The Brimming Cup. Dorothy Canfield Fisher
want her to play Chaminade and Moskowsky. Mr. Welles, the nice old man, might find even them above his comprehension. And as for Marsh, she thought with a resentful toss of her head that he was capable of saying off-hand, that he was really bored by all music—and conveying by his manner that it was entirely the fault of the music. Well, she would show him how she could play, at least.
She laid her hands on the keys; and across those little smarting, trivial personalities there struck the clear, assured dignity and worth of her old friend … was there ever such a friend as that rough old German who had died so long before she was born? No one could say the human race was ignoble or had never deserved to live, who knew his voice. In a moment she was herself again.
Those well-remembered opening chords, they were by this time not merely musical sounds. They had become something within her, of her own being, rich with a thousand clustered nameless associations, something that thrilled and sang and lived a full harmonious life of its own. That first pearling down-dropping arabesque of treble notes, not only her fingers played those, but every fiber in her, answering like the vibrating wood of a violin, its very cells rearranged in the pattern which the notes had so many times called into existence … by the time she had finished she had almost forgotten that she had listeners.
And when, sitting for a moment, coming back slowly from Beethoven's existence to her own, she heard no sound or stir from the porch, she had only a quiet smile of tolerant amusement. Apparently she had not guessed right as to their tastes. Or perhaps she had played them to sleep.
As for herself, she was hungry for more; she reached out her hand towards that world of high, purified beauty which miraculously was always there, with open doors of gold and ivory. …
What now? What did she know by heart? The Largo in the Chopin Sonata. That would do to come after Beethoven.
The first plunge into this did not so intimately startle and stir her as the Beethoven movement had done. It was always like that, she thought as she played, the sound of the first note, the first chord struck when one had not played for a day or so; it was having one's closed eyes unsealed to the daylight anew, an incredulous rapture. But after that, though you didn't go on quaking and bowing your head, though you were no longer surprised to find music still there, better than you could possibly remember it, though you took it for granted, how deeply and solidly and steadfastly you lived in it and on it! It made you like the child in the Wordsworth sonnet, "A beauteous evening, calm and free"; it took you in to worship quite simply and naturally at the Temple's inner shrine; and you adored none the less although you were not "breathless with adoration," like the nun; because it was a whole world given to you, not a mere pang of joy; because you could live and move and be blessedly and securely at home in it.
She finished the last note of the Largo and sat quiet for a moment. Then she knew that someone had come into the room behind her. She turned about, facing with serene, wide brows whatever might be there.
The first meeting with the eyes of the man who stood there moved her. So he too deeply and greatly loved music! His face was quite other from the hawk-like, intent, boldly imperious countenance which she had seen before. Those piercing eyes were softened and quietly shining. The arrogant lines about the mouth that could look so bitter and skeptical, were as sweet and candid as a child's.
He smiled at her, a good, grateful, peaceful smile, and nodded, as though now they understood each other with no more need for words. "Go on … go on!" was all he said, very gently and softly. He sank down in an arm-chair and leaned his head back in the relaxed pose of listening.
He looked quite and exactly what Marise was feeling.
It was with a stir of all her pulses, a pride, a glory, a new sympathy in her heart, that she turned back to the piano.
CHAPTER V
A LITTLE GIRL AND HER MOTHER
An Afternoon in the Life of Elly Crittenden, aet. 8 Years April 6.
Elly Crittenden had meant to go straight home from school as usual with the other children, Paul and Mark, and Addle and Ralph Powers. And as usual somehow she was ever so far behind them, so far that there wasn't any use trying to catch up. Paul was hurrying to go over and see that new old man next door, as usual. She might as well not try, and just give up, and get home ever so late, the way she always did. Oh well, Father wasn't at home, and Mother wouldn't scold, and it was nice to walk along just as slow as you wanted to, and feel your rubber boots squizzle into the mud. How good it did seem to have real mud, after the long winter of snow! And it was nice to hear the brooks everywhere, making that dear little noise and to see them flashing every-which-way in the sun, as they tumbled along downhill. And it was nice to smell that smell … what was that sort of smell that made you know the sugaring-off had begun? You couldn't smell the hot boiling sap all the way from the mountain-sides, but what you did smell made you think of the little bark-covered sap-houses up in the far woods, with smoke and white steam coming out from all their cracks, as though there was somebody inside magicking charms and making a great cloud to cover it, like Klingsor or the witch-ladies in the Arabian Nights. There was a piece of music Mother played, that was like that. You could almost see the white clouds begin to come streeling out between the piano-keys, and drift all around her. All but her face that always looked through.
The sun shone down so warm on her head, she thought she might take off her woolen cap. Why, yes, it was plenty warm enough. Oh, how good it felt! How good it did feel! Like somebody actually touching your hair with a warm, soft hand. And the air, that cool, cool air, all damp with the thousand little brooks, it felt just as good to be cool, when you tossed your hair and the wind could get into it. How good it did feel to be bare-headed, after all that long winter! Cool inside your hair at the roots, and warm outside where the sun pressed on it. Cool wind and warm sun, two different things that added up to make one lovely feel for a little girl. The way your hair tugged at its roots, all streaming away; every single little hair tied tight to your head at one end, and yet so wildly loose at the other; tight, strong, firm, and yet light and limber and flag-flapping … it was like being warm and cool at the same time, so different and yet the same.
And there, underneath all this fluttering and tossing and differences, there were your legs going on just as dumb and steady as ever, stodge, stodge, stodge! She looked down at them with interest and appreciation of their faithful, dutiful service, and with affection at the rubber boots. She owed those to Mother. Paul had scared her so, when he said, so stone-wally, the way Paul always spoke as if that settled everything, that none of the little girls at school wore rubber boots, and he thought Elly oughtn't to be allowed to look so queer. It made him almost ashamed of his sister, he said. But Mother had somehow … what had she said to fix it? … oh well, something or other that left her her rubber boots and yet Paul wasn't mad any more.
And what could she do without rubber boots, when she wanted to wade through a brook, like this one, and the brooks were as they were now, all running spang full to the very edge with snow-water, the way this one did? Oo … Ooh … Ooh! how queer it did feel, to be standing most up to your knees this way, with the current curling by, all cold and snaky, feeling the fast-going water making your boot-legs shake like Aunt Hetty's old cheeks when she laughed, and yet your feet as dry inside! How could they feel as cold as that, without being wet, as though they were magicked? That was a real difference, even more than the wind cool inside your hair and the sun warm on the outside; or your hair tied tight at one end and all wobbly loose at the other. But this wasn't a nice difference. It didn't add up to make a nice feeling, but a sort of queer one, and if she stood there another minute, staring down into that swirly, snatchy water, she'd fall right over into it … it seemed to be snatching at her! Oh gracious! This wasn't much better! on the squelchy dead grass of the meadow that looked like real ground