and she did not choose to carry 
 them to Rothenfels, whither she was going, to be buried 
 alive with those awful people. 
 
 " I accepted the charge. For five no, six years, the 
 desk, the papers, everything lay with some other posses- 
 sions of mine which I could not carry about with me on 
 the wandering life I led after my father's death stored in 
 an old trunk in the lumber-room of a cousin's house. I 
 visited that house last week.
 
 The First Violin 259 
 
 " Certain circumstances which have Occurred of late 
 years induced me to look over those papers. I burnt the 
 old bundle of letters from myself to her, and then I looked 
 through the desk. In a pigeon-hole I found these." 
 
 She handed some pieces of paper to Graf Bruno, who 
 looked at them. I, too, have seen them since. They 
 bore the imitations of different signatures : her husband's, 
 Graf Bruno's, that of Anna Sartorius, and others which I 
 did not know. 
 
 The same conviction as that which had struck Anna 
 flashed into the eyes of Graf von Rothenfels. 
 
 "I found those." repeated Anna, "and I knew in a 
 second who was the culprit. He, your brother, is no 
 criminal. She forged the signature of Herr Graf " 
 
 " Who forged the signature of the Herr Graf ? " asked a 
 voice which caused me to start up, which brought all our 
 eyes from Anna's face, upon which they had been fastened, 
 and showed us Eugen standing in the doorway, with com- 
 pressed lips and eyes that looked from one to the other of 
 us anxiously. 
 
 "Your wife," said Anna calmly. And before any one 
 could speak she went on : "I have helped to circulate 
 the lie about you, Herr Graf " she spoke to Eugen " for 
 I disliked you ; I disliked your family, and I disliked, or 
 rather wished to punish, Miss Wedderburn for her behavior 
 to me. But I firmly believed the story I circulated. The 
 moment I knew the truth I determined to set you right. 
 Perhaps I was pleased to be able to circumvent your plans. 
 
 " I considered that if I told the truth to Friedhelm
 
 2<*o The First Violin 
 
 Helfen he would be as silent as yourself, because you chose 
 to be silent. The same with May Wedderburn, therefore 
 I decided to come to headquarters at once. It is useless 
 for you to try to appear guilty any longer," she added 
 mockingly. " You can tell them all the rest, and I will 
 wish you good-afternoon." 
 
 She was gone. From that day to this I have never seen 
 her nor heard of her again. Probably with her power over 
 us her interest in us ceased. 
 
 Meanwhile I had released myself from the spell which 
 held me, and gone to the Countess. Something very like 
 fear held me from approaching Eugen. 
 
 Count Bruno had gone to his brother, and touched his 
 shoulder. Eugen looked up. Their eyes met. It just 
 flashed into my mind that after six years of separation the 
 first words were must be words of reconciliation, of for- 
 giveness asked on the one side, eagerly extended on the other. 
 
 " Eugen ! " in a trembling voice, and then, with a posi- 
 tive sob, " canst thou forgive ? " 
 
 " My brother I have not resented. I could not. 
 Honor in thee, as honor in me " 
 
 " But that thou wert doubted, hated, mistak " 
 
 But another had asserted herself. The Countess had 
 come to herself again, and going up to him, looked him 
 full in the face and kissed him. 
 
 " Now I can die happy ! What folly, Eugen ! and folly 
 like none but thine. I might have known " 
 
 A faint smile crossed his lips. For all the triumphant 
 vindication, he looked very pallid.
 
 The First Violin 261 
 
 " I have often wondered, Hildegarde, how so proud a 
 woman as you could so soon accept the worthlessness of a 
 pupil on whom she had spent such pains as you upon me. 
 I learnt my best notions of honor and chivalry from you. 
 You might have credited me rather with trying to carry the 
 lesson out than with plucking it away and casting it from 
 me at the first opportunity." 
 
 " You have much to forgive," said she. 
 
 " Eugen, you came to see me on business," said his 
 brother. 
 
 Eugen turned to me. I turned hot and then cold. This 
 was a terrible ordeal indeed. He seem metamorphosed 
 into an exceedingly grand personage as he came to me, 
 took my hand, and said, very proudly and very gravely : 
 
 " The first part of my business related to Sigmund. It 
 will not need to be discussed now. The rest was to tell 
 you that this young lady in spite of having heard all that 
 could be said against me was still not afraid to assert her 
 intention to honor me by becoming my wife and sharing 
 my fate. Now that she has learnt the truth May, do you 
 still care for me enough to marry me ? " 
 
 "If so," interrupted his brother, before I could speak, 
 " let me add my petition and that of my wife do you 
 allow me, Hildegarde ?" 
 
 " Indeed yes, yes ! " 
 
 " That she will honor us and make us happy by enter- 
 ing our family, which can only gain by the acquisition of 
 such beauty and excellence." 
 
 The idea of being entreated by Graf Bruno to marry his
 
 262 The First Violin 
 
 brother almost overpowered me. I looked at Eugen and 
 stammered out something inaudible, confused, too, by the 
 look he gave me. 
 
 He was changed; he was more formidable now than 
 before, and he led me silently up to his brother without a 
 word, upon which Count Bruno crowned my confusion by 
 uttering some more very Grandisonian words and gravely 
 saluting my cheek. That was certainly a terrible moment, 
 but from that day to this I have loved better and better 
 my haughty brother-in-law. 
 
 Half in consideration for me, I believe, the Countess 
 began : 
 
 " But I want to know, Eugen, about this. I don't quite 
 understand yet, how you managed to shift the blame upon 
 yourself." 
 
 " Perhaps he does not want to tell," said I hastily. 
 
 " Yes; since the truth is known, I may tell the rest," 
 said he. " It was a very simple matter. After all was 
 lost, my only ray of comfort was that I could pay my 
 debts by selling everything, and throwing up my commis- 
 sion. But when I thought of my wife I felt a devil. I 
 suppose that is the feeling which the devils do experience 
 in place of love at least Heine says so : 
 
 " ' Die Teufel nennen es HSllenqual, 
 Die Menschen nennen es Liebe.' 
 
 " I kept it from her as long as I could. It was a week 
 after Sigmund was born that at last one day I had to tell 
 her. I actually looked to her for advice, help. It was
 
 The First Violin 263 
 
 tolerably presumptuous in me, I must say, after what I had 
 brought her to. She brought me to reason. May heaven 
 preserve men from needing such lessons ! She reproached 
 me ay, she did reproach me. I thank my good genius, 
 or whatever it is that looks after us, that I could set my 
 teeth and not answer her a syllable." 
 
 " The minx ! " said the Countess aside to me, " I would 
 have shaken her." 
 
 " ' What was she to do without a groschen ? ' she con- 
 cluded, and I could only say that I had had thoughts of 
 dropping my military career and taking to music in good 
 earnest. I had never been able to neglect it, even in my 
 worst time, for it was a passion with me. She said : 
 
 " ' A composer a beggar ! ' That was hard. 
 
 " I asked her, ' Will you not help me ? ' 
 
 " ' Never to degrade yourself in that manner,' she 
 assured me. 
 
 " Considering that I had deserved my punishment, I 
 left her. I sat up all night, I remember, thinking over 
 what I had brought her to, and wondering what I could do 
 for her. I wondered if you, Bruno, would help her and 
 let me go away and work out my punishment, for, believe 
 me, I never thought of shirking it. I had been most 
 effectually brought to reason, and your example, and 
 yours, Hildegarde, had taught me a different kind of 
 moral fibre to that. 
 
 " I brought your note about the check to Vittoria, 
 and asked her if she knew anything about it. She 
 looked at me, and in that instant I knew the truth. She
 
 264 The First Violin 
 
 did not once attempt to deny it. I do not know what, 
 in my horrible despair and shame, I may have said or 
 done. 
 
 " I was brought to my senses by seeing her cowering 
 before me, with her hands before her face, and begging 
 me not to kill her. I felt what a brute I must have been, 
 but that kind of brutality has been knocked out of me 
 long ago. I raised her, and asked her to forgive me, and 
 bade her keep silence and see no one, and I would see 
 that she did not suffer for it. 
 
 " Everything seemed to stand clearly before me. If I 
 had kept straight, the poor ignorant thing would never 
 have been tempted to such a thing. I settled my whole 
 course in half an hour, and have never departed from it 
 since. 
 
 " I wrote that letter to you, and went and read it to my 
 wife. I told her that I could never forgive myself for 
 having caused her such unhappiness, and that I was going 
 to release her from me. I only dropped a vague hint 
 about the boy at first ; I was stooping over his crib to say 
 good-by to him. She said, ' What am / to do with 
 him ? ' I caught at the idea, and she easily let me take 
 him. I asked Hugo von Meilingen to settle affairs for 
 me ; and left that night. Thanks to you, Bruno, the story 
 never got abroad. The rest you know." 
 
 " What did you tell Hugo von Meilingen ? " 
 
 " Only that I had made a mess of everything and 
 broken my wife's heart, which he did not seem to believe. 
 He was staunch. He settled up everything. Some day I
 
 The First Violin 265 
 
 will thank him for it. For two years I travelled about 
 a good deal. Sigmund has been more a citizen of the 
 world than he knows. I had so much facility of execu- 
 tion " 
 
 " So much genius, you mean," I interposed. 
 
 " That I never had any difficulty in getting an engage- 
 ment. I saw a wonderful amount of life of a certain kind, 
 and learnt most thoroughly to despise my own past, and 
 to entertain a thorough contempt for those who are still 
 leading such lives. I have learnt German history in my 
 banishment. I have lived with our true heroes the lower 
 middle-classes." 
 
 " Well, well ! You were always a radical, Eugen," 
 said the Count indulgently. 
 
 " At last, at Koln, I obtained the situation of first vio- 
 linist in the Elberthal Kapelle, and I went over there one 
 wet October afternoon, and saw the director, von Francius. 
 He was busy, and referred me to the man who was next 
 below me, Friedhelm Helfen. " 
 
 Eugen paused, and choked down some little emotion 
 ere he added : 
 
 " You must know him. I trust to have his friendship 
 till death separate us. He is a nobleman of nature's most 
 careful making a knight sans peur et sans reproche. When 
 Sigmund came here it was he who saved me from doing 
 something desperate or drivelling there is not much of 
 a step between the two. Fraulein Sartorius, who seems to 
 have a peculiar disposition, took it into her head to con- 
 front me with a charge of my guilt at a public place..
 
 266 The First Violin 
 
 Friedhelm never wavered, despite my shame and my 
 inability to deny the charge." 
 
 " Oh dear, how beautiful ! " said the Countess in tears. 
 " We must have him over here and see a great deal of 
 him." 
 
 "We must certainly know him, and that soon," said 
 Count Bruno. 
 
 At this juncture I, from mingled motives, stole from the 
 room, and found my way to Sigmund's bedside, where also 
 joy awaited me. The stupor and the restlessness had alike 
 vanished : he was in a deep sleep. I knelt down by the 
 bedside and remained there long. 
 
 Nothing, then, was to be as I had planned it. There 
 would be no poverty, no shame to contend against no 
 struggle to make, except the struggle up to the standard 
 so fearfully severe and unapproachable, set up by my own 
 husband. Set up and acted upon by him. How could I 
 ever attain it or anything near it ? Should I not be con- 
 stantly shocking him by coarse, gross notions as to the 
 needlessness of this or that fine point of conduct ? by my 
 ill-defined ideas as to a code of honor my slovenly ways 
 of looking at questions ? 
 
 It was such a fearful height, this to which he had carried 
 his notions and behavior in the matter of chivalry and 
 loyalty. How was I ever to help him to carry it out, and, 
 moreover, to bring up this child before me, and perhaps 
 children of my own in the same rules ? 
 
 It was no doubt a much more brilliant destiny which 
 actually awaited me, than any which I had anticipated
 
 The First Violin 267 
 
 the wife of a nobleman, with the traditions of a long line 
 of noblemen and noblewomen to support, and a husband 
 with the most impossible ideas upon the subject. 
 
 I felt afraid. I thought of that poor, vain, selfish first 
 wife, and I wondered if ever the time might come when I 
 might fall in his eyes as she had fallen, for scrupulous 
 though he was to cast no reproach upon her, I felt keenly 
 that he despised her, that had she lived after that dreadful 
 discovery he would never have loved her again. It was 
 awful to think of. True, I should never commit forgery; 
 "but I might, without knowing it, fail in some other way, 
 and then woe to me ! 
 
 Thus dismally cogitating I was roused by a touch on my 
 shoulder and a kiss on the top of my head. Eugen was 
 leaning over me, laughing. 
 
 " You have been saying your prayers so long that I was 
 sure you must be asking too much." 
 
 I confided some of my doubts and fears to him, for with 
 his actual presence that dreadful height of morality 
 seemed to dwindle down. He was human too quick, 
 impulsive, a very mortal. And he said : 
 
 " I would ask thee one thing, May. Thou dost not 
 seem to see what makes all the difference. I loved Vit- 
 toria : I longed to make some sacrifice for her, would she 
 but have let me. But she could not, poor girl ! She did 
 not love me." 
 
 "Well ?" 
 
 " Well ! Mein Engel you do," said he, laughing. 
 
 " Oh, I see ! " said I, feeling myself blushing violently.
 
 2,68 The First Violin 
 
 Yes, it was true. Our union should be different from that 
 former one. After all it was pleasant to find that the high 
 tragedy which we had so wisely planned for ourselves had 
 made a faux pas and come ignominiously to ground. 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " And surely, when all this is past 
 They shall not want their rest at last." 
 
 ON the 23d of December I will not say how few or 
 how many years after those doings and that violent agita- 
 tion which my friend Grafin May has striven to make 
 coherent in the last chapter I, with my greatcoat on my 
 arm, stood waiting for the train which was to bear me ten 
 miles away from the sleepy old musical ducal Hauptstadt, 
 in which I am Herzoglicher Kapellmeister, to Rothenfels, 
 where I was bidden to spend Christmas. 
 
 I had not long to wait. Having ascertained that my bag 
 was safe, in which reposed divers humble proofs of my 
 affection for the friends of the past, I looked leisurely 
 out as the train came in, for a second-class carriage, and 
 very soon found what I wanted. I shook hands with an 
 acquaintance, and leaned out of the window, talking to 
 him till the train started. Then for the first time I began 
 to look at my fellow-traveller; a lady, and most distinctly 
 not one of my own countrywomen, who, whatever else they 
 may excel in, emphatically do not know how to clothe 
 themselves for travelling. Her veil was down, but her 
 face was turned towards me, and I thought I knew some-
 
 The First Violin 269 
 
 thing of the grand sweep of the splendid shoulders, and 
 majestic bearing of the stately form. She soon raised her 
 veil, and looking at me said, with a grave bow : 
 
 " Herr Helfen, how do you do ? " 
 
 " Ah, pardon me, gnddige Fran ; for the moment I did 
 not recognize you. I hope you are well." 
 
 " Quite well, thank you," said she, with grave courtesy; 
 but" I saw that her beautiful face was thin and worn, her 
 pallor greater than ever. 
 
 She had never been a person much given to mirthful- 
 ness ; but now she looked as if all smiles had passed for 
 ever from her lips a certain secret sat upon them, and 
 closed them in an outline, sweet, but utterly impene- 
 trable. 
 
 " You are going to Rothenfels, I presume ? " she said. 
 
 " Yes. And you also ? " 
 
 " I also somewhat against my will ; but I did not 
 want to hurt my sister's feelings. It is the first time I 
 have left home since my husband's death." 
 
 I bowed. Her face did not alter. Calm, sad, and 
 staid whatever storms had once shaken that proud heart, 
 they were lulled for ever now. 
 
 Two years ago Adelaide von Francius had buried keen 
 grief and sharp anguish, together with vivid hope or great 
 joy, with her noble husband, whom we had mourned bit- 
 terly then, whom we yet mourn in our hearts, and whom 
 we shall continue to mourn as long as we live. 
 
 May's passionate conviction that he and she should meet 
 again had been fulfilled. They ha4 met, and each nad
 
 270 The First Violin 
 
 found the other unchanged ; and Adelaide had begun to 
 yield to the conviction that her sister's love was love, pure 
 and simple, and not pity. Since his death she had con- 
 tinued to live in the town in which their married life had 
 been passed a life which for her was just beginning to be 
 happy that is to say, she was just learning to allow her- 
 self to be happy, in the firm assurance of his unalterable 
 love and devotion, when the summons came : a sharp 
 attack, a short illness, all over eyes closed, lips too, 
 silent before her for evermore. 
 
 It has often been my fate to hear criticisms both on von 
 Francius and his wife, and upon their conduct. This I 
 know, that she never forgave herself the step she had taken 
 in her despair. Her pride never recovered from the bur- 
 den laid upon it that she. had taken the initiative, had 
 followed the man who had said farewell to her. Bad her 
 lot was to be, sad, and joyless, whether in its gilded cage, 
 or linked with the man whom she loved, but to be with 
 whom she had had to pay so terrible a price. I have never 
 heard her complain of life or the world ; yet she can find 
 neither very sweet, for she is an extremely proud woman, 
 who has made two terrible failures in her affairs. 
 
 Von Francius, before he died, had made a mark not to 
 be erased in the hearts of his musical compatriots. Had 
 he lived but that is vain ! Still one feels one cannot 
 but feel that, as his widow said to me, with matter-of- 
 fact composure : 
 
 " He was much more hardly to be spared than such a 
 person as I, Herr Helfen. If I might have died a.nd left
 
 The First Violin 271 
 
 him to enrich and gladden the world, I should have felt 
 that I had not made such a mess of everything after all." 
 
 Yet she never referred to him as " My poor husband," 
 or by any of those softening terms by which some people 
 approach the name of a dead dear one ; all the same we 
 knew quite well that with him life had died for her. 
 
 Since his death, she and I had been in frequent com- 
 munication ; she was editing a new edition of his works, 
 for which, after his death, there had been an instant call. 
 It had lately been completed; and the music of our 
 former friend shall, if I mistake not, become, in the best 
 and highest sense of the word, popular music the 
 people's music. I had been her eager and, she was 
 pleased to say, able assistant in the work. 
 
 We journeyed on together through the winter country, 
 and I glanced at her now and then at the still pale face 
 which rose above her English-fashioned sealskin, and won- 
 dered how it was that some faces, though never so young 
 and beautiful, have written upon them in unmistakable 
 characters, " The End,-" as one saw upon her face. Still, 
 we talked about all kinds of matters musical, private, 
 and public. I asked if she went out at all. 
 
 " Only to concerts with the von s, who have been 
 
 friends of mine ever since I went to ," she replied; 
 
 and then the train rolled into the station of Lahnburg. 
 
 There was a group of faces I knew waiting to meet us. 
 
 " Ah, there is my sister Stella," said Adelaide in a low 
 voice. " How she is altered ! And that is May's hus- 
 band, I suppose. I remember his face now that I see it."
 
 272 The First Violin 
 
 We had been caught sight of. Four people came crowd- 
 ing round us. Eugen my eyes fell upon him first we 
 grasped hands silently. His wife, looking lovelier than 
 ever in her winter furs and feathers. A tall boy in a seal- 
 skin cap my Sigmund who had been hanging on his 
 father's arm, and whose eyes welcomed me more volubly 
 than his tongue, which was never given to excessive wag- 
 ging. 
 
 May and Frau von Francius went home in a carriage 
 which Sigmund, under the direction of an awful-looking 
 Kutscher, drove. 
 
 Stella, Eugen, and I walked to Rothenfels, and they 
 quarrelled, as they always did, while I listened and gave 
 an encouraging word to each in turn. Stella Wedderburn 
 was very beautiful ; and after spending Christmas at Roth- 
 enfels, she was going home to be married. Eugen, May, 
 and Sigmund were going too, for the first time since May's 
 marriage. 
 
 Graf Bruno that year had temporarily abdicated his 
 throne, and Eugen had been constituted host for the sea- 
 son. The guests were his and his wife's; the arrange- 
 ments were his, and the entertainment fell to his share. 
 
 Grafin Hildegarde looked a little amazed at such of her 
 guests, for instance, as Karl Linders. She had got over the 
 first shock of seeing me a regular visitor in the house, and 
 was pleased to draw me aside on this occasion and inform 
 me that really that young man, Herr Linders, was present- 
 able quite presentable and never forgot himself; he had 
 handed her into her carriage yesterday, really quite credi-
 
 The First Violin 273 
 
 tably. No doubt it was long friendship with Eugen which 
 had given him that extra polish. 
 
 " Indeed, Frau Grafin, he was always like that. It is 
 natural." 
 
 " He is very presentable, really very. But as a friend 
 of Eugen's," and she smiled condescendingly upon me, 
 " he would naturally be so." 
 
 In truth, Karl was Karl. " Time had not thinned his 
 flowing locks " ; he was as handsome, as impulsive, and as 
 true as ever; had added two babies to his responsibilities, 
 who, with his beloved Frau Gemahlin, had likewise been 
 bidden to this festivity, but had declined to quit the stove 
 and private Christmas-tree of home life. He wore no 
 more short jackets now; his sister Gretchen was engaged 
 to a young doctor, and Karl's head was growing higher 
 as it deserved for it had no mean or shady deeds to bow it. 
 
 The company then consisted in toto of Graf and Grafin 
 von Rothenfels, who, I must record it, both looked full ten 
 years younger and better since their prodigal was returned 
 to them, of Stella Wedderburn, Frau von Francius, Karl 
 Linders, and Friedhelm Helfen. May, as I said, looked 
 lovelier than ever. It was easy to see that she was the dar- 
 ling of the elder brother and his wife. She was a radiant, 
 bright creature, yet her deepest affections were given to 
 sad people to her husband, to her sister Adelaide, to 
 Countess Hildegarde. 
 
 She and Eugen are well mated. It is true he is not a 
 very cheerful man his face is melancholy. In his eyes 
 is a shadow which never wholly disappears lines upon his 
 18
 
 274 The First Violin 
 
 broad and tranquil brow which are indelible. He has 
 honor and titles, and a name clean and high before men, 
 but it was not always so. That terrible bringing to reason 
 that six years' grinding lesson of suffering, self-suppres- 
 sion ay, self-effacement have left their marks, a 
 " shadow plain to see," and will never leave him. He is 
 a different man from the outcast who stepped forth into 
 the night with a weird upon him, nor ever looked back till 
 it was dreed out in darkness to its utmost term. 
 
 He has tasted of the sorrows the self-brought sorrows 
 which make merry men into sober ones, the sorrows which 
 test a man and prove his character to be of gold or of 
 dross, and therefore he is grave. Grave too is the son, 
 who is more worshipped by both him and his wife than 
 any of their other children. Sigmund von Rothenfels is 
 what outsiders call " a strange, incomprehensible child " ; 
 seldom smiles, and has no child friends. His friends are 
 his father and " Mother May " Miitterchen he calls her; 
 and it is quaint sometimes to see how on an equality the 
 three meet and associate. His notions of what it is fit for 
 a man to be and do, he takes from his father; his ideal 
 woman I am sure he has one would, I believe, turn out 
 to be a subtle and impossible compound of May and his 
 Aunt Hildegarde. 
 
 We sometimes speculate as to what he will turn out. 
 Perhaps the musical genius which his father will not bring 
 before the world in himself, may one day astonish that 
 world in Sigmund. It is certain that his very life seems 
 bound up in the art, and in that house and that circle it
 
 The First Violin 275 
 
 must be a very Caliban, or something yet lower, which 
 could resist the influence. 
 
 One day May, Eugen, Karl, and I, repaired to the 
 music-room and played together the Fourth Symphony and 
 some of Schumann's Kinderscenen, but May began to cry 
 before it was over, and the rest of us had thoughts that did 
 lie too deep for tears thoughts of that far-back afternoon 
 of Carnival Monday, and how we " made a sunshine in a 
 shady place ' ' of all that came before and after. 
 
 Between me and Eugen there has never come a cloud, 
 nor the faintest shadow of one. Builded upon days passed 
 together in storm and sunshine, weal and woe, good report 
 and evil report, our union stands upon a firm foundation of 
 that nether rock of friendship, perfect trust, perfect faith, 
 love stronger than death, which makes a peace in our 
 hearts, a mighty influence in our lives which very truly 
 " passeth understanding." 
 if
 
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