The First Violin. Fothergill Jessie
weeping after my lesson; weeping with rage and disappointment at my own shortcomings.
“At last you know what it means,” said he. “I always told you your forte was dramatic singing.”
“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 sung my best with earnestness. When we had finished von Francius closed the book, looked at me, and said:
“Will you sing the ‘Eva’ music at the concert?”
“I?”
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 pleasure, 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?”
“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 teaching.”
“But Miss Hallam?”
“Leave her to me.”
I still hesitated.
“It is the premier pas qui coûte,” said he, keeping 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 unusual 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 filip 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.”
“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 soprano 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 thalers.”
“What!” I cried, my whole attitude changing to one of greedy expectation. “Shall I be paid?”
“Why, natürlich,” 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 concert, and I am responsible for the soloists; and pray think rather more about the beautiful glittering serpent than about the beautiful glittering thalers.”
“I can think about both,” was my unholy, time-serving reply.
Fifty thalers. Untold gold!
CHAPTER XII
“Prinz Eugen, der edle Ritter.”
It was the evening of the haupt-probe, 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 astonishment – 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 things. Why, I have a ticket for all the proben, as any one can have who chooses to pay two thalers at the sasse. 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 can not 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 displayed 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 Francius, 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 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 yourself 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 Courvoisier, 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 submitted 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, Friedhelm Helfen. The former was sitting as quietly as possible, 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 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.