Part 10

“Nonsense, man. You are yielding to your fancy, like a child who, because he feels oppressed in the dark, conjures up ghosts and goblins, and can not be persuaded that there are none about, till you light the gas and show him that the room is empty. Come, light the gas of your common sense! Recognize that your problem has no solution, none because it is not a true problem, but merely a fortuitous arrangement of circumstances which chances to bear a superficial resemblance to one. Reduce your quasi problem to its simplest terms: thus, given x and y and z, to find the value of b. Don’t you see that there’s no connection?”

“Oh, of course, I acknowledge that I can’t see any connection. That’s just the trouble. I feel that there must be a connection—one that I can’t see. If I could only see it, it wouldn’t be so bad. But this perplexity, this——”

“This fiddle-stick! You are resolved to distress yourself, and I suppose it’s useless for me to labor with you. Only this much I will say, that if you should bestow a little of the energy you are expending in the effort to catch hold of a non-existent inference, upon sympathy with your father’s unhappiness, I should have more respect for you. They talk about suffering ennobling and chastening men, forsooth! So far as you are concerned, suffering has done nothing but intensify your natural egotism. For instance, after reading that letter of your father’s, the first idea that strikes you is, ‘How does it affect me, how am I concerned by it?’ whereas the spectacle of your father s immense grief ought to have absorbed you to the exclusion of every thing else, ought to have left no room in your mind for any other thought.”

But for all Merivale could say by way either of appeal or of reprimand, I was powerless to subdue that feeling which had begun to stir in my breast. I recognized that I was unreasonable and selfish, but I was also helpless. I could not get over the shock I had sustained when Pathzuol’s name first took shape before my eyes. Every time I remembered that moment—and it kept recurring to me in spite of myself—my heart sank and my breath became spasmodic, as if I had been confronted by a ghost. And then ensued that sensation of groping in the dark after something invisible, unknown, yet surely there, hovering within arm’s reach, but as elusive as a will-o’-the-wisp. I struggled with this sensation, tried my utmost to shake it off, but it sat like a monster on my heart. Its weight was deadly, its touch was icy; it would not be dislodged.

“It is true, all that you say, Merivale,” I returned at length. “But the question is not one of what I ought to do; it is one of what I can do. I know I ought to regard this matter in the same collected spirit that you display; but it concerns me so intimately, you see, that I can’t resist being somewhat perturbed. My wits, so to speak, have been scattered by an unexpected blow. I shan’t be able to emulate your sang-froid until they have got back to their proper places. I’m so heated and upset that I don’t really know what I think or what I feel. I guess perhaps I’d better go for a walk and cool off, and arrive at an understanding with myself.”

“The very worst thing you could possibly do—go away by yourself and brood and get more and more morbid every minute. What you want is to think of something else for a while, and then when you come back to this subject you’ll be in a condition to regard it in its correct light. Let’s—let’s play a game of cribbage, or read some Rossetti; or suppose you fiddle a little?”

“No, I feel the need of air and exercise. I’ll go out and take a walk. I sha’n’. brood, I’ll reflect on the sensible things you’ve said. Good-by.”

I walked briskly through the streets, striving to collect my faculties, striving to regain sufficient mental tranquillity to comprehend exactly what the long and short of the whole business was. But the feeling that there was something more in it than I could make out, intensified. It would not be dispelled. The oftener I went over the circumstances, the more significant they seemed.—Significant of what? Precisely the question that I could not answer. The longer I allowed my mind to dwell upon them, the more acute became that sensation of wrestling with a problem, of groping for a something suspended near to me in the dark. My father had destined me to be a murderer; the name of my intended victim was Pathzuol; I had been engaged to a young lady of the same name, very possibly the daughter of my father’s foe; she had indeed been murdered, though not by my hand; and yet I, despite my innocence, had been deemed guilty of the crime: this chain of facts kept passing over and over before me. I felt that it must mean something; it could not be purely fortuitous; there was a break, a missing link, which, if I could but supply it, would make the hidden meaning clear. I walked the streets all night, unable to fix my thoughts on any thing else. I said, “You are merely wearing yourself out and getting your brains into a tangle: try to divert your attention. Count up to a thousand. See how much you can remember of the Moonlight Sonata. Conjugate a Hebrew verb. Do what you will, only stop puzzling over this matter. As Merivale says, when you have thought of something else for a while, you will be in a condition to return to it with refreshed intelligence, and view it in the right light.” But the next moment I was at it again, in greater perplexity than ever. Of course, I succeeded in working myself up to a high degree of nervousness: was as exhausted and as exasperated as though I had spent an hour in futile attempts to thread a needle.

But now it began to get light. The stillness of the night was broken, my solitude was disturbed.

Hosts of sparrows began to congregate upon the window sills, and their busy twittering filled the air. First one steam-whistle blew in the distance, then another nearer by, then another, and finally a chorus of them: bells began to ring, wagons rattled over the pavement, the shrill whoo-hoop of the milk-man resounded through the streets. The clatter of footsteps became audible upon the sidewalk.

People began to walk abroad. The sky turned from black to gray, from gray to blue. Shutters were banged, doors slammed, windows thrown open: housemaids with brooms and buckets appeared upon the stoops. Dawn had arrived from across the Ocean with the smell of the sea-breeze still clinging to her skirts. The city was waking to its feverish multifarious life.—And the result was that I forgot myself—was penetrated and exalted by that vague tremulous exhilaration which always accompanies the first breath of morning. I expanded my lungs and inhaled the fresh air and felt a glow of warmth and animation shoot through my limbs.

“Ah,” I cried, “a truce to the blue devils! I will go home and take up my regular life again, just as though this interruption had not occurred.”

I hurried back to our lodgings. Merivale was already up and dressed, smoking a cigarette over the newspaper.

“Hail!” I exclaimed. “I am glad to see you out of bed so early!”

“I have not been abed since you left,” he answered.

“Why not? What have you been doing?”

“Thinking about you—about what can be done to make a man of you.”

“Oh, you needn’t worry about that. I’m all right now. I sha’n’. play the fool again, I promise you. I propose that we sink the last four-and-twenty hours into eternal oblivion. What do you say?”

“Nothing would more delight me.”

“Good! Let’s begin at the first cause. Where’s the manuscript? We’ll set fire to it, and agree to believe that it never really existed.”

“No,” said Merivale, “I wouldn’t set fire to it—at least not till it is manifest whether your present mood is merely a reaction from your late one, or whether it is going to last. I will dispose of the manuscript—see.”

He found it on the table, opened the double cover of the box, restored the papers to the place they had occupied formerly, and locked the box up in the closet of his writing-desk.

“There,” he said, “that’s the best thing to do. I’ll take care of it. Some day you may have a little sympathy to waste on your father, and then you’ll be glad this writing was not destroyed.”

We had breakfast, and after the cups and saucers were cleared away, applied ourselves to our ordinary forenoon occupation. It turned out indeed that my good spirits were, as Merivale had suspected, to some extent reactionary: but they left me sober rather than sad. I was absent-minded and committed numberless blunders while my friend dictated his poems: but I did not let my thoughts settle down again upon the matters that had engaged them during the night. They simply wandered about in a random way from one indifferent topic to another, as it is the habit of thoughts to do when the thinker has not had his customary allotment of sleep. Presently Merivale suspended his dictation, and I waited passively for him to resume, supposing that he had reached a point where reflection was necessary to further progress. His silence continued. Pretty soon my eyelids dropped like leaden curtains over my eyes, and my chin sank upon my breast. I was actually nodding. I started up and pinched myself, ashamed of appearing drowsy.

Lo! I perceived that my friend had met with the same mishap. He too was nodding in his chair. For a moment we eyed each other sheepishly, each endeavoring to feign wide wakefulness. Then Merivale rose and stretched himself and laughed.

“For my part I cast off the mask,” he cried. “I am sleepy and I am going to bed. You’d better follow suit.”

I needed no urging. We retired to our dormitory, and as speedily as was practicable one of us at least fell into an unfathomable slumber.

XIII.

I DON’. know how many hours afterward I awoke. Gradually, as consciousness asserted itself, I realized that somebody was playing a violin in the adjacent room: and at length it struck me that it must be Merivale practicing. I pricked up my ears and hearkened. Oh, yes; he was running over his part of the last new composition we had studied. The clock-like tick-tack of his metronome marked the rhythm. I lay still and listened till he had repeated the same phrase some twenty times. Finally I got up and crossed the threshold that divided us.

Merivale kept on playing for a minute or two, unaware of my intrusion. Not till it behooved him to turn the page did he lift his eyes. Then, encountering my night-robed figure,they lighted up with merriment. Their owner lowered his instrument, remained silent for a moment, in the end gave vent to an uproarious peal of laughter.

“What are you laughing at?” I stammered.

When he had got his hilarity somewhat under control he replied: “At you. Come and gaze upon yourself.” And conducting me to a mirror he said, pointing, “There, isn’t that a funny sight?”

I looked sleepy, that was all. My hair was awry, and my eyes were heavy, and my costume was a trifle wrinkled. Still, I suppose, my general appearance was sufficiently ludicrous. Be that as it may, I could not help joining in Merivale’s laughter: and, thus put into good humor at the outset, I cheerfully complied with his request to hasten through my toilet and “come and fiddle with him.”

“Let’s start here,” he said, opening the book.

We read for a while in concert. As usual my arm seemed to swing of its separate will, I myself becoming all but comatose. By and by I perceived that Merivale had discontinued and was seated at one side with his instrument upon his knees. Then I perceived that I was no longer following the book. I closed my eyes and listened. As usual I heard the voice of my violin very much as though some other person had been the performer.

I found that I was playing a lot of bits from memory. I heard the light, quick tread of a gavotte which I had learned as a boy and meantime almost forgotten; I heard snatches from the chants the Chazzan sings in the synagogue; I heard the Flower Song from Faust mixing itself up with a recitative from Lohengrin. Then I heard the passionate wail of Chopin become predominant: the exquisite melody of the Berceuse, motives from Les Polonaises, and at length the impromptu in C-sharp minor—that to which I have alluded in the early part of this narrative, as descriptive of Veronika. Following it, came the songs that Veronika herself had been most prone to sing, Bizet, Pergolese, Schumann, morsels of German folk liede, old French romances. And ever and anon that phrase from the impromptu kept recurring. Every thing else seemed to lead up to it. It terminated a brilliant passage by Liszt. It cropped out in the middle of a theme from the Meistersinger. And with its every new recurrence, the picture of Veronika which it pre sented to my imagination grew more life-like and palpable, until ere long it was almost as though I saw her standing near me in substantial objective form. As I have said, I scarcely realized that it was I who played. Except for the sensation along my wrist as the bow bit the catgut, I believe I should have quite forgotten it. But now abruptly, without the least volition upon my part, my arm acquired a fresh vigor. The voice of my violin increased in volume. The character of the music underwent a change. From a medley of fragments it turned to a coherent, continuous whole. Note succeeded note in natural and inevitable sequence. I tried to recognize the composition. I could not. It was quite unfamiliar to me. Odd, because of course at some time I must have practiced it again and again. Otherwise how had I been able to play it now? It flowed from the strings without hitch or hesitancy. Yet my best efforts to place it were ineffectual. Doubly odd, because it was no ordinary composition. It had a striking individuality of its own.

It began with laughter-provoking scherzo, as dainty as the pattering of April rain-drops, as riotous as the frolicking of children let loose from school; which, by degrees tempering to a quieter allegro, presently modulated into the minor, and necessarily, therefore, became plaintive and sentimental. For a while bar succeeded bar, fitful and undetermined, as if groping blindly for a climax. Next, a quick, fluttering crescendo, and an exultant major chord. This completed the first movement. The second began pianissimo upon the A and E strings, an allegretto full of placid contentment; again, a minor modulation; again, blind groping for a climax, this time more strenuous than before, tinged by a passion, impelled by an insatiable desire; adagio on G and D, still minor; then a swift return to major, a leap of the bow and fingers back to A and E, and on these latter strings a rhapsody expressive of the utmost possible human joy. Third movement andante, sober but still joyous; the music, which hitherto had been restless and destitute of an apparent aim, seemed to have caught a purpose, to have gained substance and confidence in itself.

It proceeded in this wise for several periods, when sharply, without the faintest warning, it broke into a discordant shriek of laughter, the laughter of a demon whose evil designs had triumphed.

Though I had not recognized the composition, up to this point I had understood it perfectly. Its intrinsic lucidity carried the intelligence along. But henceforward I was mystified. The reason for the violent change of theme, time, and quality, I could not divine; nor could I appreciate, either, how the subsequent effects were produced or what they were meant to signify. My impression was, as I have said, that the laughter which my violin seemed to be echoing was demoniac laughter, the outburst of a Satan over his success, of a Succubus fastening upon his prey. Yet the next instant I was doubtful whether it was indeed laughter at all? Was it not perhaps the hysterical sobbing of a human being frenzied by grief? And again the next instant neither of these conceptions appeared to be the correct one. Was it not rather a chorus?—a chorus of witches?—plotting some fiendish atrocity?—chuckling over a vicious pleasantry?—now, whispering amicably together, now wrangling ferociously, now uniting in blood-curdling screams of delight? Whatever it might be, I could not penetrate its sense. I listened with deepening perplexity. I wished it would come to an end. But it did not occur to me to stop my arm and lay aside my bow. The music went on and on—until Merivale caught me by the shoulder and snatched my violin from my grasp. He was speaking.

The descent back to earth was too abrupt. It took me some time to gather myself together. “Eh—what were you saying?” I asked at last.

“I was saying, stop! Consider a fellow’s nervous system. Where in the name of Lucifer did you learn that infernal music? Whom is it by?”

“Oh,” I answered, “oh, I don’t know whom it is by.”

“It out-Berliozes Berlioz,” he added. “Is it his?”

“Perhaps. I don’t remember. I am tired. Let me rest a moment without talking.”

“Well,” he continued, “it was a terrible strain to listen to it. I am quite played out—feel as if—forgive the comparison—as if I had spent the last hour in a dentist’s chair. However, for relief’s sake, let’s go to dinner. Are you aware that we haven’t eaten any thing since early morning?”

After dinner Merivale insisted that we should take a long walk “to shake out the kinks,” and after the long walk we were tired enough to return to our pillows.

I went straight to sleep; but my sleep was troubled. As soon as Merivale had said goodnight and extinguished the gas, memory began to repeat the music I had played. I heard it throughout my sleep. Every little while I would wake up and try to banish it by fixing my attention on other matters. But it kept thrumming away in my brain despite myself. I could not silence it. Merivale’s reference to a dentist’s chair was, if inelegant, at least a graphic one. I got as hopelessly irritated as I could have done with a score of dentists simultaneously grinding at my teeth. My very arteries seemed to be beating to its rhythm.

In one fit of wakefulness, that lasted longer than its predecessors had done, I found myself unconsciously tattooing it upon the wall at my bed’s head.

“Is that you?” Merivale’s voice demanded from out of the darkness.

“Yes,” I replied. “Aren’t you asleep?”

“Mercy, no. That music you played—or rather, stray fragments of it, keep running through my brain. I haven’t been able to sleep for a long while.”

“That’s singular. It affects me the same way. I was just drumming it on the wall. I’ve been trying to get rid of it all night.”

“It has wonderful staying powers, for a fact. I’m glad you’re awake, though. Companionship in misery is sweet.”

“Yes, I also feel rather more comfortable now that you have spoken. Do you know, it’s an immense puzzle to me, that music? I can’t imagine where or when I ever learned it. And yet it is not the sort of thing one would be apt to forget. I can’t recognize the style even, can’t get a clew to the composer.”

“The style is emphatically that of Berlioz.”

“Perhaps so. But it can’t be by Berlioz, because I never learned any thing by Berlioz at all.”

“Hum!” A pause. Then, “Say, Lexow—”

“Well?”

“It isn’t possible that it’s original, is it?”

“Original? How do you mean?”

“Why, an improvisation—a little thing of your own.”

“Oh, no; oh, no, I never improvise—at least an entire composition, like that. Nobody does. It bears all the marks of careful workmanship. It must be something well-known that has temporarily slipped from my memory. It’s too striking not to be well-known. Tomorrow I’ll go through my music and find it; and I’ll wager it will turn out to be quite familiar. Only, it’s extremely odd that I can’t place it.”

“Why wait till to-morrow?”

“Why, we can’t begin to-night, can we?”

“Why not? I say, let’s begin right off. The cursed thing is keeping us awake, and there doesn’t seem to be any escape from it. We may as well utilize our wakefulness, as lie here doing nothing but toss about. I say, let’s light the gas and go to work.”

“Oh, well, I’m agreeable. The sooner the better as far as I’m concerned.”

“Good,” cried Merivale.

He sprang out of bed and lighted the gas.

“Shall Mahomet go to the mountain or shall the mountain come to Mahomet?” he inquired, blinking his eyes.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean shall we dress and adjourn to the other room? Or shall I bring your musical library in here, so that we can conduct our investigation without getting up?”

“Just as you please,” I answered.

“Well, we’ll move the mountain, then,” he said, and left the room.

He made two or three trips, back and forth, bearing an armful of music as the fruit of each. The last folios deposited on the floor, “Now, as to method,” he inquired, “how shall we start? It will occupy us till doom’s-day if we undertake to go through the whole of this. I suppose there are some composers we can eliminate à priori, eh?”

“Oh, yes; Beethoven, Mendelssohn, Wagner, Liszt, in particular, we needn’t trouble with. I’d keep an especially sharp eye out for Ruben-stein and Dvorak and Winiauski. It’s fortunate that I’ve preserved all the music I’ve ever owned. We can’t miss it if we’re only patient enough.”

“Well, here goes,” he cried, thrusting a thick pile of music into my hands, and apportioning an equal amount to himself.

We were industrious. It is needless that I should tarry with the incidents of our search. At daybreak we had not yet quite finished, and we had not yet struck any thing that bore the slightest resemblance to the composition in question.

“But little remains,” said Merivale. “In another five minutes we will have found it; or my first hypothesis was true.”

“Your first hypothesis?” I inquired.

“Yes—that it was original—a lucubration of your own.”

“Oh, that, I tell you, isn’t possible. I’m not vain enough to imagine that I could improvise in such style, thank you.”

“Well, we won’t enter into a dispute, at any rate not till our present line of investigation is exhausted. Back to the saddle!”

For a space we were silent.

“Eh bien, mon brave!” cried Merivale at length. “There goes the last of my half,” and he sent a sheet of music fluttering through the air.

“And here is the last of mine,” I responded, laying down Schumann’s Warum.

“And we are still in the dark.”

“Still in the dark.”

“It isn’t possible that we have overlooked it?”

“I’m sure I haven’t. I took pains with each separate page.”

“Likewise, I! Therefore. I congratulate you. I’ll order a laurel wreath at the florist’s, the first thing after breakfast.”

“Nonsense! How many times need I tell you that I could not by hook or crook have made it up as I went along? The mere notion is ridiculous. It must have got lost, that’s all.”

“On the contrary, the notion that you once learned it, then forgot it, then played it off without a fault from beginning to end, is trebly ridiculous. It was ridiculous of us to waste our time hunting for it, also. I am entirely convinced that it is yours. Why not? Ideas have come to other people—why not to you? Yesterday while you played, you were excited and wrought up, and the result was that you had an inspiration. By Jove, you’re lucky! It’s enough to make you famous.”

“But, Merivale, fancy the absurdities you are uttering. Do you seriously suppose anybody—even a regular composer—could take up his fiddle and reel off a complicated thing like that without once halting? Why, man, there are four or five distinct movements. You might as well pretend that a mere elocutionist could write an intricate epic poem without once pausing to make an erasure or find a rhyme, as that I, a simple instrumentalist, could have done this.”

“Well, there’s only oneway of settling the matter. We’ll refer it to an authority. You jot down a few specimen bars on paper, and I’ll submit it to your friend, Dr. Rodolph. Of course he will identify it at once, if it isn’t yours.”

“If that will satisfy you, well and good,” I assented.