Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/storyageniusfro00lockgoog
2. There are three stories included in this volume:
(a) [The Story of a Genius]
(b) [The Nobl' Zwilk]
(c) [What Happened to Holy Saint Pancras of Evolo]

THE

STORY OF A GENIUS

FROM THE GERMAN OF
OSSIP SCHUBIN

ENGLISHED BY
E. H. LOCKWOOD

R. F. FENNO & COMPANY: 9 and 11 E.
SIXTEENTH STREET :: NEW YORK
1898

Copyright, 1898
BY
R. F. FENNO & COMPANY

The Story of a Genius

[The Story of a Genius]

I

Monsieur Alphonse de Sterny will come to Brussels in November and conduct his Oratoria of "Satan."

This short notice in the Indépendence Belge created a general sensation. The musicians shrugged, bit their lips, and sneered about the public's injustice toward home talent. The "great world,"--between ourselves the most unmusical "world" in the universe,--very nearly stepped out of its aristocratic apathy. This is something which seldom happens to it in artistic matters, but now, for a whole week it talked nothing but de Sterny: of his octave playing a little, and of his love affairs a great deal. In autumn Brussels has so little to talk about!

Alphonse de Sterny had been in his day a great virtuoso and a social lion. Reigning belles had contended for his favor; George Sand was said to have written a book about him, nobody knew exactly which one; the fair Princess G---- was supposed to have taken poison on his account. But five years before the appearance of this notice in the Indépendence Belge, de Sterny had suddenly withdrawn from the world. During that time he had not given any concerts, nor had he produced any new piano pieces, in his well-known style, paraphrases and fantasies on favorite airs.

Now, for the first in that long interval his name emerged, and in connection with an Oratorio!

De Sterny and an Oratorio!

The world found that a little odd. The artists thought it a great joke.

II

It is November fifth, the day on which the first rehearsal of "Satan" is to be held, under the composer's own direction.

In the concert hall of the "Grand Harmonic" the performers are already assembled. In honor of the distinguished guest half a dozen more gas jets are burning than is usual at rehearsals, yet the large hall with its dark auditorium and the dim flickering light on its stage, has a desolate, ghostly air. A smell of gas, dust and moist cloth pervades the atmosphere.

A grey rime of congealed mist clings to and trickles down the clothes of the latest arrivals. One sees within the hall how bad the weather must be without. The lusty male chorus, with their pear-shaped Flemish faces, their picturesquely soiled linen, and their luxuriant growth of hair, knock off the clay from their boots and turn down the legs of their trousers. The disheveled female chorus, on whose shoulders the locks are hanging out of curl, complain of indisposition, and exchange cough lozenges. The members of the orchestra work away sulkily on their instruments. Across the dissonance of the thrilling fiddles darts the sharp sound of a string that breaks.

Two dilettanti have slipped in by favor. One is a young piano teacher of German extraction, who raves about the music of the future. The other is an amateur, well known in Brussels by the nickname of "l'ami de Rossini."

The instruments are tuned; here and there a violin practices a scale. The gas jets chirp faintly. The male chorus stamp their feet to keep warm, and rub their red knuckles together. De Sterny is letting himself be waited for.

The friend of Rossini makes up to the lady soloists.

"Madame," he says to the Alto, whose engagement at the "Monnaie" he had helped to bring about, "Madame, I pity you. De Sterny is an exponent of this new music of the future. His compositions are among the most ungrateful tasks ever set the human throat. One only needs to sing them to expiate by penance all one's musical pleasures."

"You are too severe, monsieur," said the Alto. "No one can wonder at the 'friend of Rossini' for hating the music of the future, and I grant that some numbers of this Oratorio are quite astonishingly dull. But with some of the others, monsieur, I predict that you will have to confess yourself in sympathy."

"I, confess myself in sympathy with the music of the future!"

"Well, well," said the Alto, soothingly, "up to a certain point I agree with your aversion, but you must grant all the same that Wagner and Berlioz are composers of genius, and that the music of the future has opened new regions of art."

"What has it opened? A parade ground for pretentious mediocrity! I'll grant this much, that Wagner and Berlioz are ill-doers of genius. But the 'school!' and this new invention they call descriptive music! An insurrection of fiddles screaming over against one another! and they give it names. 'Battleo of the Horatii'--'Eruption of Vesuvius'--so that the audience may have something to think about since they can't feel anything, except headache!"

L'ami de Rossini laughed very much at his own joke.

"H'm!-m! and this fine work of de Sterny's," he began again, "I suppose it consists of splendid paraphrases upon poverty of thought."

"The 'Satan' contains pearls which will enchant you," replied the Alto. "But see--here comes de Sterny! I commend the 'Duet of the Outcasts' to your attention."

Followed by the capellmeister and a little group of intimate admirers, Alphonse de Sterny stepped upon the platform. The German pianist started and raised a pair of rapture dilated eyes. De Sterny, who was well accustomed to create that sort of excitement, smiled faintly, threw her an encouraging glance, and nodding to the bowing orchestra took his place before the conductor's desk. Then he let his keen eyes run over the ranks of his musical forces. The violin rows were not even.

"Who is absent?" he asked, pointing to the vacant place.

The violins looked at one another, murmured a name indistinctly, and some one said, "He is excused."

"He is only just out of the hospital," explained the capellmeister, "he often is irregular about rehearsals."

"And you permit that?" asked de Sterny, with his deliberate smile.

"He--he--never spoils anything at the concerts, and I have consideration for him because, because,"--the capellmeister stammered, embarrassed, and stopped short. "But certainly it is an inexcusable irregularity and should be punished," he added.

De Sterny shrugged his shoulders. "Don't disturb yourself," he said, "but next time I hope I shall find my musical forces all together." He rapped on the desk.

His manner of conducting was characteristic. It recalled neither the fiery contortions of Verdi, nor the demoniac energy of Berlioz. His movements at first were quiet, almost weary, his countenance wore an expression of fixed concentration; suddenly his eyes lighted up, his lip quivered, his breast heaved as an exciting climax approached, he raised his arms higher and higher, like wings with which he would wrench himself free from earth; then all at once he collapsed with a look of dejected exhaustion.

"He is killing himself!" sighed the pianist, in a gush of sympathy. But the friend of Rossini said testily:

"He is an incarnate phrase like his own music, and just as full of grimaces!" The introductory figure had confirmed his aversion to de Sterny. "A pretentious fuss!" he muttered grimly, while the pianist with her hand on her heart declared she had "heard the fall of Avalanches!" The figure was repeated and left for future study, and then the Alto laid aside her furs, rose, threw the "friend of Rossini" one glance, drew her mouth into the regulation Oratorio smile, and began.

Upon a somewhat dramatic recitation there followed a meltingly sweet, inexpressibly mournful melody! Yes, really a melody! As simple, genuine and tender as a melody of Mozart, but adapted to the requirements of our modern pain craving ears by a few bitter-melancholy modulations. The friend of Rossini could scarcely believe his senses.

And now with every number,--a few bombastic interludes excepted--the beauties of "Satan" increased until at last at the "Duet of the Outcasts," a duet wherein the whole human race seems to weep for its lost heaven, the orchestra rose and broke into enthusiastic applause. De Sterny shed tears, assured them it was the happiest moment of his life, and the execution of the orchestra surpassed all his hopes, the pianiste fell into raptures, and the friend of Rossini growled, while he mechanically moved his hands in applause, "Where did he get that now? A plagiarism--a mass of plagiarism--but from whence?"

The duet was followed by a really hateful finale, which the more experienced among the musicians forgave for the sake of the Oratorio's otherwise uncommon beauties. The musical craft generally put their envy in their pockets, didn't understand, but made their bows as became them before a great mystery.

Next morning, de Sterny, in the coupe of the Countess C---- drove up the steep street Montague de la Cour. He was going to be served with an exquisite breakfast, by gold laced lackeys, and to let himself be buzzed about by mind perverting flatteries uttered in soft aristocratic voices. Suddenly he saw something that interested--that startled him.

Before one of the large red posters which announced the approaching Oratorio performance, stood a broad-shouldered man with worn-out boots, shabby clothes, and a soft felt hat dragged down over his ears.

A crowd of wagons blocked the way, and the coupe was obliged to stop. Again the virtuoso glanced at the shabby man; this time he saw him in profile. Strange! De Sterny turned pale as a corpse and leaned back shuddering in the soft green satin cushions of the carriage. Could it be that he knew the shabby man, or had known him before the brutalizing stamp of drink had disfigured his face?

Who knows? For the matter of that there was enough in the stranger's appearance to draw a glance and a shudder from any passer-by.

Round shoulders, a loose carriage, a slouching walk, and yet in the whole person and expression of broken-down vigor, and burned-out fire. A handsome face, with somewhat too full red lips, a short nose, powerful brow and eyes, the latter contracting and peering out like those of a wild animal that shuns the light, or like those of a man who will see nothing but the narrow path in which he is condemned to walk, or, perhaps, where he has condemned himself to walk, for life: in the whole countenance the marks of past anguish and present degradation.

Meanwhile the jam has given way, and while C---- cream colors, striking out to regain lost time, bring the great man rapidly up to the countess's palace, the shabby stranger enters one of those butter shops out of which, in the rear, a liquor shop usually opens, and calls for a glass of gin.

III

Who was he? What was he?

One of those riddles that heaven sends from time to time down to earth to be solved. But the earth occasionally finds the task too difficult and buries the riddle unread in her bosom.

He was born in Brussels, the son of a chorus singer in the theatre "de la Monnaie," and of one of those Hungarian Gipsy musicians, who appear now here now there in the capitals and small towns of Europe, always in bands, like troops of will-o'-the-wisps, carrying on their unwarranted and unjustifiable but bewitching musical nonsense. The mother, Margaretha von Zuylen, she was called, gave the boy the first name of his Hungarian father, who had disappeared before the child saw the light. The Flemish woman's son was named Gesa, Gesa von Zuylen. He had a dark-eyed face, framed by black curls; at the same time he was somewhat rounded in feature, and heavily built, indicating that he was a son of his flat, canal-intersected fatherland. His temperament was a strange mixture of dreamy inertness and fitful fire. The alley in which he grew up was called the Rue Ravestein, and stretched itself crooked and uneven, dirty and neglected, behind the Rue Montagne de la Cour, out toward St. Gudule. The nooks and corners of that region, albeit close to the brilliant centre of urban civilization, have an ill name, are picturesquely disreputable, and quite unrecognized by the good society of Brussels. No carriage can pass here, partly because the alleys are too narrow, partly because their original unevenness--no country in the world has a more hilly capital than flat Belgium--is increased here and there by a few rickety steps. Consequently nearly all the inhabitants extend their domestic establishments into the open air.

The active life and the dirt remind one of southern cities. Decaying vegetables, squirrel skins, paper flowers, old ball gloves, ashes, and other trash make themselves comfortable on the large irregular stones of the pavement, and through the middle slowly creep the dull and stagnant waters of the drain. Long-legged hyena-like dogs, with crooked backs and rough hides, that remind the visitor of Constantinople, belonging to nobody, snuff amongst the refuse; scissors-grinders, and other roofless vagabonds, lie, according to the time of year, in the shade or the sunshine; untidy women in dirty wrappers, with slovenly hair caught up on pins, lean out of windows and carry on endless conversations; others stand in the house doors, a puffy red fist on either hip, and look forth, blinking at time creeping by.

The houses are not alike, some are narrow and tall, some broad and low, as if crowded into the ground by their monstrous red-green roofs. In a few windows are flower pots, others are closely curtained. Small, not particularly tempting drinking shops, with dark red woodwork, on which is written in white letters, "Hier verkoopt men drank," frequently break the rows of dwellings. Any one of these alleys, in Gesa's youth, might have passed for all the rest, only the Rue Ravestein perhaps was still more disreputably picturesque than the others. With the lazy hum of its vagabond life there mingled the sound of the coffin maker's hammer and the sharp stroke of the stone mason's chisel. Against the rear wall of an ancient grey church there leaned an enormous crucifix, and from beneath the time-blackened halo around his head, the Redeemer looked sadly down on the shame and misery that he had not been able to banish from the world. Two narrow church windows mirrored themselves in the waters of the drain, that is, on days when the drain was clear enough.

In these surroundings Gesa grew up. His mother belonged among those females who stood in the house doors and blinked at time creeping by. She was a type of a handsome Fleming, tall, somewhat heavy, with powerful limbs and a red and white complexion. Her red lips parted indolently over very white teeth, a delicate pink played about her nostrils. She had the prominent eyes and the richly waving, luxuriant, tawny hair with which Rubens liked to adorn his Magdalens. When she was not engaged at the theatre, or standing in the house door, she was lounging on her straw bed in the gaunt room, reading robber stories out of old journals, that were bought from an antiquary in a rag shop near by, and circulated from hand to hand among the gossips of the Rue Ravestein.

Lazy to sleepiness, good-humored to weakness, she had ever a caress for Gesa, and a merry frolic for the big grey cat. She lived only in the moment. In the beginning of the month, she fed the boy with dainties, toward the end she ran in debt.

From his earliest youth Gesa was musical. Before he could speak, he would look up with great dark eyes to his mother, enchanted when she rocked him in her arms and sang a cradle song.

A friend of Margaretha taught the little one to play on the violin. Gesa learned extraordinarily fast. The chorus singer's financial condition growing constantly more and more unfortunate, led her to make use of her son's talent, and she actually procured him an engagement, when he was hardly nine years old, in the band of a circus that had erected its temporary booths on the "Grand Sablon," and whose company consisted of an acrobat of conspicuous beauty, a particularly unpleasant dwarf named Molaro, four monkeys and a pony, the height of whose accomplishments it was to stand on three legs, though that might have been due to infirmity rather than art.

Gesa's orchestral duties consisted in supporting, along with an old flutist, the musical disorders of a narrow-chested, long-haired youth, who hammered waltzes and polkas on a tired old spinnet, while at the same time, as he confessed to little Gesa with a sigh, he had vainly longed all his life to be entrusted with the execution of a funeral march!

The circus gave its performances from two to four in the afternoon, and was always empty. While Gesa, behind the orchestra rails, fiddled his simple part mechanically, his childish eyes peered out into the ring beyond. There he saw the acrobat, bedizened in paint and tinsel, with pink tights and green silk hose, a gold circlet on his head, throwing somersaults in the air, and contorting his limber body on a trapeze. He saw the dwarf, with his big red bristly head, and his tights, yellow on one side and blue on the other, making disgusting jokes. The dwarf was always applauded. The little monkeys tremblingly played their bits of tricks. The smell of sawdust, gas, orange peel and monkeys crept into the little fiddler's nostrils, he sneezed. Then he grew sleepy, and his bow stopped. "Allons donc!" wheezed the pianist, stamping his foot. Gesa opened his eyes, and met those of his mother, who sat blonde and phlegmatic at the edge of the ring. She smiled and nodded to him; he fiddled on. When the chorus singer was not hindered by rehearsals at the theatre, she never omitted a performance of the circus. Gesa imagined she came to hear him play.

But one fine day Gesa was rude to the dwarf Molaro, and paid for it with his place in the orchestra. Margaretha, however, still continued a regular visitor at the circus.

And then there came an April afternoon with cold showers of rain and violent blustering wind. Winter and spring waged war without. Gesa, who since he had ceased to have a regular occupation, read incessantly in the knight and robber romances of his mother, sat bent over the faded and tattered leaves of an old journal, completely lost in a tale of terror, both elbows planted on the shaky table and a finger in each ear. Margaretha entered, and came up to him.

"Your supper stands already prepared in the cupboard," she said, stammering and hesitating. "You--you need not wait for me. I shall come home late. Adieu, my treasure!"

"Adieu, mama," said he, indifferently. He was used to her coming home late and scarcely looked up from his reading. She went. Five minutes later she returned.

"Have you forgotten something, mother?" he asked.

"Yes," muttered his mother. She was flushed, and searched about aimlessly, now here, now there. At last she came and bent over the boy, kissed him once, twice, thrice, pressing his head to her breast. "God guard thee," she murmured, and went away. Gesa read on. Presently, he was obliged to brush away something bright that obscured the already indistinct print of the journal. It was a tear of his mother.

Gesa lay down that night as usual, when Margaretha was engaged at the theatre, without fastening the door. When he awoke next morning, he found his mother's bed empty. Frightened he cried "Mother! mother!" He knew she could not hear him; he cried out to relieve the oppression at his heart. Slipping into his clothes he ran down into the street. The gutter, brimming full from the melted snow, quivered in the morning wind. Slanting red sunbeams shimmered in the church windows. A few melancholy organ tones sounded through the grey walls out into the empty street. Gesa wept bitterly. "Mother!" he cried, louder and more pitifully than ever--"Mother!" She had always been kind to him.

He looked up and down. The whole world had grown empty for him. He understood that his mother had deserted him. The children in the Rue Ravestein understand so quickly! A long thin hand was laid on his shoulder. He looked up, beside him stood a gentleman whom he knew. The gentleman lived on the first floor of the house where Margaretha's garret was. He was pale as the Christ on the great Crucifix, and looked down almost as sadly. "Poor fellow!" he murmured, "she has left thee?" Gesa bit his teeth into his under lip, turned very red and shook off the stranger's hand. He felt for the first time that pity can humiliate. The strange gentleman, however, stroked him very softly on the head, and said once more, "Poor fellow! You must not blame her. Love is like that!"

"What is love?" asked Gesa, looking at him steadily.

The stranger cleared his throat. "A sickness, a fever," said he, hastily, "a fever in which one dreams beautiful things--and does hateful ones."

IV

M. Gaston Delileo was the stranger's name, but in the Rue Ravestein they never called him anything but "the sad gentleman,"--the "droevige Herr." He might have been between forty and fifty years old, had a yellow face that reminded one of a carving in old ivory, wore a full beard, and long straight black hair parted in the middle of his forehead. Except in the hottest summer weather he never went on the street otherwise than wrapped in an old dark blue, red-lined Carbonari cloak.

About seven months before, he had moved into the Rue Ravestein, stroked the children's heads, greeted the women in passing, was generally liked and associated with no one.

Before Margaretha's flight she had secretly placed a letter in the otherwise empty letter-box before his door, begging that he would adopt the boy, thereby showing some shrewd knowledge of character in trusting to his benevolence. His wife was dead: his only child, a little daughter, at that time hardly seven years old, was being brought up by relatives in France, as his bachelor housekeeping would have made it difficult for him to give the child proper care. Thus widowed and solitary, afflicted moreover with a great heart that needed love, and had never all his life long been satisfied, he took the boy to himself without any overnice reasoning upon the subject.

"Come to breakfast," he said quite simply, took the orphan by the hand and led him into his own dwelling.

When the meal was over, and while M. Delileo, with that rage for systematizing which often distinguishes especially unpractical people, was bending over his writing table, making out a plan of education, a division of hours, and finally a long list of things which Gesa might possibly need within the next ten years, the boy slipped curiously around in the little room, and examined its arrangement. The furniture was a decayed mixture of stiff, military Empire, and pretentious, crooked Louis-Philippe. On the walls hung a few sketches by once celebrated masters, with dedications "à mon chère ami, etc.," a few poet's autographs in little black frames, and besides these the rapidly executed portrait of a very beautiful woman, in a white satin dress with a great many strings of pearls around her neck, and a little crown on her head. "Is that the queen?" asked Gesa of his new protector.

Whereupon the "droevige Herr," rising up from his occupation, answered, not without a certain solemnity, "That, my child, that was the Gualtieri!"

"Ah!" said Gesa, and was exactly as wise as before. How indeed was he to know that the Gualtieri in her time had been one of the most famous, and alas! one of the most infamous artistes in the world?

"She was a queen too,--a queen of song," added Delileo after a pause.

"And did you know her?" asked Gesa, still absorbed in staring at the romantically costumed lady.

"She was my wife," answered Delileo with emphasis, and an eloquent gesture.

"Ah! then she must have loved you very much," observed Gesa, seriously, wishing to say something pleasant. But Delileo shrank and turned away his head.

Beneath this portrait, day after day, on a shabby black marble-top table, stood fresh flowers in a crumbling blue delft pitcher.

V

Immediately upon the beginning of their life together, Delileo made a correct estimate of his protégé's musical gifts, and thanks to some artist connections that still remained to him, he procured instruction for Gesa from one of the most famous violinists at that time established in the Brussels Conservatory. He cared for the rest of Gesa's education himself. A curious education, truly! "Correct spelling and an extensive knowledge of literature," he would assert, "are two absolute necessities of a gentleman's culture, further than that he needs nothing." Gesa's orthography, in spite of his instructor's praiseworthy efforts, remained somewhat uncertain, his knowledge of literature on the contrary made astonishing progress, and soon reached from the "Essais de Montaigne," Delileo's first hobby, to Delileo's own romance--his second hobby.

This romance, which was called "The Twilight of the Gods," and had been waiting ten years in vain for a publisher, formed a striking counterpart to Delileo's Carbonari cloak. Like that romantic article of apparel it smelled of mould, and the breath of superannuated philanthropic theories hovered about it. It began with a legend and ended with an ode. Many an evening the elder spent in reading this nondescript production to his protégé, Gesa always attending with the devout fervor which believing natures bring to mysteries they do not understand.

An odd couple they made, the broken man with his nervous restlessness, the restlessness of one who has accomplished nothing, and who sees the grave before him--and the vigorous young fellow, with his healthy laziness, the self-confident laziness of one who feels a great talent within him and to whom life seems as if it could never end. The weary spirit of one strayed constantly back, from the hopeless insipidity of his present, to an Utopia of the year thirty: the other's imagination, meanwhile, crippled by no sort of experience, galloped confidently out into the future, behind a double team of fresh young chimeras! Enthusiasts were they both,--Delileo the more unpractical of the two.

Poor Gaston Delileo! He belonged in the category of universal geniuses; for which reason he had brought his genius to the attainment of absolutely nothing in the universe! Music, painting, literature, political economy,--he had pursued them all, one after the other or simultaneously, just as it happened, and all with the greatest zeal. He had believed with devout idealism in the capacity of society for improvement. He had adopted the theories of St. Simon, and had worn with enthusiasm the vest laced up behind of that brotherhood, and a headband on which his name was embroidered. History relates that the St. Simonian Brotherhood, with their practical division of labor, limited his activity in the beginning to the contribution of money and the brushing of boots! Later they enrolled him the memorable "Three hundred," who set forth to seek the mother of the sect in foreign lands, after Madame de Stael had declined that post of honor.

His money was gone, his illusion had changed to disgust. He had withdrawn in melancholy from the world, seeking to hide himself and his disappointment. He wished nothing but to forget and be forgotten:--that is in the present; from the future, a far-off, misty future, he still hoped something--for his romance. Meanwhile he supported existence by copying notes,--like Rousseau. Two, three years passed by, Gesa became as handsome as a youth in a picture. At Delileo's side he could not fail to gain cultivation of mind and heart, but associated with the eccentric St. Simonian he remained a stranger to all discipline of character. More and more there was revealed a want of concentration, and a vague dreaminess in his nature which to a practiced observer, would have boded no good for his future. He could never maintain a medium between relaxed indolence and exhausting ardor: in tough, persistent capacity for work he failed altogether, and whatever did not come to him by inspiration, he acquired with greater difficulty than did the most commonplace pupil of the conservatory.

Upon all this, however, his violin-professor made no reflections. Gesa not only played his instrument with a skill unheard of for his years, but he also improvised with wonderful originality, at least, so said the professor--who marked nothing but the gigantic strides of the boy's progress, was proud of his pupil and presented him to one amateur after another.

The phlegmatic Brusselers were enchanted by his musical extravagances, because he was named Gesa, had a handsome brunette face, and was said to have sprung from Hungarian origin. Their enthusiasm at his performance always culminated in the same words--"how gipsy-like! Comme c'est tsigane!"

At last came a day when Gesa was to play for the first time at a public concert. With the colossal conceit of youth, he rejoiced at the thought of his debut The apprehensive Gaston Delileo on the contrary, lost appetite and sleep.

Anxiously anticipating a disappointment for the boy, he spent most of his time in exhorting Gesa not to care much for a fiasco; an exhortation which the young musician took very impatiently, and ran away from it. With his hat dragged down self-assertingly over his ears, he stamped fuming up and down the Rue Ravestein, while the sad elder crept back and forth in his chamber above, and foreboded.

On the concert evening, Delileo could not be moved to enter the music hall. Breathless and panting, he stood before the performer's entrance, and held his fingers in his ears. Suddenly, in spite of his efforts to exclude every sound, he heard a strange tumult. He let his hands fall. Was it a fire alarm? No, it was clapping from hundreds of hands and shouting from hundreds of throats. The next moment he had burst sobbing into the green-room, and held his nurseling in his arms.

All the other performers pressed the young fellow's hands, praised him, and promised him a brilliant future. With that naïve arrogance which one so easily pardons in young gods, even while it provokes a pitying smile, he received all these compliments as if they were his proper tribute; but even his unabashed self-possession gave way when the door opened and an elegant young man entered holding out both hands--Alphonse de Sterny.

"My dear young friend," he cried, "I could not let the evening pass without knowing you--without congratulating you." Then the young violinist's head sank, he trembled from head to foot, and his hands grew ice cold in those of the great virtuoso.

VI

Alphonse de Sterny! The name in those days exercised an enchantment that was mingled with awe upon the ears of every one, be he artist or amateur, who cared for music. In our coldly critical times we can form no idea of the insane idolatry that was addressed, during the decade of the fifties to one or two piano virtuosos. De Sterny was among the most famous of these. The Sterny craze appeared like an epidemic in every town where he gave his concerts. At the same time the riddle of his power was hard to solve. His envious contemporaries asserted bluntly that he owed his triumphs not so much to the artistic excellence of his playing as to his agreeable person and gracious manners. He was the perfection of a homme à succès. Gloved and cravated with just precision enough for elegance, sufficiently careless to appear distinguished, ready and malicious enough to pass for witty, dissipated and extravagant enough to be credited with genius, he was also very handsome, wore his hair parted low in the middle of his forehead, and always dressed with quiet correctness in the latest fashion but one, as became a person of the best gentility, avoiding all artist eccentricities. His conversation was amusing, his manners unimpeachable. He was the natural son of a French diplomat, called himself de Sterny after his birthplace, and had inherited an income of twenty-five thousand francs, as the world knew; from an Italian princess--as the world did not know. His piano playing was beautifully finished, a shower of pearls, a chain of flowers, with a masterly balanced technique, carried out in a dignified execution, never one false note, never any vulgar pounding.

Certainly the great Hungarian pianist, to whose performance a handful of false notes belonged as part of the effect, was wont to remark bitingly that "de Sterny played like a countess." But de Sterny, to whom the speech was brought by kind friends, only smiled amiably, and continued, at least in the beginning of his career, to delicately caress an instrument which the other pianists maltreated, and electrified a public satiated with musical orgies, by his moderation. He moved almost exclusively in the best social circles, yet he always showed himself ready to do a service for a fellow artist.

Altogether he was, when Gesa first became acquainted with him, a perfectly shallow, perfectly selfish, uncommonly talented, very good-humored, very vain man who loved to hear himself talked about. Charlatan he only became later, in order to maintain himself upon the pedestal whither public adulation had driven him. The pedestal was too high! Many another might have found himself growing dizzy up there.

He loved to patronize, and for that reason did not content himself with pressing Gesa's hands, but gave him his address, and invited him to call upon him next morning at the Hotel de Flandres, "so that we can talk over your future," said he, cheeringly. Then he was very amiable to the other artists assembled in the green-room, then he held out his hand to Delileo, over whose cheeks the tears were running down, then he clapped the debutant on the shoulder, wished him "good luck!" and disappeared.

At the little artist supper, which the manager had arranged for the performers, Gesa sat, ate not a mouthful, and spoke not a word. With pale cheeks and fixed eyes he gazed before him into the future,--a future in which the trees bore golden leaves, and their fruit sparkled like diamonds--a future in which dust and mold were unknown things, where forms of radiant beauty wandered among thickets of thornless roses, and the laurel trees bowed before him.

In those days Gesa von Zuylen's eyes were not contracted like the eyes of a wild beast that shuns the light; they were wide open, like a young eagle's whom the sun itself does not blind.

VII

No one could take up a gifted but obscure beginner more cordially than did the great de Sterny the little Von Zuylen. He invited the boy to breakfast, two, three times in succession, and Gesa became a familiar part of the furniture, perhaps rather a favorite ornament in the virtuoso's elegant hotel apartments. He was always obliged to bring his violin, and to improvise for de Sterny, who accompanied him on the piano, with the ready skill in following another's feeling, which was his peculiar gift. Then he would draw Gesa into conversation and laugh immoderately at the boy's original notions. Soon he could not meet an acquaintance without crying out to him, "Have you seen my little Gipsy? I must make you acquainted with my Gipsy. He improvises like Chopin, only quite otherwise. Yesterday he quoted Shakespeare to me, and to-day he discovered that Marsala is not so good as Tokay. And he is handsome,--'à croquer.'"

In Brussels society the rumor of an "Eighth Wonder of the World" began to spread, and at last the Princess L---- arranged a musical soirée for his benefit, on which occasion truly the "eighth wonder" came very near losing his prestige altogether. De Sterny took charge with amiable pedantry, of all the details of his protégé's appearance, had him measured for a pair of patent leather shoes, and on the eventful evening tied the boy's white cravat with his own hands, and brought him in his own carriage to the L---- palace. But already in the brilliant vestibule, adorned with old weapons, and two mysterious black suits of armor, Gesa's robust self-conceit vanished completely. He who had faced the public at a concert with a lion's courage now clung with almost childish anxiety to de Sterny.

"Have you brought the 'eighth wonder'?" cried the princess to de Sterny, as he entered. She was a blonde lady, uncommonly good-natured, very lively, and very short-sighted, for which reason she always held her glass to her eyes. "Have you brought the 'eighth wonder'?" cried she, in a tone as if that were something comic.

"Of course--here it is,--it is named Gesa von Zuylen--Gesa von Zuylen, c'est droll--is it not, princess? May I beg that you will deal a little carefully with my 'eighth wonder'--it is a little sensitive!"

"So--really! That is charming. I am glad when a young artist displays a certain pride, it is always becoming. What eyes he has,"--staring at Gesa through her glass--"my husband told me about his eyes. A real true gipsy.--They say he quoted Shakespeare of late--I laughed so at that!"-- Then, as other guests entered, "pray, endeavor to make the 'eighth wonder' comfortable, de Sterny, you are entirely at home here." This was the princess's manner of dealing carefully with a sensitive "eighth wonder."

De Sterny placed the boy temporarily in a corner, out of which he soon drew him forth to be presented to several ladies and gentlemen. Gesa assumed a haughty bearing. The ladies especially were very friendly, and very patronizing, only it scarcely occurred to one of them to address a word to the boy himself. They all talked about him, in his presence, as if he were a picture, or as if he could not understand French. They wondered, and praised and then forgot him while he stood before them, and talked among themselves of other things. It grew more and more uncomfortable for him, and as his embarrassment increased he felt as if he were walking painfully upon smooth thin ice. He shivered a little. Everything around him was so bright and cold. The soft, fine, flute-like voices of good society hurt him. Light and stinging as snowflakes, their words flew against his burning cheeks. He would have liked to weep. He was an "eighth world-wonder"--they stared at him through a lorgnette, discussed him,--and cared for him no further. Listening he heard the words "comes from the Rue Ravestein."--"What is that, the Rue Ravestein?" "What is it? That is difficult to explain to a lady,"--"vraiment?" "But he gives a perfectly amazing impression of good breeding." "Il n'a pas du tout e' air peuple!" "But since he is a gipsy,"--Gesa felt his throat tighten.

"Shall we not hear you to-day?" asked the ladies who crowded around de Sterny.

"Me?" he replied, with a laugh, "me? I am only manager to-day--and besides I suffer horribly from stage fright."

The moment had come! Gesa must play: his heart beat to suffocation. It was not he, but a stolid clod stiffened with bashfulness who stood up and laid his fingers on the strings. In the middle of Mendelssohn's G minor Concerto he stuck fast, stumbled over himself, picked up, and scrambled painfully through to the end. The composition was never worse played. De Sterny was beside himself. Gesa would have liked to sink through the floor.

A few people applauded because they did not know any better, and a few others because they had not been listening at all. But the greater part shrugged their shoulders, and said "de Sterny is an enthusiast."

And when the virtuoso tried to say a word in excuse for his protégé and declared he had never heard him play so ill, they answered "Bah! we don't blame you for anything, de Sterny. We know you are an enthusiast."

The company chatted and laughed, and nibbled a little refreshment in their careless fashion. Then came a deputation of the handsomest women and begged de Sterny to play, whereupon he seated himself at the piano with his usual good-humored readiness, and smiling consciousness of success. After he had played he went to Gesa and said:

"My dear boy, collect yourself! Could you not forget that any one heard you but me, and improvise something? Try to remember the theme you last played to me. Your future depends upon it. And I would so like to be proud of you!"

These last words worked a miracle.

"I will play--only--only--that I may not shame you!" murmured Gesa.

The boy was deathly pale, and trembled all over as he raised his violin, his eyes lighted up--and then hid themselves behind their dark lashes.

A rain of fire fell before his vision, a whirl of emotion filled his breast, wild passionate melodies sounded in his ears. Had he dreamed them, or had a complaining autumn storm driven them hither from the land of his father? Were they echoes of the songs his mother had listened to from her lover, and later had hushed her child to sleep with them, as she rocked him on the threshold of the house in the shabby little street, where the sad Saviour looked hopelessly down from the Crucifix on the grey church wall? Who knows! His violin sang and sobbed as only a Hungarian gipsy-violin can; harsh modulations, piercing melodies, a mad tempest of passion,--then one last burst of wild, reckless hilarity--and he broke off, breathless, and gazing fixedly before him. He knew he had done his best. His ears listened greedily. If they expected a storm of applause as at his public debut, they were disappointed. Only a little hum, like the dry leaves that an east wind is rustling, buzzed through the room, and as if afar off he heard the words "Charmant, magnifique, original, tsigane"--His head sank, a black cloud floated before his eyes. De Sterny came up and clapped him on the shoulder. "Bravo! Bravo!" he cried, "we are rehabilitated!" and turning to the company with a triumphant smile,

"Now did I exaggerate?"

But Gesa listened no longer for the answer of the salon. He pressed de Sterny's hand to his hot lips, and burst into tears. The virtuoso was his heaven, his God. "Mais voyons! grand enfant!" said his patron soothingly. And the "world" was enchanted, even more of course by the generosity of the great pianist than by the talent of his protégé!

* * * * *

"What is a chimera?" asked the little Gipsy of his great friend one day.

It was in the forenoon. Gesa had been turning over the leaves of a French book which he did not understand, "Les Fleurs du Mal," by Baudelaire. De Sterny meanwhile had been writing letters. He wore a yellow dressing gown of Japanese silk, in which he looked like a large mullein. He yawned and stretched himself, looked pale and used up. That he had not slept regularly for fifteen years was very evident from his appearance.

"What is a chimera?" asked Gesa.

"A chimera--a chimera--it is a siren with wings," defined the virtuoso, turning round.

"H'm!" Gesa lowered his eyes thoughtfully, then raised them inquiringly. "An ennobled siren then?"

"Yes,--as one takes it."

De Sterny sat down by the chimney to warm his feet. "Deuced cold!--hand me the chartreuse, so--Yes, a refined siren if you like," he continued. "The siren has soft human arms with which she draws us into destructive pleasures, the chimera has claws with which she tears our heart. The siren entices us into the mire, the chimera lures us toward heaven,--only we don't reach the heaven, and we often find ourselves very well off in the mire,--deucedly well off! But saperment! you don't understand that yet." And he pulled Gesa's ear.

The boy looked rather confused: he certainly had not understood a word of his patron's tirade. "But some of us reach heaven, the heaven of Art, the Walhalla, the Pantheon," cried he, eagerly, with the bombast of a very young person who has read more than he has understood, and likes to display his little knowledge--"If only one sets out early enough on the way."

"Oh yes, a few!" murmured the virtuoso with a queer smile.

"Michael Angelo, Raphael, Beethoven," cried the boy.

"Shakespeare, Milton, Mozart, Leonardo da Vinci," de Sterny laughed aloud as he continued the litany. "But I assure you a man must have quite astounding powers to reach that heaven, and lungs constructed expressly for the purpose in order to feel comfortable after he gets there." The pianist yawned slightly. He belonged among those who amuse themselves with the sirens without permitting them to acquire too much power, and who avoid chimeras on principle. But Gesa was not yet satisfied.

"Have all chimeras wings?" he asked, thoughtfully.

"God forbid!" cried de Sterny.

"But"--

"My dear," cried his patron, laughingly, "if you have any more questions to ask, say so, and I will ring for the waiter to bring up an encyclopœdia--I am at the end of my Latin!"

VIII

Eleven years later, in the middle of May, Gesa came back to Brussels after a long absence. Alphonse de Sterny had known how to make practical use of the enthusiasm in Brussels society. Gesa had been sent on a government pension and supported, moreover, by the favor of several eminent persons, to study under one of the most famous violinists of the time, then settled in Paris.

He had studied a little, dissipated a great deal, then studied again; had been much admired, much envied; had learned to empty his champagne glass, and to distinguish in women between a coquette and one who will repel an impertinence. He had made his first professional tour, with a famous Italian staccato singer, and a still more famous Moravian impressario, had earned many laurels, had finally quarreled at Nice with the violincellist of the troupe on the singer's account, had challenged the cellist, and insulted the manager. The latter was a reasonable being, however, who did not stand on trifles of that sort, and two months later in Paris, when he was engaging a company for his American tour he made Gesa a brilliant offer. But the young violinist was rich in the possession of a few thousand francs that remained to him from his last enterprise, and he curtly declined the great Marinsky's proposal, saying "the career of a soloist bored him, he wished to devote himself to composition." He was twenty-four years old. At that age many musicians have produced their greatest works. He had published nothing as yet, except a "Reverie" that appeared nearly seven years before, with a handsome vignette of the young composer on the title page, in all the pomp of a dilettante production, was bought by the whole Faubourg St. Germaine, and by hardly any one else. Since that time he had scribbled a great deal, but had finished nothing,--and yet he felt so rich! He had only not willed it as yet. He needed quiet for composing. But quiet in Paris is an article of luxury that none but very great gentlemen can compel. Brussels rose in his memory, Brussels with her Gothic churches and crooked streets, her zealous Catholicism, her luxuriant vegetation and stagnant life. A sort of homesickness overcame him,--he started for Brussels.

It was the middle of May; May is beautiful in Brussels. No long war, only gay skirmishes between sun and rain clear the air. Undulating golden vapors weave a dreamy halo, like the atmosphere of old legends, over the perspective of ancient streets that lose themselves in the far distance; they shimmer like luminous shadows around the Gothic lace work of St. Gudule, and spread their blonde veil over the green pomp of the park. There is something quite mysterious in this hazy light, this mist of dissolved sunbeams, this metallic vibrating and shimmering that illumines sober, grey old Brussels in the springtime, like a saint's nimbus. The statues in the park have lost their winter cowls of straw; through the trees, whose feathery foliage gives out a pleasant pungent spring odor, glide the sunbeams, outline the edge of a gnarled black bough with a streak of silver, paint broad spots of light on a mighty bole, slip gaily into the moist grass and play hide-and-seek among the transparent leaf-shadows. Around the house of the Prince of Orange luxuriant blooming lilac bushes toss their white and pale purple plumes; before the Koenigsgarten dreamily waves a sea of violet rhododendrons; and heavy with fragrance, warmly enervating, a scarcely perceptible breath of wind stirs the air, the Sirocco of the North.

Gesa went with vigorous strides from the Gare du Midi, across the Boulevard, to the Rue Ravestein. Everything interested him, everything seemed like home. He stood still, looked about him, smiled, went a little further, and again stood still, in his foolish absent fashion. Now he turned off from the Montagne de la Cour--before his eyes stretched the Rue Ravestein. A strange nameless feeling overcame him, a feeling of agitation and anxiety. He could have turned and fled, yet he drew nearer and nearer. Soft golden haze wove itself over everything. The strange little alley, with its architecture of the Middle Ages, and its crucifix leaning against the black church wall, looked like an old picture painted on a gold background.

"Is Monsieur Delileo at home?" asked Gesa at the door of the well-known dwelling. The unaccustomed Flemish words fell haltingly from his lips. The maid, who was busied (unexampled waste of time!) in cleaning the threshold, looked up at him somewhat astonished, and nodded. His heart beat as he entered the vestibule, and hastily cleared the old wooden stairs that groaned under the storming of his impatient young feet. He knocked at the door but received no answer, and he entered the chamber, which still contained the old green carpet. It was much cleaner than when he and Delileo had lived there together; even a little coquettish in its arrangement. A strange narcotic, dreamy odor streamed to meet him. Under the portrait of the Gualtieri, in the crumbling delft pitcher, stood a large bouquet of tempting iris-hued poppies,--those bewitching, beautiful, enormous flowers that are known by the name of "pavots de Nice."

The door of this first room was open; on the outer wall of the farther chamber was a glass enclosed balcony. There at a little round table, opposite one another, sat Delileo--and his daughter! Gesa started, and looked at the maiden dumb with admiration. Nowhere except in Italy had he seen features with at once such regular and such peculiarly rounded lines. The girl's little head rested upon a pair of strong classic shoulders, her colorless face was lighted by a pair of mysterious, dark eyes, and scarlet lips. Delileo's daughter, notwithstanding she scarcely counted seventeen years, had nothing of the angular grace that belongs to Northern maidens: her whole being breathed an enchanting, luxuriant ripeness.

While Gesa stood there, lost in this unexpected vision, Delileo looked up, winked as if dazzled, stretched out his head, the young musician smiled and stepped forward.

"Gesa! Thou!" and in the next moment the "droevige Herr" held his foster son in his arms. The two shed some pleasant tears, then Delileo pushed the young man away from him, the better to see him, then he embraced him again. "And will you stay with us for a little while?" he asked, and his voice trembled.

"As long as you will let me, father," replied Gesa. "I want to work in quiet near you; that is, I know that here is no place for me, but I will lodge in your neighborhood. But"--he looked around at the young girl, "make me acquainted with my sister!"

"Ah! right! Well, Annette, this is Gesa von Zuylen, of whom I have so often told you. Tell him he is welcome, and you, Gesa, give her a kiss, as a brother should!"

The evening meal was over, the long grey May twilight had extinguished all the golden shimmer. Only one slender red ray fell from a street lamp along the alley, and a second glistened in the colored glass of the church window.

Gesa sat comfortably leaning back in the softest armchair the establishment afforded, and explained to the attentive Gaston his numerous plans for composition.

Annette was silent: her large eyes shone in the twilight.

Gesa talked and talked and the "droevige Herr" only interrupted him from time to time to cry "cela sera superbe!"

Rhythmically scanned, mystically blended, the far-off sounds of the city penetrated to the Rue Ravestein like a monotonous slumber song. The dreamy relaxing smell of the poppies grew stronger with the incoming night, and from time to time there was the rustle of a leaf that detached itself and fell dying onto the cold marble of the gueridon.

IX

The poppies lay in the gutter and many other fresh and gracious flowers had withered under the portrait of the Gualtieri. May had become June, and June July. Every evening Gesa explained his projects to his foster-father, played one and another melody on his violin, or sketched the whole of an ensemble movement for him on the old spinet, received Gaston's assurance "cela cera superbe!" improvised a great deal, listened dreamily to the singing and ringing in his soul, and--accomplished nothing. He had lodged himself in a neighboring attic, at a washerwoman's, but spent the whole day in the home of Delileo, now made still more attractive by the gracious presence of Annette.

The "droewige Herr" had found a regular situation, probably for his daughter's sake. He busied himself as secretary of the theatre and also as feuilletonist of a newspaper. This procured him steady employment. His housekeeping now bore the stamp, not of limited means, but of slovenly comfort, the comfort of the Rue Ravestein.

Gesa felt at home in this disorder. He always found a comfortable sofa on whose arms he could rest his hands while he talked about the future, and in whose cushions he could lean back his head while he searched for the outlines of impending fortune among the smoke-clouds from his cigarette; and he always found a bottle of good Bordeaux on the table when he seated himself at dinner.

He loved the long idling meal times, which lifted from him the necessity of doing anything, and furnished such a plausible excuse for his beloved laziness: he loved to sit and dally with his coffee, while Annette sat opposite and occasionally sipped a little out of his cup. He loved to rummage among the notes of old composers whom no one had ever heard of and to rush through the works of half-forgotten poets. When a verse pleased him, then his eyes glowed, and he would thunder forth the most colossal adjectives, and read the lines two, three, yes twenty times to the little Annette. He might just as well have read to the Flemish servant outside, only she would not, perhaps, have smiled so prettily. Then he would seize note paper and set the verse to music, try his hasty composition on the old spinet, that gave back the stormy melodies of his foaming, effervescing youth in a broken, trembling little voice, like a grandmother on the edge of the grave who sings a love song for the last time. Then Annette must try the verse. She had a splendid contralto voice, and spared no pains to give him pleasure with her singing. But he was never contented. "More expression Annette, more passion!" he would cry. "Do you feel nothing then, absolutely nothing here!" and he tapped her on the heart with his finger. She smiled, colored, and turned her face away.

* * * * *

Gaston Delileo had resolved to look upon Annette and Gesa as sister and brother; that cut short all other thoughts, and was very comfortable. He would not notice how much Annette was occupied with her "brother," to what flattering little attentions she accustomed him, with what an expression her large dark eyes sometimes rested upon him. He only noticed that in the beginning Gesa's bearing was perfectly cool, cordial and brotherly. Toward the end of July the latter began to neglect Rue Ravestein a little, and entangled himself in some sort of relation with a Paris actress who, playing an engagement at the Galerie St. Hubert, found herself bored in Brussels. Annette was consumed by jealousy without Gesa's guessing the cause of her disquiet.

"What ails you, Bichette?" he asked, anxiously, stroking her thin cheek with a caressing hand. "What makes you sad? It is this pestilential city air that does not agree with you. Send her to the seashore for a while, father!" The old man shrugged his shoulders--

"Alas!" he murmured. "I have not the means."

"The means! the means!" cried Gesa, "then permit me to advance them. I have lived so long on your generosity!" Gesa forgot how much his little attentions to Mlle. Irma had cost! When he hurried over to his apartment to get a couple of bank notes, he found in his pocketbook just one solitary twenty-franc piece. At first he rubbed his head and stared, then he burst out laughing, and carried his used up purse across to Delileo, "There, laugh at me and my big promises," he cried. "Here, see, this is my whole wealth! But wait, only wait! My hands and my head are full of gold. If only once the right feeling for work would come--the real fever! Do you happen to know where I have laid the libretto for my opera?"

Toward the end of August, Mlle. Irma left Brussels, Gesa became morose, and the mood was favorable to industry.

One morning he felt "the fever." He spread some music paper before him, smoothed it with his hand, cut a pen, planted his elbows on the one shaky table his attic contained, wrote a line, struck it out, stretched himself, and twisted himself--a feeling of physical unrest tormented him. He resolved to go out for a little, and wandered into the park, where he stood still from time to time as if listening to an inward voice, jostling absently against passers-by, and at last sat down upon a bench, thinking deeply. Suddenly a gust of wind passed, lightly at first, then howling loudly through the tree tops overhead. Gesa started, pressed his hands to his temples, a flood of music streamed through his soul. He hurried back to his attic, and wrote and wrote.

The hour at which he was accustomed to find himself at lunch with Annette,--Delileo seldom came home for this meal,--was long past, the late supper time had come--Gesa still bent over his music paper. Single leaves lay strewn around him on the floor. Some one knocked at the door--he did not hear. Delileo entered. "What are you doing, my boy, that one sees nothing of you to-day. Are you sick?"

Gesa stared at him as if awakened from a strange dream. "No," he answered, simply, "I am working."

He was very pale and his hands trembled. Delileo insisted that he must interrupt his work at least long enough to take some nourishment. Gesa followed him unwillingly. He sat at table, ate nothing, did not speak, but gazed steadily at one spot like a ghost seer. After supper he wandered up and down the sitting-room, humming disconnected melodies to himself, clutched from time to time at the keys of the old spinet, threw out with short lips a single tone in which some sort of grand finale seemed to culminate, lashed about him urging on an imaginary orchestra, stamped suddenly on the floor and cried "Bravo!"

Delileo, who had had plenty to do, in his day, with poets and composers, let him quietly alone; treating him with the forbearance which is accorded to the unhappy, the weak-minded, and geniuses. But Annette could not understand this strange behavior, and at last she broke out in a gay laugh.

Strange to say Gesa took this childishness very ill, and left the chamber with a hastily muttered "good-night."

Until the grey of morning he was working at his opera.

Several days went by, days during which Gesa neither ate nor slept, looked excited and irritable, yet at the same time enjoyed an indescribable painful happiness, a condition of supreme exaltation. In vain Delileo warned him, "Don't overwork, one can strain the creative faculty as well as the voice, be moderate!" Gesa only shook his handsome head and smiled to himself with eyes half shut. Perhaps he had not heard a word his foster-father had been saying.

And then, suddenly, when, shouting an exultant Eureka to himself, he finished the finale of the fifth act,--the third and fourth were not even begun yet,--his inspiration failed. Pegasus threw him, as an overworked and maltreated Pegasus will,--threw him from the Spheres of Light down into the regions of Earthly Misery.

Painful headaches, and fathomless melancholy tormented him, his own performance seemed suddenly repulsive to him: where at first he had only seen the beauties of his work, he now recognized nothing but its deficiencies, compared it with the works of other masters, ground his teeth, and beat his brow. He condemned his own composition unmercifully, as overstrained and absurdly romantic. He could only endure the coldest, dryest musical fare. A Nocturne of Chopin threw him into a nervous excitement. He practiced the "Chaconne" by Bach incessantly. He looked like one who was convalescing from a severe illness. With neglected dress and dragging step he lounged about aimlessly, or brooded by the hour, all in a heap, head on hand, in the darkest corner of the green sitting-room. Once after he had been trying a new composition, in careless fashion on his violin, he put the instrument away with nervous haste, threw himself into the great leather armchair that was regarded as his by all the family, bit restlessly at his nails a moment, and then suddenly broke into convulsive sobbing. Then came Annette shyly to him, stroked his hair pityingly, and whispered, "Poor Gesa, does it hurt so to be a Genius?" He drew her onto his knee, kissed her often and ardently on hair, eyes, mouth, and when half glad, half frightened, she drew away, he allowed her to slip from his arms, but took both her hands and said softly, looking up at her with true-hearted eyes, "Annette, my good little Annette, can you endure me? Will you be my wife? Not now, but when I am become a great artist. Perhaps I may yet, for your sake."

She blushed, and stammered, "What can you want of such a foolish girl as I am?"

"But if she just happens to please me," he jested, much moved.

She bent her young head over his hand and kissed it, then she nestled down on a stool at his feet. When Gaston came home he found them thus, and gave his blessing upon the betrothal.

X

Gesa's affection for his betrothed grew ever day more tender, and more devoted. Her behavior toward him changed, in that she laid aside something of her bashfulness, and adopted a tone of teasing perversity.

Since it was no longer possible to regard his children as brother and sister, Gaston resolved to beg that Gesa would limit his intercourse with Annette to evening visits, and a daily walk. O those daily walks! Annette liked the frequented streets, and loved to stand before the show windows of the shops where finery was kept, while she asked her lover if he would give her this or that pretty thing if he were a great artist. Her fancies, as yet, were not very expensive, and seldom rose above a dainty ribbon or a coquettish pair of bronze slippers. He smiled at her questions and usually sent her the desired object next morning, accompanied by a pretty, cordial, unpretending little note. A few lessons which he was giving enabled him to indulge in this lover-like extravagance.

Unlike Annette, he had a disinclination for frequented streets, and strolled more willingly with her in the park, at this time quite desolate, and deserted of human kind. Dreaming and forgetful of all the world, he walked beside her under the trees that sighed in the November wind. Here and there the paths were broken by large puddles, and when no one was looking he lifted the maiden lightly over. Annette did not care for a little splashing, and leaned all the more heavily on her lover's arm. Sometimes, when he went along quite too dumb and absent at her side, she gave his arm a little pinch to arouse him, and cried "Wake up, tell me something." Then he would look down at her with wet, happy eyes and murmur, "I love you." He was beyond all bounds in love, and beyond all measure tiresome. But he composed at this time very industriously although more collectedly, and with less exaltation. He had postponed the completion of his opera for the present, and had nearly finished instead a dramatic work, in oratorio form, founded on Dante's Inferno.

XI

"Annette!" cried Gesa, one evening in the end of November, bursting breathless into the green sitting-room. "Annette! Father!"

"What is it, my boy?" asked Delileo.

"De Sterny has written to me. He is coming next week to Brussels."

"Oh!" said Annette, irritated and disappointed, "I certainly thought you had drawn the great lottery prize or had come to astonish us with an engagement at five thousand francs a month."

"Why! Annette!" cried Gesa.

"No wonder that you rejoice," said the tender and sympathetic Delileo, and seeing that Gesa kept his great tragic eyes fixed on Annette's face, with an expression of reproachful surprise, he added soothingly, "You must not take her indifference to heart, she does not know what 'de Sterny' is."

So Gesa spent that evening in explaining to his betrothed bride what de Sterny had been to him for the last ten years, and what the virtuoso's name meant to his grateful heart.

XII

She had understood--the virtuoso's nimbus had become quite visible to her. Gesa need fear no longer that she would not know how to value his great friend sufficiently. How could it be otherwise? His name was to be encountered everywhere. All the newest bon-bons, patent leathers, pocket handkerchiefs were named after him, and the children played at "Concert and Virtuoso," just as in the earliest youth of our century they had played "Consul and Battle of Marengo." Annette was taking singing lessons now. Another little luxury that Gesa had provided for her, and at her singing teacher's house the girls whom she met there talked of nothing but de Sterny. The uncle of one pupil was conductor at the "Monnaie" de Sterny had called upon him, and had forgotten his gloves on going away. The said pupil brought those gloves to the next singing lesson; they were cut in pieces and divided among Signor Martini's feminine pupils. Years afterward, more than one of these gushers wore a bit of leather round her neck, sewed up in a little silk bag!

At this time de Sterny had reached the zenith of his fame. His last tour through Russia had resembled a triumph. In Odessa they had received him with the discharge of cannon, in Moscow a procession had gone to meet him, huzzahing students had unhitched the horses from his coach and the fairest women had showered down flowers from the windows upon his illustrious head, as the cortege passed through the principal streets; in Petersburg a grand duchess had insisted upon his lodging in her palace; sable furs, laurel wreaths, diamond rings, casks of caviare, and a golden samovar, had all been humbly laid at his feet by Russian enthusiasm. All this Gesa related to his beloved. What he failed to tell her was that the greatest ladies had contended for de Sterny's favor, and that a princess cruelly scorned by him had shot herself at one of his concerts while he was playing! But these things she learned from the girls in the singing class. They interested her much more than de Sterny's other triumphs.

Of course Gesa went to meet the virtuoso at the station. But as half Brussels besides were assembled at the "gare du nord," for the same purpose, de Sterny could only dismiss his protégé with a cordial pressure of the hand, and an invitation to visit him next morning at the Hotel de Flandres.

When Gesa entered at the appointed hour, he found de Sterny sitting at his desk, with his head on one hand and a pen in the other: a sheet of music paper, covered with notes, and full of corrections, lay before him. In his nervous, precise, mechanically polite bearing, that uncomfortable something betrayed itself, which a man contracts from constant association with his superiors. One remarked in him that he had accustomed himself, so to speak, to sleep with open eyes, like hares,--and courtiers.

"Well, how are you? I am truly rejoiced to see you," he cried to Gesa, "it makes me downright young to look in your eyes. I was much astonished to hear of your prolonged stay in Brussels. What the devil are you going to do here? I thought you were with Manager Marinski, on the other side of the world long ago."

"My engagement was broken off--that is I have no desire to bind myself," said Gesa, blushing a little.

"So--here--and meantime you are knocking around"--de Sterny treated the young musician in his old cordial, patronizing manner. "Sapristi! You look splendidly, too well for a young artist. Look me in the face. And what are you really doing? Plans? Eh?"

"O, I am very industrious, I give lessons."

"Oh! lessons! You--lessons! Nom d'un chien! I should think it would have been more amusing to dig for gold in America with Marinski. Lessons! And so few pretty women learn the violin! Well, and besides lessons, how do you busy yourself?"

"I compose. You seem also"--

"Certainly, certainly," replied de Sterny, pushing the music paper into his portfolio. "But how can a man compose in such a life as I lead? Bah! I have had enough of squandering my existence in railroad cars and concert halls! Oh for four weeks rest, beefsteak and potatoes, country air, flowers and one friend!"

Some one knocked, the virtuoso's servant entered. "I am not at home!" cried de Sterny.

"But it is Count S----"

"I am not at home. Animal! to any one--do you hear!"

The valet vanished.

"You see how it is," grumbled de Sterny, "before another quarter strikes ten persons will have been announced. It is a stale life, always to play the same fool's tricks, always to be applauded for them...."

"Do you perhaps desire to be hissed by way of variety?" laughed Gesa. At this quite innocent repartee the virtuoso changed color a little, and glanced suspiciously first at Gesa and then at the portfolio where he had hidden his composition. But the young violinist's eyes convinced him that no harm was intended. If de Sterny ever had a believing disciple it was Gesa Van Zuylen.

"It is really a shame," earnestly observed the young musician after a while, "that you allow yourself so little time for composition. I have never heard anything of yours but transcriptions--perhaps you will sometime trust me with your more serious work."

De Sterny's brows met. "Hm!" growled he--"I can't show the things around. They might take wings. It spoils their eclat if one confides them to all sorts of people before they are published." The blood mounted in Gesa's cheek.

"All sorts of people," he repeated.

But de Sterny burst out laughing and cried, "Still so sensitive! I did not mean it in that way. We know you are an exceptional being. Sacre bleu! I am the last who would deny it! As soon as I have completed an important work I will lay it before you. But that"--with a glance at the writing desk, "that is nothing, just nothing--the sketch of some ballet music. Princess L----, you remember her, surely, has asked for it. Already at Vienna she wrote me about it--you understand. I couldn't put it off. C'est assomant. A Countess-ballet!

"And now be so good as to ring, that they may bring in the breakfast. During the meal you shall confide to me what it really is that holds you fast chained in Brussels, for that you remain solely in order to find leisure for composition I don't believe!"

Over the breakfast Gesa confided his great secret to his friend.

De Sterny started up. "So that is it. Well you could not have contrived anything more stupid for yourself!" cried he. "I suspected something, some long drawn out liaison, from which I should have to extricate you. But a betrothal! Oh, yes! What are you thinking of? To marry and become a paterfamilias at your age! It is ruin! It is the grave! The grave of your genius mind, not of your body, that will flourish in the atmosphere of sleek morality. You'll grow fat. You'll celebrate a christening every year. You'll run from one street to another with your trousers turned up and a music book under one arm, giving lessons. And your ambition will culminate in obtaining the post of first violin in some orchestra, or perhaps if it soars very high in becoming conductor of the same. Sapristi! You need the whip of the manager over your back, and not the feather bolster of family life under your head! What is more this bolster which you are stuffing for yourself will contain few feathers. But that is all one to you. You only need a pretext for laziness, and would go to sleep on a potato sack!"

"You speak like a heretic, like a regular atheist in love," cried Gesa, who had not outgrown his passion for large words. "Who told you I was going to be married the day after to-morrow? I shall not receive her hand until I have secured a position."

"Ah--so! Well--that is some comfort. But who is she? One of your pupils? The blonde daughter of a square-built burgher?"

"She is the daughter of my foster-father."

"O--h! The Gualtieri's daughter. And her you will marry? Marry?"

"You cannot possibly imagine how charming she is," murmured Gesa.

"That the Gualtieri's daughter is charming I can easily imagine," said the virtuoso, and there came suddenly into his eyes an expression of dreamy passion to which they were quite unaccustomed, "but that a man would want to marry the Gualtieri's daughter, I cannot understand. Perhaps you do not know who the Gualtieri was."

Gesa bit his lip.

"She made my foster-father happy."

"So--hm! Made him happy! He was mad as we all were. To have been permitted to black her shoes would have made him happy. I know the history of Delileo's marriage. It is a legend which they still relate in artist circles, only they have got the names wrong. I know the right names because ... Delileo interests me for your sake, and--and--because the Gualtieri ... was my first love!"

Gesa shrank back. "Your first love!" he repeated, breathlessly.

The virtuoso passed his hand over his forehead and smiled bitterly. "Yes! I became acquainted with her in the salon of the d'Agoult. I looked like a girl myself then, was scarcely eighteen years old, and in love! Oh! in love! She laughed at me--I fretted myself with vain desire, she would never notice me. I cannot hear her name now after twenty years without feeling as I did then. Heavens! How beautiful she was! Form, smile, tresses! Dark hair with auburn lights in neck and temples--as if powdered with gold dust. Withal a certain grand carriage...."

The virtuoso ceased and gazed musingly into vacancy. The remembrance of the Gualtieri was a sore spot in his heart. Gesa looked, deeply moved, into the changed countenance of his friend.

"How could such a woman consent to marry Delileo?"

"How? Yes--how? She had lost her voice, her lovers, her health. She was thirty-eight years old. He was of a good family, and still possessed the remains of a handsome fortune, of which he had already squandered the greater part in philanthropic enterprises. He spoiled and pampered her as if she were a princess, and she ... she ran away from him one year and a half after the birth of her child, your bride,--with an obscure Polish adventurer. Delileo discovered her afterward in the greatest misery, dying of consumption, in a garret; he took her home and nursed her till she died. Poor devil! He had united himself to her against the will of his family, and the counsel of his friends, he was at the end of his money--so he buried himself in the Rue Ravestein. His lot is hard; but--at least he lived a year and a half at her side!"

Alphonse de Sterny ceased, and looked down, brooding.

Gesa laid a hand on his arm.

"The memory of this woman lives so powerfully in you still, and yet you marvel that I want her daughter for my wife--her daughter, who inherits all the mother's charm, without her sinfulness?"

De Sterny smiled, no pleasant smile. "How old is she then--sixteen or seventeen, if I reckon rightly is she not?"

Gesa nodded.

"Ah! So! And you will judge already of her temperament?" He drummed a march on the table. Gesa colored. "De Sterny!" he cried after a pause. "Much as I love you I will not bear to hear you speak in that way. Do me a favor and learn to know the little one--then judge yourself. Come sometime in the evening and drink tea with us, unless you are afraid of the Rue Ravestein!"

"When you will, big child! to-morrow, day after!--You always keep early hours there. I can come before I have to go into society!"

A few minutes later Gesa took leave. De Sterny accompanied him to the door of the apartment, and called gaily after him, over the banisters. "The day after to-morrow then, about eight! I am curious to see your Capua!"--

XIII

Great excitement reigned in Rue Ravestein No. 10. An odor of freshly baked tea cakes pervaded the stairs and halls. Annette with constantly changing color settled the furniture, now in this place, now in that, trying to hide its deficiencies, her beautiful eyes rested on the green carpet, and she murmured faint-heartedly--"how will it look to him here?" Gesa only smiled, kissed her on the forehead, gave her a confident little pat on the cheek, and said, "He comes to make your acquaintance, my treasure, not to criticize our dwelling."

Even more excited than his daughter was the old Delileo. He had exhumed from a worm-eaten chest an ancient frock with a mighty collar in the ponderous taste of the citizen-king, and attired in this garment, and smelling strongly of camphor, he wandered restlessly from one little chamber to another, dusting off a picture frame with his pocket handkerchief, casting a half-shamed glance into the dull mirror, and pulling with trembling fingers at his imposing silk neck kerchief, which with his beautifully embroidered but rather yellow cambric shirt, had been young under the umbrella-sceptre of Louis Philippe.

Gesa joked at the agitation of his little family, but nevertheless felt it to be perfectly justifiable, in anticipation of the great event.

At eight o'clock every heart beat; five minutes after eight Delileo remarked "perhaps he won't come"; at a quarter past Annette turned a surprised look on her lover, and said, "but he promised you positively, Gesa!" at half past eight a stir was heard on the floor below. "It is an excuse from de Sterny," said Delileo, going to meet disappointment, as was his custom.

"Shall I find Monsieur Delileo here?" a very cultivated voice was heard asking, on the stairs. Gesa rushed out. The old journalist passed a thumb and fore finger over his cheeks--to give himself an unembarrassed air, Annette disappeared.

A few seconds later the door opened, and into the shabby green salon there came an aristocratic-looking blonde man, who was a little embarrassed by the fact that he had not been able to lay aside his fur coat in the hall. This did not last a moment, however. Scarcely had Gesa relieved him of the heavy garment than he held out his hand cordially to the master of the house, whom Gesa formally presented, and said "we are old acquaintances!" and when the "droewige Herr" would have set aside this compliment with a deprecating wave of the hand, de Sterny continued, "You perhaps may not remember the love-sick dreamer whom you met in old times at the Countess d'Agoult's. But I have not forgotten your sympathizing kindness. It did me good. We had then, as I believe, the same trouble--only"--with a glance at the Gualtieri's picture which his quick searching eye had already discovered--"later you were happier than I!"

Then verily tears filled the eyes of the "droewigen Herrn," and he pressed the virtuoso's hand.

"Well?" de Sterny glanced merrily at Gesa, "I was promised something more than a meeting with old friends,--a new acquaintance?"

Gesa looked around. "Oh, the little goose, she has hidden." He hurried into the next room--they heard his tender reassuring "vollons fillette, don't be a child!"

On Gesa's arm, timid, abashed, pale from excitement, deep feverish red on her lips, she came toward the virtuoso, and laid her little ice-cold fingers in his offered hand.

As if bewitched he stared at the young girl, then collecting himself, he kissed her soft child-hand, chivalrously and said, "You must pardon me this, Fräulein, I am a very old friend of your betrothed, and was once an obscure, but intense admirer of your mother." Then turning to Delileo, he added "the resemblance is perfectly startling--it is a resurrection!"

No one could be more amiable than de Sterny was in the Rue Ravestein, and moreover his amiability cost him not the slightest effort. Like other grand gentlemen he took pleasure in making small excursions into spheres where it would have been frightful for him if he had been obliged to live.

Toward old Delileo he adopted a tone of modest deference, toward Gesa, as always heretofore, one of half boon-companion, half paternal banter. He drank two cups of tea, boasted of his hunger, and praised the dainty tea cakes.

Delileo poured out reminiscences which dated as far back as his frock, and were just as much in accordance with modern taste. Silent and pale the Gualtieri's daughter sat before the guest. She did not raise her eyes to him once, yet no detail of his appearance escaped her. As he expected that evening to return from the Rue Ravestein into the world, he wore evening dress which became him well. His white cravat, his open waistcoat and carefully arranged hair, were for her a revelation.

He addressed her repeatedly, but she only answered in monosyllables.

"Is not mademoiselle musical?" he asked, turning from these laborious attempts at conversation to Delileo.

"Yes, she sings a little!"

"Has her voice any resemblance to--to"--de Sterny stopped short.

"Say, will you sing something for us, Bijou?" whispered Gesa to the girl, "we will not urge you, but if...."

"You would give me such great pleasure!" said de Sterny.

Making no answer, with a heavy movement, as if walking in sleep, the young girl rose, went to the spinet, and laid a sheet of music on the desk. It was the fine old romance of Martini--"plaisir d'Amour." The virtuoso instantly offered to accompany her. She nodded shyly. Softly and sadly through the shabby green chamber sounded the immortal love song, a song which the united efforts of all the female pupils in the Conservatories of Europe have not succeeded in killing.

Plaisir d'amour ne dure qu'un instant,
Chagrin d 'amour dure tonte la vie!--

She held her hands, as she had been taught, lightly laid in one another, but the delicate head, contrary to regulation, was inclined toward the right shoulder--as if it had suddenly grown heavy. Her voice sounded hollow and mournful; it trembled as if with suppressed sobs.

"She is afraid of you," said Gesa, who had come up to her side, "I don't know in the least what ails her. Usually she does not want courage. Pauvre petite chat"--and he stroked her hair gently.

The virtuoso's brow fell, as if it hurt him to witness these innocent caresses. He turned to Delileo.

"It is the same voice, absolutely the same voice! A wonderful likeness! Now, mademoiselle, you will grant me just one more trifle, will you not?"

Gesa brought out from a pile of music a written sheet, and laid it on the rack. "Just do this, Annette," he urged, taking up his violin. "The song is for voice and violin," he said--"Please give me an A, de Sterny." De Sterny struck the note.

It was the "Nessun maggior dolore" from his own music to Dante's Inferno, which Gesa had laid on the music desk. A strange composition, in which the human voice swelled from soft half audible revery to bitter despairing utterance of pain, while the violin gave out a melody of penetrating sweetness, like the torturing memory of long vanished joy. Gesa's cheeks were burning as he finished the performance of this his favorite composition. De Sterny let his hands glide from the keyboard, and fixed the violinist with a sharp look, "That is yours?" he asked.

Gesa nodded.

"Then let yourself be embraced on the spot. It is simply superb!"

It was toward eleven o'clock before de Sterny remembered that duty called him back into "the world." Gesa had shown him several more of his own compositions, and in everything the virtuoso had taken the liveliest interest.

Gesa accompanied his friend from the Rue Ravestein into the region of civilization. De Sterny was absent and silent. "Well, what do you say?" urged his disciple, pressingly.

"You will have very great success."

"In what--in my marriage?" laughed Gesa.

"Ah your marriage!" The virtuoso started--"yes, your marriage. Well--she is the most enchanting creature I have met since her mother. What a voice--she could become a Malibran."

"And?"--

They were standing now at the Place Royale. "Dieu merci--there comes a carriage--I despaired of finding one," cried de Sterny. "Adieu,--bring me the whole of your 'Inferno' to-morrow,--auf Wiedersehen!"

With this he sprang into the fiacre which had stopped at a sign from him, and rolled away.

In the Rue Ravestein that evening there was a great deal to talk about. Old Delileo, whose cheeks glowed as if he had been drinking champagne, was very loquacious. Gesa confided to Annette word for word, de Sterny's flattering judgment upon her, but she showed herself nervous and irritable like a child too early waked from sleep. She complained that she had sung badly. She who had always so kindly indulged the garrulity of her poor old father, scarcely listened to him, even made impatient little grimaces, and said his way of walking up and down put her beside herself. When the old man sat down with a hurt air, then she broke into tears and begged his forgiveness.

Gesa drew her onto his knees, dried her tears, and quieted her with playful caresses. "She lives too isolated; the least thing excites her, father?" said he, stroking her cheek. "We must find some amusement for her."

The "droewige Herr," looked down gloomily.

About three o'clock de Sterny mounted the stairs of his hotel. He had been honored and flattered exactly as much as ever, but he felt out of spirits.

"Every street urchin knows my name now, and the crossing sweepers show each other the celebrated de Sterny when I pass. But when I die, what will remain of me! Nothing but a few wretched piano pieces, which they will laugh at after my death."

The songs of the violinist rang in his ears. He shivered. He thought of the beautiful girl, and passed his hand across his forehead.

"Hm!--the danger of a quiet family life does not threaten him from that quarter. She sleeps as yet; but she has inherited all the passionateness of her mother and all the nervousness of her father. How beautiful she is! How beautiful!"

XIV

It was about this time that de Sterny began to be restlessly ambitious. His playing changed. He began to take on affectations. He began to pound. This enraptured the masses; the critics pronounced it "a magnificent development," and he himself was disgusted.

An icy crust covered the gutter in the Rue Ravestein, long icicles hung from the arms of the great crucifix, and on the windows of the little green salon the frost painted his chilly flowers; but Annette's hands were always hot now, and her lips burning red. Her walk had grown slow and careless, her movements dreamy and gliding. Her eyes gazed into the distance. Instead of teasing wilfulness, or childlike winningness, she met her lover with apathetic compliance, sometimes with repellent irritation. Then would come hours when she hung upon him passionately, begged him with tears not to be angry with her, and seemed as though she could not show him love and tenderness enough.

He did not ponder very deeply over her strange contradictory nature, but simply forgave her, as a sick child.

One evening, when he and his foster-father were involved in one of their endless talks about music and literature, Annette, who had sat meanwhile, reserved and silent, leaning back in a corner of the stiff horse-hair sofa, suddenly raised her head and listened. Some one knocked at the door: neither Gesa nor Delileo paid any attention.

"Entrez," cried Annette, breathlessly. The door opened. "Do I disturb you?"--said an amiable voice, and Alphonso de Sterny entered.

Several days later, Gesa, returning from his lessons to the Rue Ravestein, remarked, "Strange, Annette, it smells of amber,--has de Sterny been here?"

"He brought us tickets for his next concert," she replied without looking at her lover.

* * * * *

"Dear Friend:--I have something to say to you--come to me to-morrow, if possible.

"Sterny."

Gesa found this note one evening in his apartment. Next morning, when he dutifully presented himself at the Hotel de Flandres, de Sterny received him with the question--"Would you like to earn a great deal of money?"

"How can you doubt it! You know how pressingly I need money. Can it be an opportunity offers for disposing of my 'Inferno,'" cried Gesa.

"Not yet--but something else offers. I received a telegram yesterday. Winansky has broken an arm--Marinski, in consequence, needs a violinist of the first rank and offers ten thousand francs a month and expenses. Would that suit you?" Gesa's head sank. "How long must I remain away?" he murmured.